Comments on: BDO Challenges Big 4 – Big 4 Says, "Huh?"

By: re: The Auditors » Blog Archive » BDO International - Yellow Card or Red Flag?

Thu, 21 May 2009 02:18:01 +0000

[...] and cognac pow-wow. And I’m incredulous to see Jeremy Newman of BDO International still huffing and puffing a seemingly progressive and transparent patter with whomever will interview [...]

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:27:00 +0000

I work at a local firm, and am proud of my work. The quality is just as high as when I was with a Big 4.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 02:33:00 +0000

I work at a non-big 4 national firn and am very disappointed by the quality, documentation, and caliber of partners. We did a much better job at PwC. I was proud of my work. Here, I feel like we are always cutting corners and driving the work by the budget. This happens at Big 4 I am sure, but there was a much greater emphasis on quality. We questioned our clients a lot more. I know Big 4 isn’t always the solutions but some of the lower tier firms are certainly not better.

By: Francine McKenna

Francine McKenna — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 20:04:00 +0000

The purpose of the statistics was primarily to show the huge gulf in the number of 10Ks audited by the next six firms vs the Big 4. The error rate tells me that the smaller firms get the smaller, riskier, more resistant to SOx clients who are also cost conscious. They had a longer way to go to become compliant than most larger companies. Larger companies that didn’t make it dumped their Big 4 firm and went to the next tier, as evidenced by the marginal companies still choosing BDO.

By: Independent Accountant

Independent Accountant — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 18:36:00 +0000

There’s another problem with the ratio “test”. What? The SEC is much easier on the Big 87654 than other firms. I used to work for a Big 8 firm and now do my own SEC stuff. It’s my observation that SEC staffers look to pass Big 87654 stuff. Why? They’re looking for Big 87654 jobs when they leave.

By: Independent Accountant

Independent Accountant — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 18:32:00 +0000

That 20% of the second tier CPA firms’ clients have internal control problems proves nothing. Why? Firstly, their clients are smaller. Correct for size of client in terms of market cap and see what happens. Next, it may mean that the smaller firms are tougher to satisfy. A few years ago Martin Weiss of Weiss ratings did a study of CPA firm “going concern” comments and found that the smaller firms were more likely to insert them in circumstances he thought appropriate than the Big Five at the time. This ratio analysis in your post proves nothing to me.