A day as an Audit Manager
An audit manager stops doing the testing and starts deciding whether the testing is good enough. You're running several client engagements at once, reviewing your seniors' workpapers, and standing between the team, the client's CFO and the partner who signs the opinion. The day below is a public accounting firm in the middle of busy season, because that's where most audit managers learn the job.
Busy season, one Tuesday at the firm
Clearing review notes before anyone else logs in
You open CaseWare or the firm's audit platform and work through the revenue and receivables sections your senior finished last night. Most of your notes are small: a tick mark nobody defined, a sample pulled from the wrong population, a conclusion that restates the test instead of answering it. One note is bigger. The allowance for doubtful accounts rolls forward, but nobody asked why the aging buckets shifted so much from the prior period.
Status call with the client's controller
You walk the controller through the open PBC list, the prepared-by-client requests your team is still waiting on. Two items have been outstanding for a week, and the fixed asset rollforward came back with a different total than the general ledger. You keep your tone friendly and your dates firm, because every late item shrinks the time your team has to finish. You also flag the allowance question here, early, so it doesn't show up as a surprise in the closing meeting.
The plan breaks
Your senior on a second engagement messages you: the client just disclosed a customer contract they hadn't mentioned, with a side letter that changes when revenue should be recognized. That's no longer a routine test. You pull the contract, read the side letter yourself, loop in the firm's revenue specialist, and tell the partner before lunch rather than after. Half your afternoon plan is gone, and the team on that job now needs new procedures written by tomorrow.
Coaching a first-year through a walkthrough
You sit with a new staff auditor who has documented the purchasing process by copying the client's policy word for word. You show them how to trace one real purchase order from request to payment and write what actually happened, including the approval that happened by email instead of in the system. It takes longer than fixing it yourself. It's also the only way you get a better set of workpapers next month.
Budget, staffing and the partner's review
You check hours against budget in the time system and see the second engagement is already running over. You draft a short note to the partner covering the contract issue, the extra procedures and the likely fee conversation with the client. Then you clear the partner's own review notes on a finished file so it can go to engagement quality review. On a good night you log off at a reasonable hour. Busy season has fewer good nights than you'd like.
What changes when you move up from senior
As a senior you're judged on your own work: clean workpapers, a finished section, a client who likes you. As a manager you're judged on work you didn't do. Did the file hold up in the firm's inspection? Did the engagement come in near budget? Did the client get told about a problem early enough to fix it? That shift catches a lot of new managers off guard. The ones who struggle keep redoing their seniors' work at night instead of sending clear review notes and letting the senior fix it. You'll also start spending real time on scoping and risk assessment at the start of each engagement, deciding which accounts deserve the most testing and which can get lighter procedures. Get that wrong and you either blow the budget or miss the thing that mattered.
Three ways people end up running audits
Up through a public accounting firm
The most common route. You start as a staff auditor, move to senior after a few busy seasons, and get promoted to manager once you've run engagements on your own and earned your CPA license. Licensing rules vary by state, so check with your state board of accountancy for the education, exam and experience it asks for.
Across into internal audit
Plenty of audit managers leave public accounting and run the internal audit function at a company, a bank or a hospital system. The work leans toward operational and SOX controls testing rather than signing off on financial statements, and the hours tend to be steadier. A Certified Internal Auditor credential helps here, and it isn't tied to a state license.
Through IT or specialist audit
Some managers come up through IT audit, testing access controls, change management and system interfaces. If you hold a CISA and understand how an ERP like SAP or Oracle moves data, you can run IT audit engagements or the technology side of an integrated audit. It's a smaller field with less competition for manager roles.
What Audit Manager postings ask for
Hiring the most
- Crowe20
- cbh (Cherrybekaert)15
- dstaff13
- Baker Tilly12
- Capital One10
Remote
8% of openings are fully remote.
Posted pay
$94,990 – $153,790
Typical range in the 48 of the newest 60 postings that list pay.
Questions people ask
Do you need a CPA license to be an audit manager?
In public accounting, yes, in practice. Firms rarely promote someone to manager without it, because managers review work that supports a signed audit opinion. Requirements differ by state, so check your state board of accountancy. In internal audit it's often preferred rather than required, and a CIA or CISA can carry similar weight.
How is an audit manager different from an audit senior?
The senior runs the day-to-day fieldwork on one engagement and writes most of the workpapers. The manager oversees several engagements, reviews that work, handles the harder accounting questions, manages budget and staffing, and is the main contact for the client's finance leadership between partner check-ins.
Is the manager level the hardest step in public accounting?
Many people say so. You still carry a heavy review load during busy season, and now you're also accountable for budgets, client relationships and staff development. It's also the level where people decide whether to chase partner or move to industry, so a lot of managers leave within a couple of seasons.
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