Auditing and consulting services. Big Four Auditing Companies: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG

Why are Big Four audit firms famous all over the world? What are they? We will answer these questions in the article as detailed as possible. The Big Four are four companies that provide audit and consulting services. They are considered the largest in the world and have the following names:

• KPMG;
• Ernst & Young
• Deloitte;
• PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Below is the latest Big Four revenue and headcount:

Transformations

How did the Big Four audit companies appear? There were once eight huge enterprises, and they were collectively called the Big Eight. The merger of Touche Ross and Deloitte, Sells and Haskins took place in 1989 (the combined company was named Deloitte & Touche). Arthur Young and Ernst & Whinney (new name - Ernst & Young) also merged. As a result, the "Eight" was transformed into the "Six". The number of huge firms again decreased after the merger of Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse in 1998 (PricewaterhouseCoopers appeared). Finally, the "Five" was transformed into the "Four" after the wholesale departure of customers from Arthur Andersen and the subsequent liquidation of the company in 2002.

International network

Now consider the Big Four audit firms. PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international network of companies offering professional consulting and auditing services. It is made up of companies that are part of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited's global network of businesses, each of which is a legally independent entity. This organization is a member of the "Big Four" accounting firms and has existed for over 160 years. The network is headquartered in London.

History of PwC

Interested in knowing what the Big Four audit firms do? So, PwC was founded in London in 1849, and in 1998, as a result of the merger of Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse, it received its current name.

In 2011, in April, the management of PricewaterhouseCoopers admitted the company's guilt in conducting a hacky audit of the Indian corporation Satyam Computer Services (specialists did not find a fraudulent scheme by which the company's management caused enormous damage to the owner). PwC agreed to pay $7.5 million in fines to US regulators and $18 million in damages to the owner of the Indian plant.

Management and owners of PwC

Listed on PwC as a limited partnership, it is the country's third-largest private enterprise by revenue. Its general manager is Moritz Robert.

Corporate culture PwC

PricewaterhouseCoopers is one of Fortune's 100 Greatest Employers in America each year. In the 2013 ranking, she won 81st place.

This organization has sponsorship programs. So, within the framework of a project involving partners, partners, starting with the main ones, become mentors for fifteen employees of the company. They establish personal and professional contacts, get to know families, find out what the employees are interested in and aspire to. Once a quarter, the wards meet with their bosses to discuss their weaknesses and strengths, ways to correct the former and strengthen the latter.

PwC activities

770 PwC network offices are located in 158 countries. Its clients in 2006 included 425 FT Global 500 companies.

PwC employs over 168,000 professionals. The revenue of this enterprise in 2011 amounted to 29.2 billion dollars.

PwC in Russia

PwC in Russia first started operations in 1913. The Moscow office of this company is located on Butyrsky Val. It also has offices in St. Petersburg, Voronezh, Vladikavkaz, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnodar and Rostov-on-Don. The Togliatti office was closed in 2009 due to a lack of customers in the region. As of 2009, PwC had approximately 2,300 employees in Russia.

This organization, together with the International Faculty of Finance of the Financial Academy, launched the master's project "World Capitals" in 2009, in which disciplines that study income were taught in English.

PwC won first place in the ranking of the largest consulting and audit companies in 2012, displacing KPMG from there, but since 2013 it has again moved to second position.

The managing partner of this company in Russia is Igor Lotakov.

Deloitte

What is Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited? It is a worldwide network of companies providing consulting and audit support. She is a member of the Big Four. This is the largest network in terms of the number of employees (244,400 specialists).

Chronicle of Deloitte

The first Deloitte Touche office was established by Deloitte William Welsh in London in 1849. In 1990, Touche George and a partner registered Touche, Niven & Co. in New York. Tohmatsu Awoki & Co. started its operations in Tokyo in 1968. The Deloitte & Touche organization appeared in 1990 as a result of integration, and in 1993 the company received its current name.

Deloitte global structure

Why is Deloitte good? Its each representative office is legally independent and separate and subject to the laws of the country in which it operates.

For many years, the international network of Deloitte enterprises was a Swiss association, but in 2010, on July 31, the members of this organization became part of the private company Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, with the responsibility of the participants within the boundaries provided by them, established in England.

In this structure, the cooperative provides support only to its member enterprises. It is similar to other worldwide networks providing high quality services. In turn, participating firms provide assistance to the end user. Management tries to limit the liability of each independent member. The CEO of this company is Renjen Puneet.

Deloitte activities

Deloitte provides consulting, tax, audit and corporate finance assistance to private and public enterprises operating in various economic sectors.

By the end of 2015, Deloitte was active in more than 150 countries. Its shareholder firms reported cumulative record revenues of $35.2 billion in 2015.

Deloitte in CIS countries

Deloitte opened its first residence in Moscow in 1990. It was one of the first among the famous consulting and auditing companies to appear on the market of the CIS countries.

In Russia, this company is represented in five large cities: Yekaterinburg and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, where about 2,000 specialists work.

In Russia, Deloitte is part of Deloitte CIS Holdings Limited, which is part of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, which is part of the Deloitte international group of companies.

The organization's offices are open in 11 CIS countries, as well as Ukraine and Georgia. They employ more than 2,500 employees. This firm provides the following services:

• corporate finance;
• taxation and law;
• consulting services.

Have you ever heard of Ernst Young? This British one of the largest in the world (included in the "Big Four" auditor firms). It has been operating under the EY trademark, which is the abbreviation of the company's name, since 2013. Its headquarters is located in London.

History of Ernst Young

Ernst Young was founded in 1989 by integrating American accounting firms: Ernst & Whinney, founded by Ernst Alvin in 1903, and A. C. Young, formed by Young Arthur in 1906.

EY is a British audit and consulting company that provided assistance to the bankrupt in September 2008. This collapse marked the transition of the economic global crisis of the late 2000s into an intense phase. Ernst & Young then said that Lehman went bankrupt due to a series of negative unprecedented events in the financial markets, and management, not the auditor, was responsible for the bank's credit debt.

Mark Weinberger is the Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of EY. Its main office is located in Sydney (Australia). In general, this company has opened 728 offices in 150 countries of the world, employing more than 230 thousand specialists.

In Russia, the firm owns offices located in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Krasnodar, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Tolyatti, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don and Vladivostok.

Activities of Ernst Young

EY was ranked number one in BusinessWeek's annual list of "Popular Places to Start a Career". And on Fortune's 2009 list of 100 Selected Firms to Work, this organization ranked 44th and the highest among the Big Four.

The University of Great Place to Work (USA) in 2012 included EY in the list of the most outstanding employers among multinational enterprises. It is known that this inventory is being compiled for the second year. It includes 25 world leading companies in this field.

EY was named Top Skilled Employer in 2013 and ranked second in the Universum 50 World's Most Attractive Employers internationally.

In 2015, she was also ranked as the best employer among professional assistance firms, and she was ranked eighth in the RF Universum 50 World’s Most Attractive Employers.

KPMG

Why is KPMG famous? It is one of the largest networks in the world providing qualified support. She is part of the Big Four. Its international headquarters is located in the Netherlands (Amstelveen).

The company employs more than 162,000 employees. KPMG provides three types of services: and advisory services (restructuring with business management, management and risk clarification).

History of KPMG

KPMG was founded in 1870 when Pete William Barclay registered an accounting business in London. In 1911, Willari Barclay Peat & Co merged with Marwick Mitchell & Co to form Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co, later known as Peat Marwick.

At the same time in Glasgow in 1877, the office of the accounting company Thomson McLintock was established. Kleinveld Piet opened an accounting firm in Amsterdam in 1917. A little later, he entered into an alliance with Klynveld Kraayenhof & Co with Krayenhof. In 1979, Deutsche Treuhandgesellschaft (Germany), Klynveld Kraayenhof & Co (Netherlands) and McLintock Main Lafrentz (USA) created an alliance of national independent firms KMG to create a powerful international European company. Then in 1987, Peat Marwick and KMG made the first major integration of accounting businesses and created an organization that was called KPMG, except for the English one - Peat Marwick McLintock.

Further, KPMG underwent various changes, and in October 2007 its member firms from Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain and Liechtenstein were integrated into the KPMG Europe partnership. After that it was joined by member firms from Belgium, the CIS, Spain, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Norway.

In December 2008, it became known that $2.37 billion of two funds from the Tremont group, which was a KPMG client, had been transferred to Madoff's pyramid scheme.

KPMG structure

KPMG audits at the highest level. She is in Fortune's 100 Selected Employers in the United States each year. She took 63rd place in the 2014 ranking, leaving behind all the other fours. Each international office of this company is an independent legal entity - a member of the KPMG International cooperative (a Swiss company registered in the canton of Zug).

In 2003, KPMG International changed its legal structure from a Swiss company to a cooperative society under Swiss law.

Such a structure, in which the cooperative supports only its member firms, is similar to other networks that provide qualified assistance. Similarly, participating firms provide services to the end user. The aim is to limit the duties of independent members.

Andrew Michael, former Australian Chairman of KPMG, took over as International Chairman in September 2011. Today he works in Hong Kong. For the first time in history, the global head of a Big Four accounting firm is based in the Pacific-Asia region.

KPMG in the CIS

KPMG provides audit and consulting services in the CIS countries. It has its branches in Azerbaijan, Russia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia. More than 3,800 employees work in its divisions.

The company opened its office in Moscow, its regional centers are located in Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Perm, St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Kazan, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod. are her clients. In fiscal year 2011, the revenue of KPMG units in Russia amounted to 10.5 billion rubles.

Expert RA found that KPMG's audit business has been the largest in the Russian Federation since 2009. In 2011, KPMG was the greatest consulting and auditing firm in the country, but PwC came in first with the same result the following year.

Expertise

The "Big Four" audit is excellent. But what is it? An audit is a branch of economic activity and an academic discipline studied at institutes. According to the legislation of the Russian Federation, an audit is understood only as operations to verify financial (accounting) reports and accounting data, as well as displaying, based on its results, an independent motivated opinion of the auditor on the authenticity of the statements in the form of a written opinion of a specialist.

In essence and in accordance with the traditions of business vocabulary and turnover, an audit is a procedure for evaluating and independently verifying accounting data, evaluating the reporting and activities of an enterprise, as well as a process, system, product or project. Most often, this term is applied to the audit of the accounting statements of firms in order to express opinions about their reliability.

In business practice, the concepts of "technical audit", "operational", "quality", "environmental" and other variations of the audit are used. However, these processes and concepts do not have the (legal) formulation specified in the law. Some types of expertise are close in certification and value. It is necessary to distinguish these types of audit, inspection and control activities from the audit of financial statements.

Consulting

And now let's find out what is the work associated with advising managers, leaders on issues in the field of technological, commercial, expert, financial, legal, technical activities. The purpose of this discipline is to help management (management system) in achieving its goals.

Consulting enterprises are typified by separate areas of practice (for example, personnel, financial, strategic, organizational).

Consulting is designed to analyze and justify the prospects for the application and development of scientific, technical and economic-organizational solutions, taking into account the problems of the client and the subject area.

Counseling is necessary in the following cases:

• The firm needs new ideas.
• The firm needs knowledge and experience.
• The management of the enterprise does not agree on an important issue, and in order to get an objective recommendation, an outside opinion is required.
• The firm needs support to complete a project.
• Due to the shortcomings of intra-corporate dialogue, the company needs a professional who can become a link between departments and levels.

Dear Colleagues!

Ensuring the high quality of audit services provided based on compliance with national auditing rules, improving the technology and organization of auditing contribute to a high level of service and satisfaction of the needs of users of financial statements.

Based on the information received by the editors of the magazine "Chief Accountant", a rating of organizations providing audit services was formed based on the results of work for 2016.

The given data on the volume of revenue from the services rendered for 2016 testify to the stable rating of the leading audit companies. Among the leaders of the rating are the following companies:

Grant Thornton LLC - first place;

FBK-Bel LLC - second place;

Baker Tilly Bel LLC - third place.

Over the course of 23 years, Grant Thornton LLC has gained a reputation as a reliable partner and one of the leaders in the audit services market. It is a member of the International Network of Audit Organizations Grant Thornton International Ltd (London, UK). The company continues to strengthen its positions in the market of audit services, helps dynamically developing companies to reveal their internal potential, provides audit and professional services in accordance with national and international standards of various sectors of the economy.

The company is accredited for projects financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank, and provides services to other international financial institutions.

A consistently successful audit organization of the Republic of Belarus is LLC FBK-Bel, a member of the International Audit Network PKF International (London, UK). The company has unique practical experience in auditing financial statements prepared in accordance with IFRS requirements at enterprises and organizations of various forms of ownership and in various areas of the economy of the Republic of Belarus. LLC "FBK-Bel" takes part in projects financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank, the Northern Investment Bank and other foreign organizations.

The company has a system of comprehensive consulting support in the field of implementation and application of IFRS, including the provision of the necessary services related to this process for assessing the value of assets based on the IFRS methodology.

Baker Tilly Bel LLC is a member of one of the largest international audit networks - Baker Tilly International (London, UK). The company has significant experience in implementing IFRS projects for both individual companies and holding structures in various sectors of the economy. Baker Tilly Bel LLC offers a full range of services in the field of audit, consulting, as well as accounting and tax accounting for foreign enterprises.

The presented data of the rating of the audit services market indicate that a number of audit organizations are actively raising their status by increasing the volume of services provided and attracting new clients. Among these companies, we highlight the following organizations:

ALC "ProfAuditConsult" - more than 2 times growth in revenue compared to 2015;

AuditComService LLC - an increase in the volume of services provided compared to 2015 by 77.7%;

LLC "Audit and Law" - the growth rate of the volume of audit services - 52.6%;

ALC "ClassAudit" - the volume of revenue increased compared to 2015 by 50.6%;

LLC "Audit Center "Erudit" - growth in revenue compared to 2015 - 47.5%;

FinExpertiza-Bel LLC - revenue growth compared to 2015 - 46.5%.

Key positions in the audit services market are occupied by other organizations participating in the rating for 2016.

Congratulations to all participants of the rating! We wish you good luck in your necessary and difficult work, so that compliance with the basic principles of audit activity - independence, confidentiality, professional competence, ethical behavior - will serve as the basis for a good reputation of our organizations in the Belarusian and foreign audit services market.

We invite auditors to cooperate as authors of the magazine "Chief Accountant". We are waiting for your suggestions on improving the procedure for rating audit organizations.

In the last 5 years alone, the domestic market for audit and consulting services has doubled. The main customers of the services of audit companies are big business and public sector enterprises.
The most reputable audit companies in Russia, as a rule, are subsidiaries of international institutions. Today we bring to your attention rating of the largest audit companies in the Russian Federation. The rating participants are ranked according to the amount of annual revenue.

10. ACG "DELOVOY PROFILE" (GGI)

The audit and consulting group "DELOVOY PROFIL" has been consistently holding a leading position in the Russian market since 1995. ACG is a partner of the international audit association Geneva Group International (GGI).

9. RSM "Top-Audit"

At the end of 2013, the company was divided, and today the audit company RSM Rus and the consulting company AKF Top-Audit operate on the market. RSM Top-Audit's clients include such giants as JSC Federal Grid Company UES, Federal State Unitary Enterprise Russian Post, JSC Gazprom, JSC Aeroflot, JSC MTS, JSC Rosneft, JSC Russian Railways ", OJSC "Sberbank of Russia".

8. ACG "Development of business systems"

The company was awarded the domestic award "For Contribution to the Economic Development of Russia", and is also among the "1000 best enterprises in Russia". RBS is part of the Crowe Horwath International network with an annual turnover of about $3.2 billion. The network includes 558 companies from 120 countries.

7. "2K Audit - Business Consulting/Morison International"

The company is a member of the international association of independent consultants and auditors Morison International. The Association ranks 4th in Europe in terms of total revenue. There are 8 branches of the company in Russia.

6. Energy Consulting

This group of companies was founded in 2001. And since 2013, Energy Consulting has been the main partner of the international network of independent audit and consulting companies HLB International. Among the clients of Energy Consulting are Tatneft, RAO UES of Russia, Gazprom, Mechel, LUKOIL, SIBUR, AvtoVAZ, Sberbank of Russia, Uralsib, Alfa-Bank.

5. "Intercom-Audit"

The company was founded in 1993. Since 1996, Intercom-Audit has been a member of BKR International, the World Association of Accounting and Consulting Firms. The branch network of the company covers 150 cities of Russia and the CIS. Intercom-Audit services are used by about 20 thousand clients.

4. BDO

The group company is a member of "the BDO network" - an international organization of independent audit and consulting companies, which is the fifth in the world in terms of total revenue. "the BDO network" unites about 55 thousand employees in 139 countries.

3. "FinExpertiza"

Since 2004, the group of companies has been the exclusive representative on the territory of the Russian Federation - the international association of independent audit and accounting companies CPA Associates International. FinExpertiza's clients are Russian Railways, Rosneft, and ROSENERGOBANK.

2. KPMG

KPMG has been operating on the Russian market since 1990. Since 2009, the group of companies has been part of KPMG Europe LLP. In 2013, KPMG was recognized as the best tax services company in Russia.

1. PricewaterhouseCoopers Russia B.V.

The Russian representative office of the world's most famous auditing company, PricewaterhouseCoopers, employs more than 1,380 accountants and auditors, about 550 tax and legal consultants, as well as 350 investment, financial services and corporate finance consultants.