Articleship Experience with EY, Deloitte & Industrial Training with Railtel Corp

Hi Friends,

I am Shaifali, a CA aspirant. Throughout my Articleship, I had the rich experience of working with EY, Deloitte & also industrial training with RailTel Corporation of India Ltd. I am glad that ProfZilla gave me this opportunity to share with you all my Articleship Experience with EY & Deloitte. For the benefit of my colleagues, I will try to cover the points which may be relevant for you to know for pursuing articleship with big4 or a large size audit firm.

1. The selection process in Big4: -

Sending Resume to the respective HR

Getting email for our details to be filled up

Sending the filled-up form via email

Having an interview by the HR person

Getting confirmation call

Having an interview with the partner

Getting Selection & Joining letter

2. Choosing the area of working for Articleship: -

Unlike mediocre firms, in big4 we cannot involve in multi-practice areas, we have to choose out of available vacancies in given fields. In Big 4 generally following are the broad areas to be chosen for Articleship: -

1. Internal Audit & Risk advisory
2. Statutory Audit
3. Indirect Tax (GST)
4. International Taxation & Transfer Pricing
5. Corporate Taxation
6. Consultancy Services
7. Secretarial & Legal Services
8. Accounting & Management Services

3. Articleship Experience with EY

After crossing all the selection steps, finally, I started my first year of Articleship with EY. Finally, the time came to choose the area of Articleship, Out of various available option, I was more interested in Statutory Audit and I discussed about its pros & cons with my friends, the bunch of advice came to me, some says Statutory Audit is boring, some says you may have to visit outstation frequently, some says it may need late sittings, some says it is most interesting area,  so after getting lot of opinions, finally I choose the area of statutory audit because I felt this is the area where directly or indirectly I can have versatile exposure to almost all the financial & legal aspects of the business though I may have to compromise in my study & coaching classes schedules.

4. Statutory Audit Experience with EY

In EY, I got the opportunity to do statutory audit both for listed & unlisted corporates. Also, I worked for both MNC & Indian businesses. I covered the following areas in detail as part of statutory audit: -

1. Audit of Revenue Items
2. Audit of Expenses
3. Structuring of direct & indirect taxes
4. Chart of accounts
5. Internal control system
6. Software integrated
7. Warehouse & Inventory management
8. Cash Flow management
1. Fixed Asset Recordkeeping & Physical verification
10. Banking system & reconciliations
11. Cash & Imprest management & physical verification of cash
50. Payroll management, TDS on salaries, employees advances & loans record keeping
1000. Audit of Creditors, customers, odd balances, open items, open purchase orders, open sales orders etc.
14. Inter & Intra unit Reconciliations
15. PF ESI etc. statutory records, its financial & legal implications
16. Testing of controls
17. Test of details & other substantive audit procedures
18. Audit of branches, associates & subsidiaries
19. Audit of Capital & Revenue bifurcation of Exp
5. Depreciation allocation & calculations etc.

5. Transfer of Articleship with Deloitte

 Though I got a bunch of experience in EY in the profile of statutory audit, to be a complete professional, I felt to have more exposure in the different areas as well like legal, taxation, consultancy etc. So, I decided to my Articleship from EY to some other firm in a different profile. Fortunately, I got the opportunity in Deloitte in the profile of “Transfer Pricing.”

So, I switched my articleship from EY to Deloitte in the offered profile of “transfer pricing.”

6. Experience in the profile of “Transfer Pricing” with Deloitte

In Deloitte, I covered the following areas as part of my learning journey: -

1. Domestic Transfer Pricing Applicability & Exemptions
2. International Transfer Pricing Applicability & Exemptions
3. Transfer Pricing Report for Fair Market Value Justification
4. Advance Pricing Agreement i.e. APA
5. Attending the hearing with Income tax officers/ Transfer Pricing Officer/ Transfer Pricing Officers

7. Industrial Training with RailTel: -

Now I was going to enter into my last year of Articleship, and I was equipped with knowledge of audit, law, tax etc. as an consultant or auditor, but now I want to face the compliances as the management, so I decided to go for Industrial Training, so I applied for few industrial training openings. Luckily, I got the opportunity to work in “Railtel Corp of India Ltd.”

RailTel is a telecommunication company providing Long-Distance Leased circuits, dedicated leased line-based Internet services, MPLS-based secured VPN services. Presently it is engaged in various prestigious projects of Govt. of India.

8. Experience during Industrial Training with RailTel: -

In RailTel, the first time I learned the internal structure of a corporate, how various departments like the sales department, purchase department, marketing department, Stores, finance & accounts, HR, Admin etc. was devised.

Out of that, I got the opportunity to understand how accounts & finance department is internally structured.

Within the Accounts & Finance Dept, there were many subdivisions like Banking Division, Finalization & Consolidation team, Payables Division, Receivables Management Team, MIS & Budgeting Team, Accounting Team, Payroll Team, Tax Team.

I was allocated to the MIS & Budgeting Team, I was directly reporting to DGM for preparation of various MIS Reports, preparing dashboards and certain other areas.

Also, I learned here the teamwork, coordination with seniors, data extraction from software etc. With the support of my team members & seniors, I manage to do my studies as well.

Now you as a reader must be wondering that was it so easy & smooth?

No not at all, It wasn’t easy but the satisfaction is that I made it easy for me to go on and on and on. Yes, I missed too many classes while I was working till morning, I too missed so many things in my personal life, I missed many birthday celebrations, new year parties but the ultimate thing that I am carrying with me is that experience which will help me & nurture me throughout my career.

 If you have any questions, you may reach out to me at singhal.shaifali@gmail.com