Tate & Tryon Careers in Public Accounting – An Intern’s Perspective

Midway point

Wow.  It’s hard to believe that it’s the end of the 5^th week of my T&T internship.  My fellow interns and I are halfway through the summer, and I feel like it’s gone by so fast!  This past weekend was a blur of Independence Day activities - barbecue, fireworks, and friends - my first experience of the fourth (my favorite summer holiday) in our nation's capital.  Although I was sad that the weekend was over, I'm glad that I have such an enjoyable job to go back to.  Since my last post, I have been doing a three week rotation at N Street Village, a non-profit that “provides services for homeless women including a day center, night shelter, wellness center, addiction recovery programs and community living.”  It's a great organization with a strong mission and dedicated staff.  Officially, I’ve been filling the role of “accounting intern,” but really, I’ve been having an insider’s look into the operations department of a non-profit organization.  I know that when I hear about charitable non-profits, I mostly hear about their missions, purpose, who they help, etc.  Seeing a non-profit from the operations side, however, has enlightened me to the business side of things. After all, non-profits still have to operate as a business, and achieving the most favorable efficiencies behind the scenes allows such organizations as N Street Village to pass on the best service it can to those who really need it.  My day-to-day work for the past couple of weeks has consisted of working with Quickbooks, entering invoices and the like, organizing hard copy employee time sheets and inputting their electronic versions into a spreadsheet to calculate pay allocation (a concept that I'm a bit familiar with after my Strategic Cost Accounting class), sitting in on various meetings, and the occasional filing or copying.  I've learned about what sort of controls N Street has and how it can illustrate them to it's auditor's.  And I've the learned the importance of what financial statements show and don't show, especially when it comes to non-profits' fundraising.  Furthermore, I've learned about all the great programs and services that N Street offers which make it imperative that the operations department run smoothly.  All-in-all it's a typical intern's life, but it has been a great experience thus far.

Next week, I start a new assignment - I'll be going out on my first audit trip.  A new location and new tasks at hand.  So, more on that later...

~ Cherrie

T&T interning- second entry

     As an intern at Tate and Tryon, I have learned that the work never seems to get repetitive. Since I wrote my last blog, I have been in the office only a couple of days. My first day out of the office was for the Tate and Tryon Audit Fun Day. The Fun Day was held at ESPN Zone, where there was an open bar and lots of appetizers. Being a month and a half away from being 21, I still had a good time cleaning up the appetizers and sipping on my sprite. Each employee then got a game card to play any of the ESPN Zone games. The games of choice seemed to be basketball, football, and hockey. Hockey wasn't the game for me because I'm a lefty, and they didn't have a left-handed stick. So I ventured over to the basketball game and placed a solid 4 th out of 4 players. Later on I got a little better at that game as I found my shot, but the game for me was the football game. Growing up with backyard football and playing football in high school, I’ve picked up on how to throw the old pig skin pretty well. After a cut throat competition with one of the other interns, I ended up on top by one point. ESPN Zone was a great time.

     After getting more training in the office for a few days, I headed over to 14 th Street for my Pro Bono work with Central Union Mission. The first day we had a monthly lunch for the third Tuesday in June. After I was introduced to everyone, I got familiarized with the accounting system that Central Union used. James, one of the members of accounting department was in charge of me for the first week. James was in charge of filing the invoice expenses and entering them into the system. The software they used was QuickBooks which I was slightly familiar with. I helped James enter those invoices in the system, and then filed them for the upcoming audit. Every Friday they would cut the checks, and, because it was a nonprofit organization, they would have to choose what time the amounts should be paid because of their gift income. Then I rolled forward the filing system they use for their invoices and created new folders for the next fiscal year. The next week I worked with John who was in charge of the deposits that are made in donor's names. I would scan the checks with the SunTrust check scanner and it would make an automatic deposit. I would then reconcile this total with a manual total I made to see if it matched. I began to get very good at this as the week went on, and it was interesting to see how the deposit slips were filled out and they kept track of the batches. You don't really learn the more practical side of this type of accounting in your accounting class so real life experience is definitely helpful to see. I also helped Len Conner, Senior Manager, take a look at a capital expenditures report. I debited and credited out the buildings with the liabilities payable to see if the badges made sense. I was glad to have taken intermediate accounting as I used those recent skills to balance the accounts. I arrived back at T & T on the 2 nd of July where it was a half day, and Friday was a holiday. Now being back in the T & T office, I feel fresh and ready to help out the audit department again.

-Tim Tishman

Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

The life of a Tate & Tryon intern: Part Deuce

Greetings from the bullpen.  Us interns are just wrapping up our 4th week at T & T.  I think I speak for us all when I say that it has been a tremendous experience thusfar.  Personally, I am throughly enjoying getting to know the staff here.  A coule of weeks ago was Audit Fun Day.  Half the day consisted of meetings and office clean up, then we went to The ESPN Zone.  We were provided with free drinks, food, and games.  It was really fun day.  I never imagined accountants could be so fun.  Other than that, I've really enjoyed getting some practical experience in the field of accounting.  I've worked on tax returns and helped with audit planning.  Next week I get to actually go out to a client for an audit.  I'm very excited about the prospects of interacting with clients and getting a better understanding of auditing fieldwork.  Other than that, I'm just really enjoying my time living in the city.  I'm really starting to like D.C. and the surrounding areas.  The Tate & Tryon softball team starts up next week so that should be a ton of fun.  But now, I have to get back to work.  I hope to write another one of these in the near future.

Sincerely,

Andrew Miller

Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

Internship At Tate & Tryon: Getting Started

       After going on an internship hunt for a moderate sized firm I found out about Tate and Tryon through a neighbor. After hearing about T and T, I looked at their website and saw their allocation of resources was to mostly nonprofit organizations. Looking to start out my first experiences in the actual accounting and audit world, it seemed like Tate and Tryon would be a great place from me. I sent in my resume and was lucky enough to get an interview and land the job. Before the job even began, Kate, the HR director, invited me to a Nationals game with some of the staff of the firm. It was a great way to meet the staff and become familiar with who I was working with. I live close to D.C. and unfortunately root for the Nationals, so going into the game I knew a win was highly unlikely.

       The first day I was more excited than nervous as T and T seems to have a very friendly atmosphere. All the interns met up to do our initial paper work with Kate, and after that we immediately started some real work training. Stephanie was the first staff member to give us training with audit planning. I was surprised that she got us right into training, especially since I have friends that are working for bigger firms and heard that they have a week of background and orientation before they start and training or do any hand on work. Stephanie assigned us all real clients to do audit planning for before the field team got into the audit. I was a little worried because this would actually be used in the audit of the company, but I was also very glad because this seems to be some of the best real experience I could get. After we dove into the audit side, we next looked at the tax side with Leslie. She showed us that before you ,fill out the 990 forms (which is the primary return for non profits) you want to group the accounts so that the tax software will fill out parts of the form automatically. Grouping the taxes at first seemed daunting, but once I figured out what I was doing I was very efficient at it, and was learning about the tax world at the same time. The next day we had an example shown to us on how to fill out the actual return. The IRS decided to change around a lot of the 990, so showing us an example was more plausible. The tax part was pretty straight forward and, as some of the staff put it, it was just like figuring out a big puzzle.

       To summarize my thoughts of the first week, I think it’s a big advantage to be coming in with only three other interns as opposed to 70. I got to meet everyone in the audit department including Charlie Tate and Mike Tryon. Everyone knows you are one of the new interns and takes time to learn your name. The training is more personal and you get to ask direct questions of staff members. Also, you become familiar with all the interns, so in case you miss something they can quickly fill you in. This created a great experience for my first week and hopefully it will continue.

-Tim Tishman

Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

The life of a Tate & Tryon intern: Week one

Greetings from the bullpen.  And no, I am not writing this in an area where relief pitchers warm up before being called to the mound.  The audit bullpen is where I and the other interns sit.  We are just finishing up our first week at Tate & Tryon.  I will start with a little background of myself.  I will be a senior in the fall at Virginia Tech.  I'm originally from a tiny town in southwest Virginia called Gate City.  However I currently reside in Kingsport, Tennessee when I'm not in Blacksburg.  I have never lived in a big city before so I'm pretty stoked about this summer.  I plan on going to tons of Nationals games this summer.  Now back to my life as an intern. 

 

When I arrived at the office on Monday, I honestly didn't know what to expect.  I was happy to see Kate Skidmore help me get acclimated to Tate & Tryon.  I met the other three interns and Kate told us a bit about the firm.  After Kate told us about the environment and history of T & T we met most of the audit staff, all of whom were very welcoming.  Erin and Kate tooks all of the interns out to lunch which was a very pleasant dining experience.

To my surprise we started doing actual audit work on the first day.  I honestly thought the most work I would be doing the first week on the job would involve a copy or a coffee machine.  We were introduced to my new best friend ProSystem Engagement which is affectionately referred to as E-Pace by the T & T audit staff.  I still haven’t figured out how ProSystem Engagement is abbreviated as E-Pace, but maybe we won’t learn that until next week.  Stephanie did a very good job of training us on the software and all of the interns did all of the preliminary work for an actual audit!  Most of my friends would not be excited about the idea of planning an audit, however I found it quite interesting.  We didn’t finish the audit planning therefore we continued to work on it throughout the week.

We started our tax training on Wednesday with Leslie.  She did a really great job of teaching us about the 990 forms.  She also taught us how to make subgroups for accounts that don’t fit anywhere else on a tax return.  If that doesn’t get you excited about Tate & Tryon then I don’t know what will.  We continued to learn about preparing tax returns for Wednesday and most of Thursday. 

As you can tell, my first week at T & T was a bit overwhelming.  I never imagined that I would be performing audit work that other staff members will use to complete an actual audit on my first day of work.  I am very excited about the rest of my summer in D.C. at Tate & Tryon.  Everyone I have met has been incredibly nice and welcoming.  Even though the employees are professionals, they still know how to have fun.  They have truly broken the stereotype for me that all accountants are nerds.  I could not be happier to be gaining practical and challenging work experience this summer while being in D.C.  I’m sure the rest of the summer will prove challenging and rewarding at the same time.  I am also extremely excited about the prospects of watching the Red Sox play against the Nationals in a few weeks with a bunch of other T & T employees.   That’s all for now.

Cheers,

Andrew Miller

Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

 

Cherrie's First Intern Blog of the Summer

I guess I could start with a little tidbit about myself: I am from Chesapeake, VA born and raised.  I'll be going into my senior year at the College of William and Mary, majoring in Accounting with a concentration in Process, Management, and Consulting in addition to a minor in Sociology.  I like to balance out my school life with a bunch of extra-curriculars too.  While I’m missing impromptu drives to the beach at home, I am sooo excited to be spending the summer in the city.  But enough about me, and on to the internship…

 

The first week of our summer internship at Tate & Tryon is coming to close, and I’m happy to say that it’s been a good one.  Honestly, I had no idea coming in what to expect.  Despite hours of classroom time and late night study sessions, nothing can quite prepare you for the actual day-to-day application of your chosen education path. 

 

The morning of our first day was filled with a whirlwind of introductions (fyi – names are not my forte), orientation discussions, and confused missteps in the office labyrinth (fyi- I have a pretty bad sense of direction as well).  Following an awesome lunch out at the charming Old Ebbitt Grill, we delved right into familiarizing ourselves with the type of work we’ll be doing this summer.  So far - much of our time has been occupied with training exercises on the oh-so-simple (I kid) ProSystems program.  Under the instruction of our patient instructors Stephanie and Leslie, as well as other helpful members of the staff, we’ve been learning how to navigate, alter, and create the audit and tax binders.  Although we’ve been assured that the program just takes some time to get used to, I’m pretty sure I’ll never quite understand what I’m doing with that program.  If asked, I probably couldn’t quite explain what exactly we’re doing, but I feel I’m getting a lot from the learning process nevertheless.

 

Despite all my misgivings about whether I’m doing the right thing at any given moment, I’ve really been liking my time here so far.  I consider myself pretty lucky to have given this opportunity and I plan to make the best of it.  The people here have been extraordinarily welcoming, outgoing, and willing to help.  This summer, I look forward to working and learning more while enjoying my short stay in D.C.

 

- Cherrie

Intern Blog - First Entry

My first week with Tate & Tryon has gone very smoothly.  All the employees that I have met have been very welcoming and kind - there are many of them, and it has been quite a struggle learning their names.  One of my favorite aspects of the internship program is that almost immediately we began learning practical skills.  Our first few days were filled with a crash course of the "epace" program which is used during the audit and tax process.  It was a lot of information to absorb in a short period of time, but as we progressed things became clearer.  We were assigned a client and were told to perform the job of planning for the upcoming audit, also that what we were doing was going to be used by the auditors in the field.  To say the least I was terrified that my lack of understanding might cause more problems, and take time away from others, rather than ease the process.  This feeling was shared by my fellow interns.  We joked that we would probably all be fired when they saw our work.  But as we spent more time with the program and the documents within, we all became more comfortable and confident that we were moving in the right direction. 

The next couple days were spent on the tax side of things.  We learned the dynamic between the audit and tax department, and that the tax people use the audited financial statements and compiled documents to prepare the tax returns for clients.  Because the tax form 990 has recently changed, and many staff members are still becoming acquainted with the details of the forms, we are not going to be compiling them ourselves.  Apparently this is something for which to be grateful.  Instead, we learned how to group accounts, a process which makes compiling the tax return much easier.  Although I could see this process being somewhat tedious when there are thousands of accounts, for our practice we had a mere 200 accounts to handle, which was just enough to learn.  I found grouping to be somewhat satisfying.  I'm told my attitude may change when I'm faced with a more daunting client's file.  When I saw how easy it is to compile a tax return once the accounts are grouped, it gave me a greater respect for the process.

Last night the firm sponsored a Happy Hour at Gordon Biersch.  Unfortunately I still have 5 months or so before I'm 21, so the experience was bitter sweet.  Even though I didn't partake in the "main course," it did give me a chance to see first hand that Tate & Tryon values its employees, treats them well, and encourages them to become friends.  It is clear that that the staff enjoy each other's company, and that there is a very healthy dynamic between professionalism/productivity and friendship/camaraderie. I am greatly looking forward to the upcoming weeks when I'll be working in the field and seeing my training in context.

Seth Pates

William and Mary 2010

Zeinab's Audit Internship at T&T

I began my internship a few months ago in January 2009. Its been a great experience so far. At T&T I have had the opportunity to work with people of all different levels, from staff to partners. Everyone has been very welcoming and friendly. They are really a great group of people. I constantly ask the others how they like working at T&T, how it compares to other companies they have been at, if they have taken the CPA exam yet, and any advice they have for me. I always get honest and genuine answers and feedback.

During my internship I feel I have had a great balance between working in the office and working in the field with clients. I didn't expect to go on so many audits during the course of the internship but the managers always kept me in mind when they were planning an audit which was great. What ever my career plans turn out to be in the future I am glad that I was able to spend a few months at this company, learning about auditing and getting to know others in the field. I truly appreciate the opportunity I was given.

Final Blog this Summer - Christine Connell

Today is August 15^th, the last day of my internship.  Working at Tate & Tryon has been a great experience and I have gotten to meet many people at the firm.  I enjoyed working with the other interns.  My mentors, Leslie and Lauren, were also very nice and willing to help me.  My experience this summer has convinced me to come back next year.

Christine Connell

Penn State

Final Blog as an Intern - Archana Banskota

I had a great experience this summer overall, and at the end I got offered a full time position which I gladly accepted. I am looking forward to being a part of T&T staff once I am done school and working with the staff here!

Archana Banskota

William and Mary