Adaptability Flashcards
(6 cards)
Have you changed a process for your team previously?
- Assessment decision chart
- Auto reply team special mailbox
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Lease forecast simplification
S: A simple template for lease forecast in the next 5 years with actual figures that is forecasted out on the balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement. Calculation based on the models were based on a daiy rate for amortization in assets and every month has different days. Interest was accreted daily, which had a similar problem
T: Because the actuals were based on a daily vs. the formulas were calculating on monthly, there were very immaterial differences in each lease. It didn’t look clean or accurate
A. I cleaned up the formulas so that the actuals would calculate based on a monthly basis from the beginning, and then what the value would be at the actual date, and use that figure to calculate so that it would calculate to zero in the end.
R: It allowed the budgetting team to utilize and rely this information without any obvious errors.
Have you had to prepare something that was not something you had expected to be?
S: Had to figure out a pension presentation for a group of accountants who weren’t familiar with pension accounting. How to I summarize it on a high level basis, because we wanted to education the team of what alarming triggers would there be for accountants to look into these automatic entries from the pension advisor, Mercer for the company
T: Creating that Pension presentation
A: Went through the defined benefit assets side and defined benefit liability side on a high level basis, ensuring interest income are going to asset, interest cost are on the liability side, financial assumptiosn such as discount rate would have increasing impact or decreasing impact on the liability.
R: Team felt the refresher course was beneficial and was able to explain the variance analysis easier going forward.
Tell me about your first job in the industry. What did you do to learn the ropes?
BDO
Junior mining files, on TSXV
No revenue
But expenses, assets, liabilities
Audit procedures
Proper documentation
Communications between clients, managers and partners
Can you give me an example of when you had to adapt to a new and sudden change in the workplace? What happened?
S: Upper management were very busy working on an acqusition but no details were given or confirmed. All of the sudden the acqusition happened in January
T: Had to incorporate rough figures for subsequent events and how it will be accounted for on the minority interest accounting, which was new for the corporation
A: On top of year-end tasks, prioritize on the proper accounting for the acqusition on what needs to be done on the business combinations while getting information from the seller.
R: Busy, but luckily it happened in January, the subsequent event was detailed and descriptive, and gave us a year to properly complete the business combination accounting for the new operations.
Give me an example of when you had to suddenly perform under pressure. What happened and how did you handle it?
S: Due to the quick turnaround of our financial statements, I was expected to have enough information to work on the draft for the statment of cash flow on Friday afternoon, for it to be completed by Saturday afternoon to be ready for review. Turns out there was delay in having all the other sections ready by other teams and I didn’t have all the information ready until Friday evening.
T: The timing got a lot tighter for it to turn around, but because I did some mock cash flows weeks before with the year before’s financial info, I was able to turn it around with one pending item $10k missing in the cash flow I continiously commuicated this with my manager to see if I was missing anything by checking over my work.
A: Through continious communication, my manager remember there was a lease entry entered that was for that amount, but was booked in the incorrect account wihth the info known afterwards. All the back up I had was correct, so we booked this adjusting entry and because he was reviewing my work as I was doing it, he was able to get his review completed on time, which was Saturday evening.
R: I was able to complete the task under pressure, and with less time that I had, but because I was confident in my work, knowing there was an amount out, I was in constant communication with my manager about it and he was able to quickly dive into it to see if it had to down previous entries tha he approved but was incorrect with information we had after the fact. In this case, it was true and we were able to fix it within the timeframe we had.
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S: The company was on road shows trying to go on public, and every time there were applications for it, SEC would have comment letters and a newere version of the prospectus. The prospectus would include finacnial statements based on latest actual results with the assumptions on conditions of a closing of going public and debt instruments.
T: Even though I wasn’t scheduled on this file, but I followed on the status of the steps of this company due to the continuity experience I had on the file with two senior managers and the partner.
A: I was trailing on this file while working on other files during those three months.
R: Zymeworks going public and we helped the client on the legal filings to be trade in public.
What is the most difficult/ challenging situation you’ve ever had to resolved in the workplace?
S: When the client wouldn’t provide on interim PBC, and it was a red alarm for year-end and based on past stories I have heard, it was important to keep the communication between auditor and the client close to ensure the dates from the planning engagement was followed through.
T: I was the team lead, so had to start having daily morning calls to talk about status of deliverables.
R: There were definitely push back and had to go back and forth between their accounting team and our internal team, and emphasized what we needed and what we are looking for. The documnets were also poorly documented, so there was a lot of clarification between both teams.
R: We completed our scheduled timeline, esepcially with their growing real estate portfolio.
