Welcome to our very first episode of RSM Audit Unlocked. We're so excited to have you here today. I'm Jess from the RSM Brisbane office, where it's always sunny.

Amy, a partner based in Melbourne, where the coffee's strong and the audits are even stronger. We'll be your co-host as we explore the world of audit and assurance, everything from career journeys to technical updates, hot topics and some behind the scenes moments making audits so interesting.
Between us, we've worked across the RSM network from the UK office to the US and now in Australia. This has given us plenty of opportunity to get firsthand insights into how audits are run globally and also make lots of connections along the way.

So whether you work for an ASX listed company, fast pay startup or not for profit, we know that financial reporting comes with a fair share of complexities and we want to make that a little bit easier.
We're going to be in each episode, we're going to unlock different audit issues that we see on a daily basis and provide you with some great solutions on how to avoid them.

So whether you're a CFO, financial controller, or part of an audit committee, this series is for you. Let's help you level up and make financial reporting a little bit less daunting and a lot more fun.

So we are going to give a little bit of a background today around what audit is, who we are and what we really enjoy about our profession. Exciting stuff. So let's start with what is an audit, Aimee?
Audit is about providing assurance, ⁓ ensuring companies' financial statements are true and fair, and reflect the performance and position of a company. We work with all different companies, ASX listed to small privates, and our role is to dig into the financials, understanding the business, testing key areas, and also really providing confidence to stakeholders.

And I think it can get this wrap of being a really technical job. Obviously, there's a lot of numbers involved and we do check for compliance. But at the end of the day, it's really about understanding how a business operates, what it's functioning on, what are the ups and downs and the operations for the year. So it's a lot about talking with CFOs, operation managers, the CEO to understand what's happening behind the numbers.

How would you describe a typical day?

The interesting part of audit is that no day is exactly the same because you're working with a variety of clients. And so you might be working with a client and going down a mine site one day to working in the city on a tech startup the other. So it's generally a mix of client meetings, collaborating with a team, reviewing client files, and just really getting through audit and collaborating also with different RSM services who might be providing services to the clients as well. Above all, it's about problem solving.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think the busiest time of year for that is technically busy season. It's a bit of a crazy time of year that we go through where we work really hard, but we like to think we play a little bit harder as well. It's a high energy few months where we're working closely with our teams, making sure we're getting through audits in time for them to be lodged.

It is a really good foundation for any career, whether you're staying in audit or if you go over to work in industry. It's really good to build commerciality, really good technical know-how and stakeholder engagement. So really audit has it all to give you a stepping stone to whatever you do in your next career.

So for me (Jess), I grew up in regional Victoria, moved to Melbourne for university, loved it so much that I applied for the RSM graduate program role way back in 2011, then, I've worked from being a graduate level up to the director level more recently.

I've also had the pleasure of working overseas twice. So once in San Diego in the US, epic time. And then loved it so much that I transferred to the London office for 12 months as well, it's been a great ride. ⁓ And recently I've actually moved to the Brisbane office and loving the lifestyle change up here. Lots of opportunities.

So I (Aimee) started in the RSM Leeds office quite a few years ago, so I did five years, finished my job, went travelling and then came to the RSM Melbourne office where I've been here for 11 years. It’s a great office, being able to collaborate with the team and having started as an assistant manager and worked my way up to partner, there are lots of opportunities and great to work with the team.
Yeah, and I think that opportunity piece is really good, especially in the levels we're at now, it's now a lot about building up the team and divisional strategic decisions and things. So, sort of change along the way about pure client focus and then to more business strategy.

Yeah, strategy and also business development and I think that's a real love of mine, the business development part because it really gives you the autonomy to do lots of projects. So I (Aimee) run an RSM industry connect for CFOs, so providing value there. But you also get to build your network, chat to loads of different people, have lots of coffees and lots of client lunches, which is also a fun part of it.
I think it's really good that we keep like learning lots of opportunities to understand different technical issues, work with different industries, etc. as well. So, yeah.

So what do you do? Tell me, what do you love about audit?

What do I love about, obviously the coffee in the morning. ⁓ But also, I think for me it's the ability to travel, the ability to get to know your clients, it's the people side of it that I love the most. So how about yourself, Aimee?

I've been able to travel for client work. So that might be from the US to the UK, but all around Australia and obviously coming to sunny Brisbane now and also travelled all around other parts of Australia, including all around regional Victoria.

Exciting places to be. Okay, how about if you weren't doing audit, what would you be doing, Aimee?

I obviously love wine, as you know me. So I'd probably like to be running my own winery or being a winemaker. What about yourself, Jess?

I obviously love to travel and I've gotten really into hiking lately. So I think at the moment I'd be over in Europe somewhere running a boutique hiking club.

If you've got any questions on the back of today's episode, feel free to reach out to either myself or Amy. We'd love to hear from you. If you found the episode helpful, we appreciate you sharing it with anyone who might benefit from it as well.

Next episode is a good one. We'll be unpacking the process of how to prepare for your audit with the CFO checklist. It's going to drop next month, so please keep an eye out for it. Thanks for tuning in and see you next time.