I recently returned to Haskell & White after focusing on my family for 13 years. When I left, I didn’t know if I would return, but happy to say I am back working with clients at Haskell & White, an Orange County CPA Firm. The Firm’s operating values were a strong driver to bring me back to Haskell & White. The Firm’s founders had documented their operating values when I worked at the Firm earlier. It was important to know I would be going to an Orange County CPA firm that incorporated them into their daily actions. After all, I had been a part of building them. “Finding your purpose” in your life is a hot topic right now, and these operating values provide the guideposts on that journey of finding my purpose. Returning to my career at a firm that serves clients with these operating values as a guidepost is comforting and helpful.

I break down each operating value and why it’s important to me.

Ethical Behavior – Probably considered a given at any public accounting firm, as the profession requires an 8-hour course to be taken every two years, and a specific ethics exam is part of the CPA certification process. A rigorous process evaluates each client, ensuring we work with clients who value our work and operate with integrity. At our Firm, this value guides our behavior and client acceptance policy. I admire this at Haskell & White since the clients contribute to how employees experience work, just as working with your colleagues can affect it.

Excellence – Pushing to do my personal best is vital to me on every project I manage. Working with a firm that also puts excellence among its guiding values is essential. Our clients seek advisors that can help them with complicated business challenges where technical excellence is required, and this spurs me to keep learning and taking on challenging projects.

Valuing People – The partners recognized long ago that people drive our success. By consistently recognizing the team, from spot bonuses to team bonding events and timely performance reviews to ensuring exposure to various industries, valuing people is paramount.

Firm members are encouraged to pursue a life-work balance, and from my vantage point, I see Haskell & White making that accessible for people in public accounting. I appreciate the technical innovations and the flexibility that allow me to work a hybrid schedule to help achieve that work-life balance. Gone are the days when you must come to an office every day of the week.  The work is demanding, but there’s no reason not to be able to succeed here and at home.

But we don’t just value our people; it’s about valuing our clients. I have always had a high sense of customer service, and I appreciate my role in training professionals starting in their careers.

Constant Learning – I’ve always viewed this as a sub-component of Valuing People and Excellence. It is tough to deliver either of those elements without providing an atmosphere of constant learning. If you’re ready for the challenge, there’s no end to the opportunities to learn. Without communication barriers between partners, managers and staff, everyone is encouraged to reach out and ask questions when they don’t understand something or want to bounce an idea off someone. I’ve never felt restricted or limited in what I can learn here. But the learning isn’t limited to the technical side. Achieving success in public accounting also requires many “soft skills,” such as organizational skills, marketing, and participation in community service, and there are opportunities to learn all of those here.

Success – Success is subjective and can be measured in so many ways. At Haskell & White, success is measured from many angles.  We want our Orange County CPA firm to be successful, but Firm leadership knows that will be achieved only when our clients succeed and our employees succeed.

I am now back at Haskell and White, and I feel like I am in a better place than ever before to contribute to the Firm’s continued success. There is a lot of talk about purpose these days, and everyone seems to be searching for it. If you don’t have a defined purpose, how do you know if you are on the right path? If you are considering a career move or want to talk about your options, reach out to me. I am more than happy to chat about my experience.

Fifteen years into my career, I had just been promoted to principal at Haskell & White, and I was about to make the most difficult decision in my career. Conversations around work-life balance were not as commonplace as they are today, and I was not seeing how to create harmony between my responsibilities with work and my family. The best option at the time was to put my career on hold and focus on my family full-time.

Usually, people taking detours from the well-defined career path of public accounting do not return to the industry. My promotion was an achievement, and I was on track to reach a level that most women do not attain. Statistics show that most women don’t reach senior positions in public accounting or become a partner in a public accounting firm.

I loved serving my clients as a business and advisory consultant at a local accounting firm and investing time to contribute to the Firm’s success. Deciding to take that “moment” to focus on my family was difficult for someone so career-oriented, but I knew it was right. The team at Haskell & White supported me, and at the time, I didn’t have a plan for coming back.

Understanding that your job is not your identity was an important part of my journey and took some time to understand. It’s a healthy view, but not an easy one if your career drives many of your choices. I enjoyed contributing and participating in the business world and making the decision to prioritize my family meant that I wouldn’t get the recognition for those contributions that I enjoyed.

In the Summer of 2021, the partners at Haskell & White had an opportunity for me to work on some projects on a contract basis. This sounded like the perfect way to test the waters and see what my next chapter would look like as my kids were older and more independent. My story doesn’t end there.

That contract assignment made me realize how much I missed working with clients and the challenging work of public accounting. In December of 2021, I had the opportunity to go back to Haskell & White in a consistent role with the Firm. I knew it would be a transition, as public accounting is constantly moving as regulations and laws change. Technology has evolved, so going back to a local accounting firm with a supportive environment was paramount on my journey back into this world.

I am now back at Haskell & White, and I feel like I am in a better place than ever before. I know now I won’t miss out on the important parts of life, as I can arrange my responsibilities for work and my home life in a way that works for me and make sure my contributions to the Firm and myself are valued. Sometimes career detours can be scary, but sometimes they are exactly what you need.

Reflecting on my journey over the last ten years, I appreciate returning to Haskell & White’s supportive and collaborative culture. If you are looking for an excellent opportunity to grow your career, consider joining a local accounting firm that can help you maintain a healthy work-life balance.

This May (May 29, 2022, to be exact) will mark my ten-year anniversary at Haskell & White, a Southern California CPA firm. With all the publicity surrounding “The Great Resignation”, and particularly its impact on the public accounting industry, I’d like to share my top – 10 reasons why I still love working here – and why I plan to stay for many years to come!

1. Opportunities – When I started my Haskell & White career as a brand-new audit Senior, the thought of moving up into the Firm’s management group seemed like a far-off dream. There were so many smart people above me – surely I would never know as much as they do. But one thing the partners consistently promised was opportunities. The opportunity to learn, the opportunity to work on challenging clients, and the opportunity to be coached by the best and brightest that the Firm had to offer. It was up to me to seize those opportunities, but if I did, I would also have the opportunity to earn promotions and grow my career. Now that I am a Principal at the Firm, I can say without a doubt that the Firm held up its end of the bargain.

2. Coaching & Mentoring – It’s hard to grow your career without others who are willing to invest in you. Early on, I was fortunate to work with individuals in the Firm’s leadership who would coach me in a way that pushed me to be better. It was never about criticizing me or my work, but rather showing me how to do the work better. Now I have several mentees at the Firm and it’s my responsibility to provide coaching and learning opportunities for them. This cycle of coaching is no accident – it’s consistent with several of the Firm’s operating values, including Valuing People, Constant Learning, and Success.

3. Giving Back – I’m a Millennial, and a phrase you may have heard describing Millennials is “Purpose over Paychecks”. While paychecks are great, we also want to know that we are doing some good in the world with our work. Everyone in the Firm’s management group is encouraged to join a non-profit board. The Firm has been recognized many times for its generosity and community involvement, including by Civic 50 Orange County (2021, 2019 and 2018) as well as CalCPA’s annual Public Service Award (2019), among others. The Firm also supports my board service at the UCI Diabetes Center. I take pride in working for an award-winning accounting firm that values social responsibility.

4. Culture – One of the biggest reasons I accepted my position with Haskell & White in the first place was the promise of a different kind of CPA firm. Coming from a large firm, the culture I knew could be best summed up by “The 5-Minute Rule”. This meant that you stayed at work five minutes past when your manager left. It was joked about, but it was true! The culture was that of being a warrior and working more hours than the next person, regardless of its impact on your family or personal life.

Haskell & White values teamwork and quality over hours. The Firm recognizes that happy employees are more productive employees. Firm leadership values a diverse set of backgrounds and opinions, and also values retaining its employees. This again goes back to one of the Firm’s operating values – Valuing People.

5. Work/life balance – This is perhaps the most overused phrase by recruiters in all industries, but particularly in public accounting. I don’t know of any public accounting firm that doesn’t advertise work/life balance, yet over the years I have met countless over-worked and out-of-balance accountants! I was newly married when I started my Haskell & White career, so it was extremely important to me to work for a firm that would give me the opportunity to pursue both my work and my family goals. This is not to say we don’t work hard – because we do. But our busy season compared to what I was used to at my previous firm is night and day. If it wasn’t, I would not still be here ten years later.

6. People – When you value your people, you get to work with a whole bunch of really great people! I have learned so much from so many of our people over the years. With a focus on hiring people with diverse backgrounds and skillsets, I have had the opportunity to work with some incredibly smart and talented people. And, with our regular Firm functions (from days at the beach, to happy hours, to holiday parties, etc.) I have had the opportunity to get to know my co-workers on a more personal level, and am happy to call many of them my personal friends.

7. Leadership – After coming from a firm where none of the partners knew my name, I think Firm leadership may be the biggest differentiator, because it impacts every other area on this list. From going to Ducks games with partners, to supporting my career growth, and even just stopping by my office to ask how I’m doing – Firm leadership fosters an environment of growth and inclusion.

8. Challenging Work – I wouldn’t be satisfied with my work if I wasn’t constantly challenged. From non-profits, to tech and biotech companies, to manufacturers and distributors, to real estate entities, to publicly traded companies, our client base runs the gamut. Which means the technical issues we work on change daily, from complex debt and equity transactions, to revenue recognition, to assisting clients with M&A advisory services, etc. Our clients expect us to not just be auditors or tax preparers, but to be trusted business advisors. Adding value to clients’ businesses is the most challenging – and fun – part of what we do.

9. Quality – Quality is not always the most fun thing to talk about, but it is imperative as a PCAOB registered firm. Not a week goes by where we are not having a discussion or training geared towards maximizing the quality of our work. When people are making investment decisions based on the financial statements we’re opining on, quality has to be a top priority. With five consecutive clean AICPA Peer Review reports and a history of outstanding inspection results from the PCAOB, Haskell & White has proven its commitment to quality for over 30 years. I take pride in working for a Firm that has earned a reputation for high-quality work.

10. Training – It’s nearly impossible to produce high-quality work without high-quality training. Every year we have many live training classes – from new staff workshops all the way up through complex technical topics. The Firm also subscribes to an on-demand training platform so that any member of the Firm can take training anytime on just about any topic. We also host trainings for our clients. From our SEC Roundtables, to our Annual Non-Profit Conference, we keep our clients abreast of the latest accounting and financial reporting developments.

After reflecting on the past ten years at Haskell & White, I have a lot to be thankful for. If you work in public accounting and want to have an honest conversation about what it’s like to work at our Southern California CPA firm, let’s talk!

How should a public company go about selecting its audit firm? The data show public companies tend to default to one of the Big 4 or National firms. According to a 2020 article by Audit Analytics, the Top 10 firms audited nearly two-thirds of all public companies, with the Big 4 firms auditing approximately half of all public companies. So why do public companies default to using one of only a handful of firms for their audit and helping them with their public company filings? This post is the second in a series exploring the factors that come into play when choosing an audit and assurance services provider.

When a company searches for an outside supplier of service, their size and perceived resources are always a consideration. It’s true – the Top 10 firms are larger and have more resources at their disposal than a regional accounting firm. They serve an undeniable purpose in the marketplace. The Apples, Googles, and Amazons of the world do not – and should not – use a smaller firm. But what if a company’s market cap isn’t $500B, but instead $500M? Are all those additional resources really necessary? And perhaps just as important – will those giant firms serve a small or a medium-sized public company as well and as efficiently as they would serve their giant clients? We frequently meet prospective clients that say their current Top 10 firm is too big to care about their small company and that they feel like they get the Top 10 firm’s “B-team” working on their audit.

An untapped resource to consider for public company audits is a regional firm with a membership in an alliance of accounting firms. Alliances offer a network of resources across the globe, while the individual accounting firm is able to maintain small firm agility, personal attention, and cost structures. For example, the Leading Edge Alliance (“LEA”) is a global alliance of CPA firms that spans over 100 countries, over 450 offices, and more than 16,000 professionals. In other words, if the LEA was one firm, it would be the 5th largest firm in the world based on revenue. Haskell & White has utilized LEA’s global resources to conduct inventory observations or to conduct audits that roll up to the parent organization. Our membership not only provides this boots-on-the-ground presence but a resource for specialized knowledge. If a client has a material unique transaction, Haskell & White can perform the research and then reach out to the affiliate’s special interest groups to ensure other professionals with expertise in that area agree with our conclusions. This is a similar process that the Top 10 firms use with their respective national offices; however, the difference is a regional firm does not have to get approval from a national office to reach a conclusion, which makes for an efficient decision making process and a more cost-effective process for the client. In other words, through its global affiliate, smaller firms have many of the resources of a large firm at their disposal, but using those resources – and ultimately the conclusion reached – is up to the individual engagement team.

Please reach out to us to discuss your current audit needs and learn more about how our global resources can be put to use for you.

Let’s face it: no company wants to pay hundreds of thousands – or even millions of dollars to be audited. For public companies, though, it’s not a choice, it’s an annual requirement. So how should a public company go about selecting a PCAOB registered audit firm? The data show public companies tend to default to one of the Big 4 or National firms. According to a 2020 article by Audit Analytics, the Top 10 firms audited nearly two-thirds of all public companies, with the Big 4 firms auditing approximately half of all public companies. So why do public companies choose from only a handful of firms when regional PCAOB registered firms may be a better fit? This post is the first in a series that will explore the most common factors taken into consideration when choosing a public accounting firm.

Within the industry of public accounting firms, there are reliable measures of audit quality. Two of the best measures are restatement rate (percentage of issued financial statements that resulted in a restatement) and Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (“PCAOB”) inspection results. One of the most common reasons for engaging a Top 10 firm is the assumption that the public company audit quality is better.

One might expect that restatement rates at clients of the Top 10 firms to be negligible, as these companies typically can afford to employ sizable accounting departments. However, according to a Compliance Week article regarding restatement rates for public company filings, the Big 4 had a restatement rate of 0.99%. National firms – firms that round out the Top 10 firms – had a restatement rate of 2.74%. All other firms had a restatement rate of 2.43%. However, the “other firms” category includes restatement filings where the company noted in its 8-K disclosures that they had no audit firm at the time of the filing, either because the firm resigned or was dismissed. Therefore, 2.43% is skewed higher by the Big 4 and National firms who were dismissed after a restatement. Furthermore, the Big 4 and National firm rates are skewed lower for the same reason. How much auditor dismissals skew the data is difficult to determine; however, a research article, Determinants and Market Consequences of Auditor Dismissals after Accounting Restatements by Karen M. Hennes, Andrew J. Leone, and Brian P. Miller notes that auditor turnover occurs 28.8% of the time following a restatement.

The second measure of PCAOB audit quality can be found in PCAOB inspection reports. The inspections are part of the requirement to be a PCAOB registered firm. Periodic inspections ensure the firm performs quality PCAOB audits and has all the appropriate quality control procedures in place. None of the Top 10 firms achieved a “clean” report (i.e., no deficiencies noted) in their most recent PCAOB inspection. Since 2010, the combined deficiency rates of the Top 10 firms ranged from 30% to 42% annually, or approximately one in three audits is deemed to be deficient. While PCAOB average deficiency rates at non-Top 10 firms are not readily available, the point here is that audit quality at the Top 10 firms may not be as high as expected. When looking for your next public accounting firm, you can easily access their history of inspections on the PCAOB website to compare your audit firm candidates.

Please reach out to us to discuss your current audit needs and find out why quality audits matter.

Our accounting internship is designed to give students an accurate picture of the day-to-day life of a staff accountant. Interns receive the necessary training to utilize the software, understand the specific responsibilities and collaborate with team members to complete tasks associated with a current client engagement. This first-hand view to work directly with an engagement team can be especially beneficial in confirming a career path.

Haskell & White focuses on serving middle-market companies. As an intern, you will work side by side in exciting areas such as real estate, life sciences, technology, manufacturing, and distribution. At Haskell & White, you have the opportunity to see multiple industries and work with different companies with different legal structures that are publicly traded and privately held. We also serve many pre-revenue companies in the life science industry that are in capital raise mode.

The pace is fast and very exciting! All this equates to a richer experience for you. In addition to industry specializations, we also focus on helping our clients with transactions such as initial public offerings, raising capital, merger and acquisition transactions, and private equity investments. Join the fun and see how exciting a career in public accounting might be for you!

We will schedule several days of required training in January of 2022 to set you up for success as an intern. During this time, you will have the opportunity to meet other interns and the team from Haskell & White. Each intern will create their ideal schedule with 16-20 working hours dedicated to the internship. This schedule will be built around their class schedule and other commitments during the hours between 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Monday through Friday. Interns will be asked to keep to a set schedule for the duration of their internship. We are flexible and understand an important test or assignment may require some adjustments. It is about communication, and we can pivot with you.

Haskell & White offers internships two times a year, from January through April, in both our audit and tax departments, and in the summer, the tax team has a second opportunity to work with our group.

One of these first steps on your path to excellence is an internship at a public accounting firm. We provide an exceptional experience and one that will set you up for greatness. Accounting Internships and staff accounting applications are available here on our website. Please submit your resume for consideration.

We are looking forward to meeting you and hearing about your career goals. Apply here for an accounting internship in Orange County https://haskell-white.com/careers/apply/.

In March 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted to adopt amendments to the “accelerated filer” and “large accelerated filer” definitions. These definitions are of critical importance to public companies because they determine whether an auditor attestation of an issuer’s internal control over financial reporting is required and the amount of time an issuer gets to file its quarterly and annual reports. This post outlines the key changes to the distinction between the filers.

The amendments also increase the transition thresholds for accelerated and large accelerated filers becoming non-accelerated filers from $50 million to $60 million, and for exiting large accelerated filer status from $500 million to $560 million.

Certain provisions and requirements have remained unchanged:

It should be noted that the definition of a Smaller Reporting Company (SRC) did not change. Scaled disclosure requirements are available to SRCs, who continue to be defined as issuers with less than $250 million of public float or less than $100 million in annual revenues with public float of less than $700 million or no public float at all. More importantly, a company that meets the definition of an SCR may still be an accelerated filer under the amendments if it has over $100 million in revenues but less than $250 million in public float.

The amendments have been highly anticipated by public companies that do not generate significant revenues due to various factors (such as early infancy in its life cycle), as they will no longer be subjected to the SOX 404(b) auditor ICFR attestation requirements. The SEC estimates that a company would save approximately $210,000 a year, which the SEC viewed as a “meaningful cost savings for many of the affected issuers.” The much-needed cost-saving measures can certainly be allocated elsewhere to allow companies to focus on its core competencies to continue to grow. In addition, the cost reduction could be a positive factor that may encourage more companies to go public.

Given the many challenges that the year 2020 has brought, the SEC’s revised definitions are a welcomed development that will make public company reporting more cost-effective and more straightforward. If you would like to discuss this important topic in more detail, please reach out to a Haskell & White team member or contact us through the website.

The year 2020 has been anything but typical and filled with change. So smaller public companies should be ready to embrace the first substantive changes to the standard auditors’ report in more than 70 years. For years ending after December 15, 2020, for the first time ever, the audit report of smaller public companies will be required to disclose Critical Audit Matters, or CAMs for short. Given that this is a significant change from current practice, and given the inherent sensitivity of certain CAMs, public companies, audit committees and auditors should be preparing for CAM implementation now.

The PCAOB (regulator of public company audit firms) defines a Critical Audit Matter as “any matter arising from the audit of the financial statements that was communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relates to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements; and (2) involved especially challenging, subjective, or complex auditor judgment.” In simple terms, think about your recent audit committee meetings and the topics and issues discussed. Those will likely be your CAMs and will now be required to be disclosed in the auditors’ report. While the determination of CAMs is based on the facts and circumstances of each audit, the PCAOB has stated that “it is expected that, in most audits to which the CAM requirements apply, the auditor will determine at least one CAM.”

When a CAM is identified, what exactly is required to be disclosed in the auditors’ report? Once again, the PCAOB has provided specific requirements to satisfy. For each CAM communicated in the auditors’ report, the auditor must:

As you might imagine, providing this information in the auditors’ report about an issuer’s revenue recognition practices, income tax reporting, or asset impairment assessments will likely result in some spirited conversations between issuers and their auditing and assurance services firm.

Issuers that are categorized under the SEC’s rules as Large Accelerated Filers (generally those public companies with more than $700 million in non-affiliated market capitalization) and their audit firms have already adopted the CAM reporting requirements. A recent study by data firm Audit Analytics examined 333 CAMs from the audit reports of 193 Large Accelerated Filers, with an average of 1.7 CAMs per audit report. The top five topics most commonly identified as Critical Audit Matters thus far have been Business Combinations, Goodwill, Revenue Recognition, Income Taxes, and Contingencies.

Issuers that satisfy the SEC’s requirements as an Emerging Growth Company (EGC) are not required to disclose CAMs in their audit reports. However, auditors may early adopt CAM requirements or apply them voluntarily to audits for which they are not required. Last year, law firm Cooley LLP reported that 39% of surveyed EGCs responded that they plan to apply the CAM requirements voluntarily, while 39% are undecided and 22% will definitely not apply them voluntarily.

With most small public company’s Q3 reporting season still weeks away, the time to prepare your company for CAM implementation is now. Your first step should be to educate and inform key stakeholders, such as financial management, audit committee members, and even key investors. Next, request a dry run or a sample audit report from your auditing and assurance services firm to facilitate an open and honest discussion about your company’s likely CAMs. Taken now, these simple steps will help ensure a seamless transition to CAM reporting so that your business can focus on some of 2020’s many other challenges.

If you would like to learn more about Haskell & White’s experience assisting public companies with new requirements, contact us today to speak to our team.

The coronavirus pandemic has introduced many unprecedented challenges and opportunities to the professional service sector. On the podcast Beyond the Resume, our director of recruiting, Nancy Weber-Brough, recently shared how Haskell & White has managed to find continued success in the new economy, and offered tips for people seeking employment at an accounting firm.

As Nancy discussed, the keys to our—and our clients’—success are flexibility and creativity. By utilizing new technology and embracing a remote work culture, we’ve seen increased revenues and actually improved quality of life for our employees. Nancy also stressed the importance of creating a collaborative workspace. It’s critical to support employees during these difficult times, whether that means coaching them on time management or banding together to support those who have been directly affected by the pandemic.

If you’re seeking employment at public accounting firms in Orange County (or elsewhere), here are some tips from Nancy to help you stand out.

To listen to the full interview and get an inside look at Haskell & White, click here.

Interested in working at Haskell & White? We’d love to hear from you! Check out our open positions.