Audit Associate (ICAEW Training Contract)

Audit Associate (ICAEW Training Contract)

ICAEW training contract (ACA) for a part-qualified ICAEW student with first time passes to date 

Full Time, Permanent 

Home office based, working remotely 

Access to Reading and London for training courses and team meetings 

Ideally based in the Thames Valley, but not essential 

Driving licence preferred, but not essential 

Overview 

A fantastic opportunity for a part-qualified ICAEW student (Certificate Level completed and some Professional Level exams passed) to continue their training to attain the ACA qualification, while becoming a specialist in the advertising and media industry, working with some of the world’s best-known brands and their agencies. 

About Financial Progression 

Financial Progression is a small and growing boutique consultancy specialising in helping household name brands understand the extent to which their marketing services agencies (media, creative, PR, events etc.) are operating in accordance with their contracts and financial best practice. Belying our size, we are one of the most highly respected firms in our field in the world and were the first such specialist to operate as an ICAEW member firm (since 2009). 

About You 

You are a part-qualified ACA student, with first time passes, who is feeling unfulfilled by their current work environment at a traditional audit practice. You possess an enquiring yet logical mind, the ability to adapt to changing requirements, and a strong academic record (including minimum 2:1 University Degree and grade 7 / A in Maths and English at GCSE). You hold honesty and integrity as core values, and possess excellent interpersonal and listening skills. You are pro-active, resilient, confident with people, like to contribute during group discussions and actively seek to take on responsibility. Although training to be an accountant, you enjoy expressing yourself in writing, have a strong command of syntax and grammar in English and wish to learn how to write specialist audit reports. In addition, you have a strong desire to learn and be part of the advertising and media industry. 

About the Role 

As a part-qualified accountant, this is an exciting opportunity for an ambitious individual who prefers to take the road less travelled. The successful candidate will spend the remainder of their ICAEW training contract (ACA qualification) as part of team that operates more like one in industry than in a Big 4 / traditional accountancy practice. 

Reporting into our Audit Manager, our training programme will enable you to understand how agencies work from a commercial, contractual and financial perspective, equipping you to assess what is good practice and what is not, both commercially and ethically. 

In addition to your professional exam training, you will be involved in contract compliance audits for clients and accounting activities in our own business. On completion of your ICAEW training programme, you will progress to the role of Assistant Audit Manager.  

The size and nature of our business means that throughout your training contract you will be given every possible opportunity to succeed. You will be expected to take ownership of and responsibility for your own development and be pro-active in agreeing your development plan with your line manager. Your thoughts and ideas will listened to, and your business related responsibilities will increase as your training progresses. 

When you work at Financial Progression, you are never a number! We value everyone's individual personality and will encourage this to shine through within our close-knit team. We respect each other and our individual strengths and areas of expertise. 

Responsibilities 

• Continue to strive to pass professional exams first time 

• Learn about how the advertising and media industry works 

• Liaise with advertising and media agencies to gather data                 

• Perform data cleansing and transformation to enable audit analysis 

• Analyse the data and present findings to the lead auditor 

• Conduct detailed audit testing 

• Document your work in accordance with our quality assurance standards 

• Write the section of the audit report relevant to the work you have conducted 

• Support Audit Managers and Directors in client (advertiser) presentations and deliverables 

• Take the initiative – if you see something that could work better, we expect you to present your ideas and, once approved, get cracking! 

Remuneration and Benefits 

Competitive annual salary and benefits for the remainder of your ICAEW ACA training contract and beyond. 

Provided with high quality IT and ergonomic office equipment for your home workspace. 

An opportunity to work closely with the Founder and Director of the business - your voice will be heard! 

Requirements 

British, EU, EEA or Swiss passport holder; and 

Already hold the right to work indefinitely in the UK (we are not in a position to provide sponsorship for visas); and 

UK resident (we will not pay relocation expenses if you choose to relocate to the UK). 

Provide evidence of academic and professional/qualifications 

Attend team meetings in Reading or London (in total 6-7 times per year) 

Proficient in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint 

Proficiency / fluency in English and another international business language (e.g. Spanish, French, German, Mandarin, Russian etc.) will be looked upon favourably.