AAT to Argentina: My journey to Senior Manager

During the summer, we had an informal chat with Joe Down, Senior Manager at Moore Kingston Smith. Joe talks about having the courage to take opportunities and how flexible working enables him to focus on his ironman training.

Joe works exclusively in external audit within the Corporate Client Services team.

Studying and early career

Despite studying non-accountancy subjects at A-level, I went straight from school to a top 10 accountancy firm. I passed AAT levels 3 and 4, before moving on to the ACA and qualifying as an ICAEW chartered accountant in late 2020. Over eight years, I continued my career progression from Assistant in 2015, through to Manager.

In October 2023, I joined Moore Kingston Smith as Senior Manager, a position which has seen me involved in several large audits - some of which have given me a fantastic opportunity to travel overseas, most notably to Argentina.

The opportunity to work in Argentina

Working in Corporate Client Services, we focus on larger audit, which brings an international aspect you don’t typically see at smaller firms or within general practice.

We carried out audit work with a component auditor in Buenos Aires, Argentina, reporting into Moore Kingston Smith as the group auditor.

ISA 600 prescribes that the group auditor determines the nature, timing and extent of involvement of the component auditor. As a result, I visited their office, as well as the client’s premises in Argentina, to review the work. This was an incredible experience and highlights one of the great things about working at Moore Kingston Smith - you’re treated fairly from the start and given equal opportunity, rather than feeling like you’ve got to earn your stripes before you get a chance to be selected for certain opportunities.

Stepping up to Manager-level

The move to Moore Kingston Smith was really smooth.  I had been apprehensive as career changes are always daunting, and I was expecting a trickier transition considering I’d been in my previous role for so long. It was all I knew, so I was deeply embedded in that culture and those work practices, having been the formative years of my career. It’s fair to say my experience of the workplace was isolated to one firm and one location.

I felt warmly welcomed at Moore Kingston Smith, and my team were friendly and helpful which made the transition easy and enjoyable. The firm was also in the process of changing its audit software, so we were all in the same boat, learning something new.

I’d encourage anyone who’s looking to change firm to go for it. Ultimately, audit is audit. It's prescribed based on the accountancy standards and auditing rules, which means it's the same at every single firm.

Everyone must adhere to that same rule book, it's only the systems, software and people that change.

Good work/life balance is key

A healthy work/life balance is critical to ensuring your happiness and that you can enjoy your work in addition to a fulfilling personal life. It’s key that you have time to pursue your hobbies and interests. I’m a qualified personal trainer and have played high-level rugby for my county. I've always had a keen interest in fitness which has recently transferred over to triathlons and ironman, and I couldn’t do this without the flexible approach to work that we have at Moore Kingston Smith.

This flexibility enables me to undertake a demanding training schedule, while still enjoying my personal life. Our agile working policy of reachable hours between 10am and 3pm promotes the positive wellbeing of our colleagues, and its key to an inclusive, fair workplace – it means people have that ability to do what’s important to them – be that the school run, get to the gym or attend appointments.

Our policy is more flexible than most. On Wednesday’s, for example, I have swim training between 6am to 7am, so I log-in early. On other days (normally a Friday) I like to finish slightly earlier. Some finish work on a Thursday, travel out of London to their parents where they work on a Friday, so they're already there for the weekend. Having the flexibility to do this and make your day work for you really works well.

Working for an equity-backed firm

It’s an exciting time for Moore Kingston Smith, which recently received PE funding from European private equity firm, Waterland.

PE investment usually takes two forms, either the investors look for a firm with potential but is struggling, investing to turn it around, perhaps implementing new management and/or systems and controls and sell the firm for a profit. The second, which applies to Moore Kingston Smith, is where the investors identify a firm that’s already fast-growing and profitable. They want to come along on the journey and help us do more. Waterland recognised our strong reputation in audit and advisory, and our growth potential.

The partnership enables us to level up our organic growth and further invest in people, technology and facilities.

There’s a strong sense of that investment, it’s apparent in how the firm is growing its services and solutions for clients, which keeps things interesting and promises more opportunities for all.

Three ways to advance your career

In my opinion, career progression boils down to three main things.

• Have the courage to go for opportunities

Put your hand up for whatever is available and take time to consider any openings that arise. Particularly in audit, opportunities present themselves often. For example, if you've got convertible loan notes that have arisen and you've not seen them before, then research the technical accounting and put together a paper. There's no reason why you can't get involved.

If you’re a semi-senior, perhaps ask your senior if you can take on overall project management responsibility. Don’t overburden yourself, but one new thing on each audit engagement is achievable. Remember, you’ll always learn much more from the complicated audits over the simpler ones.

• Be sure to communicate

As you start moving up in management, make sure you have a good game plan for communicating to different teams. Be aware that you’re responsible for the delivery of multiple teams, clients and often reporting into multiple partners who may all be working in different locations. Some may also be hybrid or remote and all of them need to be kept in the loop.

• Stay on top of project management

Finally, work out how you communicate that game plan to the various people who need to know about it. Setting up a Gantt chart for the audit timeline is pointless if you don't refer to it during the audit. Be sure to not only implement those pre audit tools but have a mechanism for continually reviewing progress to ensure the project stays on track. The importance of communicating this is because of the knock-on and compounding effect those delays may have.

Joe was talking with Adam Munro, Associate Portfolio Director at AJ Chambers ®. Adam heads up client relationships in London for Audit & Accounts. With over 11 years’ experience, he has built a network with London’s most prominent firms. Adam has assisted hundreds of trainees and qualified accountants with their career.