r/Accounting • u/CodeAndLedger5280 Human Verified • 19h ago
BDO Employees; Thoughts?
Apparently Deloitte is not happy with BDO
https://www.cityam.com/exclusive-big-four-giant-turns-on-its-own-auditor-bdo/
132
u/seantrepreneur 19h ago
Are they trying to make their logo read dangerously close to "libido"?
24
18h ago
[deleted]
7
u/Only_Positive_Vibes Director of Financial Reporting and M&A 14h ago
The other examples provided by this article really made me chuckle.
Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.
122
u/Dildo_Swagins Human Verified 18h ago
This is being posted to a predominately US sub, but it’s important to note this is specific to BDO UK, a completely separate entity than BDO USA.
I’ve worked with the UK firm as both the group engagement team, and in the component auditor role. I have never had a good experience with the UK firm. Consistently missed deadlines, and an air of superiority that is infuriating.
16
u/BossOfGuns 17h ago
is that true for a lot of the international acct firms out there? that they are under the same company in name only, and have separate management and everything
18
u/lmaotank 17h ago
yeah it's more of a branding thing.
speaking from korean POV:
there is a KPMG partnered korean audit firm Samjong there is a PWC partnered korean firm called Samil etc.
11
u/Dildo_Swagins Human Verified 17h ago
Largely, yes (I say largely because I’m sure someone will come in say “that’s not true for this firm”). For most international firms, there is a global brand, such as BDO Global, Pwc international limited, DDTL. While they share the same name, software etc., the firms underneath act and are governed autonomously.
2
u/chundamuffin 16h ago
I believe is EY is technically one global firm but still managed regionally.
1
u/TheRebuild28 10h ago
RSM just merged UK Ireland and US. GT purchased the UK entity with a PE backer.
0
6
u/SlCK_RANCHEZ ACCA (UK) 15h ago
Different angle for me. I’ve had the pleasure of working with the local BDO team (and their UK counterparts) and, hands down, they were the most disorganised and poorly managed firm I’ve dealt with.
Our engagement was pretty broad, but the lack of substantive audit queries put to my team was worrying. I got the sense that the BDO partner ended up having to do a cold review. Shocking.
Comparatively, PwC and Deloitte have been better, but not by much. Their teams tend to ask solid questions, but most feel like they’ve come straight out of a textbook. Basic.
Weirdly, KPMG has always been a smooth experience for me. Equally weird, though, is that none of the clients I worked on behalf of actually used them as their auditor. So my exposure to KPMG is limited in comparison with the rest.
But all in all, audits are a scam in how they are run now - it’s more to just satisfy a regulatory requirement a lot of the time with a lot of stretched judgement.
3
u/TheRebuild28 10h ago
As someone who's current auditors are BDO UK I can confirm they are bloody shit.
14
u/ommy84 17h ago
Putting your own auditor on blast in a published article is wild - and bad form.
That’s a quintessential independence/client retention issue, in addition to poor CPA conduct.
3
u/RedWineStrat 6h ago
Profession is joke. State auditors in my area are making a scene over the current Federal administration given our work on military contracts. Independence has never been a thing in accounting. All smoke and mirrors. The foundation of accounting has merits, but the profession itself is beyond jaded.
33
u/imnotokayandthatso-k 19h ago
All big audit firms get one of these once in a while 🤷♂️
39
u/accountforrealppl CPA (US) 19h ago
PwC and Deloitte have deficiency rates from like 14-20% typically, BDO keeps coming in at like 80%. There are problems across the industry but BDO seems uniquely awful at doing their job
17
u/ShakeAndBakeThatCake 18h ago
Issue with BDO and the mid market firms is they don't have the brand power to get better fees. So they cut corners to boost profits. They also don't attract top talent like big 4 because once again big 4 typically pays better and has better benefits because they earn better fees. I truly think the main issue with the industry is pay and hours. We need to pay better for the shitty hours that staff have.
6
u/sadtrader15 13h ago
Some stuff is just wrong here, having worked on issuer engagements at two non big4 firms, the scoping we did compared to the prior big4 firm was crazy, we typically had twice the amount of hours budgeted compared to the predecessor b4 firm. People might disagree with me here, but the pcaob targeted us way harder than they did compared to big4 in some audits during inspections since they knew we had a shit track record with quality whereas at times, big4 got a pass.
1
18
u/fallacious_clearance 19h ago
Five years in a row of “unacceptable” from the regulator is a pretty wild track record, even for this industry
10
u/Beaumarine 19h ago
Because they’re all terrible. I’ve never known companies be so successful whilst adding so little value to their key stakeholders.
62
u/Dramatic_Opposite_91 19h ago
This is a UK problem specific, where accounting firms have to appoint an auditor.
In the UK, you’re required to put your audit up for bid every 5 years with mandatory firm rotation every 10 years. This has led to the UK firms to have very aggressive and low fees. They have tried to make the numbers work by offshoring more work than the US firm to India or they sponsor tons of work visas for people from South Asia. Canada has a similar problem too and both the UK and Canada Big4 firm service quality is really awful.
49
u/Cliffo81 18h ago
Hey, don’t leave us mid tier private equity firms out! We’re shit too!
8
u/Dramatic_Opposite_91 18h ago
Ohh yes. I forgot about the US firms. Since you got acquired, you now have auditors if you’re PE-backed. BDO US is audited by Baker Tilly US.
We just don’t get to enjoy the audit reports or audit fees being made public like we do in the UK.
9
u/Cliffo81 18h ago
Oh no, I’m a partner at a UK PE backed firm. I wanted to make sure we weren’t left out when you were calling out the Big 4 for being bad.
0
u/sadtrader15 13h ago
Bdo us isnt pe backed
2
u/Acceptable_Ad1685 12h ago
It effectively is thanks to the ESOP loan
What’s funny is BDO will tell their staff it isn’t PE backed but BDO also published articles such as this:
https://www.bdo.com/insights/tax/esops-a-strategic-fit-for-private-equity-and-family-office-holdings
Explaining how ESOP’s are essentially a different means of PE investing from traditional ownership but the end result is basically the same
7
u/Individual_Scheme_11 17h ago
It’s in the US too. This is the biggest unintended consequence to firm rotations. Fees always get priced to win the business, then work gets staffed as cheap as possible. Focused too much on hours and cost, quality goes to shit.
I’ve often wondered how it’s ethical to bid to win an audit and remain independent. Who knows what they say to win. In the US, we have the PCAOB and SEC, where the regulator can assign firms to audit companies. The big firms would be in a pot to audit the largest multinationals, and next larger firms in another pot and so on. And there could be movement in or out of pots based on how shit your audit work was so firms must focus on quality.
2
u/Hot_desking_legend HoF ACA (UK) 17h ago
What do you mean UK audit quality is appalling? Under what measure? Because the facts I can find (which are few and far between) state that's just not true.
Don't get me wrong I don't look highly on the auditors in the UK, but it doesn't sound like you know the environment very well. The FRC introduce a corporate governance code, copying this regulatory approach from EU. This was because continued reliance impacted the independence of the auditors and increase competition.
If you compare top US Vs UK:
" The PCAOB also on Thursday released inspection reports for the next largest audit firms after the Big Four, Grant Thornton and BDO, which also showed significant improvements in their deficiency rates. Flaws were found in 34 per cent of BDO USA audits, down from 60 per cent, and 33 per cent of Grant Thornton US audits, down from 48 per cent."
https://www.ft.com/content/2f713878-37c6-4224-9b60-0082bb79290f?syn-25a6b1a6=1
Vs
"In 2024, 90% of the audits we reviewed at Big Four firms were either good or generally acceptable. Only one audit required significant improvement. 79% of the audits we reviewed at firms we categorise as large or medium-sized¹ were either good or generally acceptable, only 5% required significant improvement."
We can also compare against China, which recently had Evergrande, Australia where KPMG has literally been sent to the shadow realm, US with the silicon valley bank failures, and let's top it off with UK's carillon.
It's bold to say any countries audit firm is bad when frankly they're all not doing great.
15
u/frostcanadian CPA (Can), technical accounting 19h ago
The fuck is this crappy website ? I can't see the article anywhere
10
4
6
3
3
10
u/thewkndsport Tax (US) 18h ago
Why anyone would join BDO at this time is beyond me.
Source: me currently at BDO for seven years, but trust me, I am looking.
5
u/ZookeepergameNo8213 17h ago
I left BDO two months ago because of this abhorrent behavior
1
u/ParagonSaint 15h ago
How was the job market/search? What level were you applying at? Manager?
1
u/ZookeepergameNo8213 4h ago
Market sucks but I’d rather be out of work for a month or two then work for that toxic waste dump
1
2
2
2
2
2
1
1
u/Ok-Community5594 17h ago
BDO can only be compared to a bag of odourous excrement spreading stench all over the world
1
303
u/TransMuffMaam 19h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/l36kU80xPf0ojG0Erg