4 Tips to reviewing other people’s work
I’m in a transition phase at work. Public accounting appears to have a fairly structured progression of duties. That is, your first 2-3 years you are consumed with preparation (associate). You do the busy work, the brunt of the work. No one is below you and you don’t have much responsibility other than to learn the law.
Following your associate years you finally get to become a reviewer (a Senior). In these years you cut back dramatically on doing first prep of anything. The number of clients you have increases and you spend the majority of your time reviewing other peoples work. Makes sense: More skill, higher level of the work, and people report to you.
However, I’m not sure how simple it is going to be. This past week I reviewed my first tax return. It’s different, quite different. The information was foreign to me when I receive it. It was prepared by someone else, so I didn’t understand what the organization method of source documents, support, and etc… But in the end the hardest part was just figuring out where to start!
So in the effort of trying to learn from my first experience I decided to brain dump here on NewlyCorporate some of the takeaways I have from my first review experience. I really feel each of these points apply to any job where you may be reviewing a project that was prepared by someone else. This is definitely not comprehensive but merely a list of suprises that helped through:
1) Ask for advice- First thing I did when I received the prepared return - asked the previous senior how to work through it, any advice on reviewing that would help me complete my first task. This included where to start. Your time budget shrinks considerably when you become a reviewer. Although it is admirable to figure things out on your own, asking for help will get you moving and save valuable time.
2) Keep an open door- When you first explain the project to the associate its important to give fairly detailed and precise instructions, that’s a given. But I found the more important thing was to remain open to any and all questions. Check in frequently but don’t hover. This communication allows the preparer to really learn what you want. After all I always find the biggest culprit of disappointment is mismatched expectations.
3) Take notes on everything- Notes were vital. When reviewing something you may spend a few hours on it, return it, and then receive it back two days later. Without notes its nearly impossible to remember what you were thinking. In addition to notes, review points will help the preparer understand why you are making certain changes. That will stem any resentment they may have for your changes and help foster their learning.
4) Spot check old work- It’s important not to spend too much time going over things you already reviewed. It’s a waste of time and creates no value. However, ask anyone who works extensivly with computer software. Computers always mess up, put info in new places, changes numbers, and deletes information all by itself (wink wink). Spot checking important figures and portions of a project will prevent you from sending up inferior work with a preventable mistake.
Do you have any suggestions/advice for reviewing other peoples work? Please share!
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Tags: Advice, Review, Teamwork, Work
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Like I wrote...
June 27th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
It is very hard to review other people’s work because we all think differently and what makes sense to one doesn’t to another. However, there’s the urge to force the staff to do it one way so it’s easier to review. The flaw of that is the staff doesn’t learn from their mistakes and won’t grow.
The other point is that reviewing is and will always be a very tedious process. While we can’t catch everything, we have to develop a process for identifying high risk areas and addressing them in priority order.
Are you using paper or electronic workpapers?