Question

Describe a situation when you had to manage competing deadlines and how you managed to prioritize your work.

Explain the nature of your experience in maintaining confidential information. Was this information hard copy or electronic? How did you ensure that there was no breach in confidentiality?

Expound on your experience in gathering data and compiling electronic reports. Did you prepare these documents in Microsoft Excel or Word? Provide in detail, how was this report utilized and who was the recipient.

Answer 1

SItiation - Consolidation of Financial Accounts of Pulbic Ltd Company and their subsidiaries for the year ended June 20XX.

Generally accounts are prepared on yearly basis endind on 31 Dec or 31 March. But at that time, Holding company wanted to enter Non Financial Institution sector and such sector is regulated by the Government (RBI). Hence it was required under their acts and rules to file the Consolidated Financial Accounts for the year ended June 20XX. Hence 2 sets of financial accounts were prepared. First one for the Shareholders ie Financial Statements for the year ended 31 March 20XX (12 Months) and another one for Government (RBI) for the year ended June 20XX (15 Months). Hence preparing 15 months accounts of a Public Ltd company having number of subsidiaries is itself a huge task requiring lot of resources. As well as requirements of Government stated to file such accounts by 30 Sept 20xx. Now you must be aware that during the month of July Aug & Sept, CPA/CA are busy in preparation of Tax returns or Tax audits. Hence we had to complete such huge task in a ljmited time alongwith other work in hand.

Prioritizing:

To complete such work, various methods were used:

1. Senior Partners alongwith experienced assistants were assigned to the consolidation, whereas Senior Partners who were experts in Tax, were assigned to other Tax matters in hand.

2. Long working hours and No weekends policy was applied to every person of the Firm including peons, audit assistants, employees and Partners.

3. Big/Important subsidiaries were consolidated directly with the Holding Co whereas small/Less important subsidiaries (Shell/Investment Companies) were consolidated first amongst themselves by the Junior and Less experienced members of team and then such consolidated financials were later consolidated with the holding company by Senior members of team. Hence lot of time was saved.

Confidentiality

Now a days, with the introduction of Accounting Softwares such as tally, Busy, SAP. Financial statements are prepared electronically. Financials of various subsidiaries and the holding company are imported to MS EXCEL and then consolidated using Accounting Standards issued by IFRS/US GAAP. Number of team members are assigned with the task to complete the consolidation process. As there are lot of numbers of members having access to such sensitive and vital information of company, confidentiality becomes a matter of utmost importance.

To maintain confidentiality various techniques were used such as

1. No electronic equipments such as pendrive, personal laptop or personal Smart phones were allowed in office to ensure that data remains uncopied.

2. Only office provided Laptops were used to work on consolidation process, you must be aware that Laptops provided by office are being monitored by the IT Department hence any unauthorised work or third party application can also be prevented.

3. Any queries or problems arising needs an explanation from client over Phone or Email. Email was preffered as it provides documentary evidence but Only Senior Member (Person authorised by Firm) was allowed to mail such queries and no other member was allowed to do so. Client was also informed to reply to only Senior Member Email and no one's else.

Report

The report ie Consolidated Financial information and assessment of such company whether they can enter the Non Financial Institution sector, was submitted to Board of Director of Company, who were required to add their comments on such Report observations and then finally submitting such report to Government who will ultimately decides whether they shall be allowed to enter new sector or not.