Jasmine Khor

5.00 AM

Every morning I wake up at 5.00 am on the dot. I start my day by grabbing my bag (prepared from the night before), hop on the tram and head to my gym near the office.

6.00 AM

Today is Leg Day aka my favourite day! I put on some smooth soul R&B tunes and smash out my five sets of leg exercises.

7.00 AM

It’s now time to head back to the office to get ready for the day. On level 3 of our building, we have a fantastic changing facility that comes with showers, fresh towels, lockers, and a spacious area for makeup. It also comes with hair straighteners and hair dryers for any styling needs! Other than that, ironing stations come in handy when my clothes decide to crumple up in my duffle bag.

8.00 AM

After changing, I headed up to the Hub (our internal café) to grab some free barista made coffee to kickstart my day.

Let’s be real – the above gym routine happens a maximum of three days a week, and it’s been three weeks since I last went … but I am hoping I can manifest it into an actual routine. On the days when I don’t head to the gym before work, I head straight to the client’s office and the rest of the day looks like this:

8.30 AM

I arrive at the client’s office and check with the receptionist which room has been booked for us today. I then set up my working station with a portable monitor, laptop stand, wireless keyboard and mouse so I can still work comfortably and productively without the dual monitors we are so used to in the office.

After we are all settled in, we discuss our goals for the day. This is an opportunity to let the team know if you are struggling with certain tasks assigned and book some time in with the senior/manager on the job to go through your questions.

Say hi to the team! We have Khoi (top right), Elias (top left) and Tash (bottom left).

In BA&A we work from either our client’s office or our office depending on what type of communication is most efficient for the type of work we’re doing - if things can be done efficiently via email/calls, we work from the office; if speaking to different teams and personnel is needed, we work from our client’s office.

For this audit, we worked from the client’s office for a week during the audit ‘planning’ stage, so we can speak to them about their systems and processes. This allowed us to get a clear understanding of the risks specific to their organisation and design an appropriate audit approach for the client.

Today we’re going back to the client’s office for the ‘fieldwork’ stage of audit. This is the part of audit where we get to crunch the numbers in Excel spreadsheets and make enquiries with clients to understand unexpected findings.

8.45 AM

Before diving right into my tasks for the day, I check my inbox and calendar to see if any urgent matters have popped up requiring my attention. Nothing today, but if there is anything outside the current audit that requires a bit of time to work on, we speak to the Auditor in Charge to see if they are happy with us taking some time out working on another matter, it’s all about transparency in teamwork!

9.00 AM

My goal today is to complete the Property, Plant & Equipment (PPE) and Employee Benefits Expense (EBE) sections. For the PPE section, I need to ensure the client prepared schedule appears mathematically accurate and agrees to the trial balance. I begin by confirming the total amounts on the schedule match amounts on the trial balance, and then format the workpapers (this is low-key my favourite part because turning raw data into a neat and tidy workpaper is just so satisfying). I then use formulas to confirm the client’s calculations of depreciation and asset written down values and note down anything unusual down on my queries list.

12.30 PM

I can hear my tummy rumbling – it’s about time to go for lunch! We do a team lunch once a week when we’re out at the client’s site. We have Kylee (the Partner on the engagement) joining us for lunch today too!

1.30 PM

After lunch, I check in with Khoi to see if we can resolve any of my queries before speaking with the client’s Finance Manager. After I am clear on what queries need to be addressed, I walk down the corridor to find the Finance Manager who happens to be free to run through my list of queries. I take note of our conversation on my workpaper and sign it off as completed.

2.30 PM

After tidying up and signing off my workpapers for PPE, it’s now time to start on my other section – Employee Benefits Expense (EBE). In this section, we select a sample of employees from a pay run during the year and confirm the pay run to the pay rate on employment contracts. This is to gain reasonable assurance that all employees are valid and not fictitious, and that employees are being paid as stipulated in their contracts.

5.15 PM

The team touch base again at the end of the day to keep everyone updated with our progress on the job. To finish off my day, I check my inbox and flag anything requiring my attention for action tomorrow. I then put in my last timesheet entry and pack up!

6.30 PM

I like to meal prep on the weekend so I can just heat up my dinner on weeknights after a long day. But I saw an interesting fusion carbonara recipe on Instagram today, so I decided to cook! Presenting to you, Gochujang Carbonara – a combination of Korean and Italian cuisines. Served with a new episode of Black Mirror, a weeknight dinner hasn’t tasted this good in a while.

9.30 PM

I pack my bag and pick out my outfit for tomorrow, so it’s time to catch up with my partner over FaceTime and then get to sleep!

Thanks for joining me for my day in the life!

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