#8 Eating Hours
Jan 22nd, 2009 by pfi
While accountants are known workaholics, the time charged for work doesn’t reflect this if they are in public accounting. While an accountant may routinely work 12 hour plus days, they may only charge 9 hours. This is known as eating hours and is done to maintain the illusion of efficiency.
Let’s be clear that eating hours is wrong and may be illegal. Accountants, like many professions, are under immense amounts of pressure due to time and money. Specifically, there is not enough time nor money. Accountants pride themselves on their work and are given a small fraction of the time needed to do a proper job.
How does everything work with a budget of 4 hours and a realistic timeline requiring 16 hours? Answer: eating hours. It allows accountants to overwork and appear to only have worked a few hours. The extra time spent working is simply ignored as if it never occurred. This maintains the illusion of efficiency.
As one of the foundations of public accounting, eating hours will not go away anytime soon. It’s simply not possible when you are given 8 hours for equity (at a public company, which includes memos, testwork, and clearing comments) to stay within the budget. As each quarter/year/fiscal cycle passes, the alloted time for budgets manages to further shrink.
The last paragraph is a cop out. Eating time is not some “necessary” evil. It is a symptom of the unethical, egotistical, cutthroat (see: throwing people under the bus) culture that is prevalent among many public accounting firms. If ever the term “slippery slope” were applicable, it would be to this. Pressured to stay under budget? Eat 5 hours. Pressured to wrap up fieldwork? Check off a few of your untested samples as “vouched w/o/e.” Pressured to keep a a going concern paragraph off the audit report? Use your “professional judgment” to move some of that debt off the balance sheet and hide it in the notes.
So, eating hours: Yeah, the pressure’s there. And you have the opportunity. Don’t be a douchebag by justifying it. It’s better to sleep well, than eat well.
As an accounting person.. i totally agree. I think the acctg. industry is the most inefficient industry. They make these unrealistic deadlines and put people under unnecessary pressure. I think if they just promised the client something reasonable a lot of people would not quit.
I used to have bosses who ate at least half of every day and got onto me whenever I would charge my actual time, admonishing me that there was no way it took me three times as long to do (fill in the blank) as it takes them.
So I followed their lead by eating my own hours, and then they wanted to know why I was @ the office 8am-8pm but had only charged 8 hrs. One of the MANY reasons I left public.
I have worked for a big 4 for firm for many years and was never asked to eat hours. The practice is forbidden at my firm, and if caught eating hours you could lose your bonus.
BONUS!?
Bonus! Got any openings?
Bonus? What’s this bonus business? Surely you don’t mean that you currently work at big 4 but USED to work at big 4, right?
Eating hours is bullshit & I refused to do this for the last couple years. I work enough unpaid overtime that I was not about to work further unpaid overtime just to meet some unrealistic budget, which would only mean getting squeezed worse the following year by being handed the same budget for a tax return that was even more complicated. Did I say unpaid overtime? What I meant was that the amount of additional hours worked during busy season is considered when the partners determine the overall level of an individual’s compensation.
You can’t get F-ed unless you assume the position. If you’re going to work in public, keep a tube of lube in your desk as you will need it.
Everyone who is outraged at the thought of eating time has never been annihilated on an annual review for blowing a budget. When you get a horrible review, you are in danger of getting fired…in college, I thought it was unethical. Now, I think it is necessary to survive and to stay employed. I disagree with the above comment – you will get F-ed unless you assume the position. Insubordination and opinions are not viewed favorably. Just work 16 hours, charge about 10 to stay fully utilized while not blowing a budget…very logical.
KG its people like you that ruin it for everyone else. If NO ONE is eating hours then everyone will have blown the budgets just as bad and they cant throw the person who blew the budget under the bus.
The whole concept of putting budgets on staff is retarded. Don’t tell me how long it takes to get something done. It takes however long it takes. Its good to have as a guideline for realization & if you want to keep the client in future years, etc., but it in no way should be pressuring people to eat hours. If you are going to eat time on something that is over budget, then on the flip side of that coin you should put in extra time for a project you come in under budget on, and that hardly seems ethical.
Ambivalence runs rampant throughout BIG 4 public accounting culture. If you try to do the ‘right’ thing and charge all your time you’ll quickly find yourself an outcast – unable to get the opportunity to be assigned to engagements that interest you with people you want to work with – instead you’ll find yourself stuck doing undesirable shit work. But if you eat time then everyone wants to know why you are in the office so late and not utilized. I think the underlying objective is to weed people out. They actually would prefer that most of the staff quits within 2 to 3 years. The BIG 4 is a place to ‘launch’ your career but not maintain a career. Of course they don’t tell you that when you take the job. I am surprised that the people have not been more vocal in exposing the provision for what it truly is…
You guys are all pussies. Over the long haul you are evaluated on the value you bring to the overall client experience, not how much time you eat. Eating time just makes you cynical. Grow a sack – if you’re in this business to be everyone’s buddy go work at a pizza joint.
Just charge all of your time. If the higher-ups think it should have taken less time, they are free to back hours out of the bill. At least they know for next year’s budget. There is an inverse relationship between staff level and estimates for time to complete – the higher one’s staff level, the less time one thinks a task will take subordinates to complete. And, I am convinced that the day one becomes a manager, they instantly forget what it was like to be a senior or associate.
Seriously people still eat time? I have 11 years in Big 4 national office and have never eaten time- not once. I did the work- your number is getting hit with my time. I am confident in my ability to bring value and have no problem explaining to the partner what I did, why it took that long and why his estimate was wrong. If you fudge your numbers the expectation will be that it can be done that quick next year too- it’s bad for business. Better to take the hit one year and deal with extra billings, price negotiation next year, or in some cases dumping the client. Don’t mistake someones requests to improve efficiency and bring more value for a request to eat time- this may be a problem with your performance and not a culture of eating time- you might not be that good at this work.
BIG4 SM Should be put before a firing squad and shot because he is obviously a greedy and rapacious partner trying to squeeze every ounce of sweat out of his employees at the sweat shop that he works at.
If you look around your office you’ll notice the highest ranked and most highly regarded staff are the ones who eat the most hours – often they’re the ones on Sametime from 7:30am – 11pm but have the same utilization as everyone else.
Btw, when you get hungry in busy season, eating hours is a great way to ensure you don’t gain any weight rather than eating greasy takeout.
[…] much “fun” as working on an under-budgeted area and eating hours is, it actually is not fun. The same goes for dealing with certain people in the office who have […]
I work at a big four and every senior I know and have ever known (excpet for tax) eats hours. Budgets are unrealistic and though every year we blow them every year they get smaller. You gotta do what you gotta do to. It is an accrual world.
I used to never eat hours. Then a senior blew a budget and threw me under the bus, then parked the bus on my a**. Reality is that you should not eat time, the partner is responsible to adjust the amount billed for inefficencies on the backend. But if you have a senior/manager who consistently changes the scope of the work and doesn’t change the budget, and you know that they will never face up to the partner, then you are forced to do what the partner is supposed to do, just on the front end.
btw, when a supervisor throws you under the bus and uses HR/performance review, you never get that bus off you (seriously – a little help here please ). I appreciate the idealists, but reality is what it is, sometimes you have to eat some time to CYA, otherwise you will find yourself a scapegoat, and badly burned.
does it matter to YOU whether you eat hours or not? you’ll be evaluated at the year-end based on results (engagement done on time and within budget), not hours you charged. managers and above will get bitten for budget overruns. the only thing that hours charged impact are bonuses, provided you stay within the “safe” range of hours for a year. if you go below, then use all hours. if you go above, all extra you’ll get (maybe) is a bonus.
Incredulous brilliant comment
You can’t get F-ed unless you assume the position. If you’re going to work in public, keep a tube of lube in your desk as you will need it.
It’s getting better now too with the general economy. All the Big 4 are negotiating cuts with their clients to keep them, so guess what happens, the budgets become even more unrealistic.
At our firm, it’s become like this. 2nd years are thrown in the position to lead jobs and they are expected to do the same quality work as a Senior and come in under budget from what the senior did a year ago, all so the damn WIP remains positive.
We like to call it the recovery rate. Total bullshit if you ask me. If a client is willing to pay a million for a job then the client is paying a million. As Staff Accountants we don’t make overtime and we make the equivalent of $20 an hour. Yet when the compute the fu**ing recovery rate is based on our billings of $200 an hour. And if you have a recovery rate of less than 70% you are seen to do a shit job.
I’m already in the shit so I don’t care, but most of my collegeaus have eaten at least 30% of their time this year, and are encouraged to do it by managers who want to look good. Amazing, that our profession has so much integrity.
If you work at PwC you are not only encouraged to eat time, you are FORCED to eat time, or you will find yourself out of a job. The people that oversee the engagments at PwC have NO integrity whatsoever and consistently pay mere lip service to the firm policy of ‘charge all your time’.
Got killed on my reviews for not eating time.
I was never specifically told to eat hours [except maybe once,] but I learned after a while that if you didn’t, that particular senior/manager made sure you didn’t work on their projects again.
Dammit…. I saw the picture and thought this post would be about chocolate cake 🙁
PwC Sr Mgr in Raleigh will force you to eat hours – even the time it takes for your computer to start up in the morning. Beware!!
Interesting HourEater how you reference sametime. Clearly you work for PWC who probably are the least ethical of all the big 4 firms and happen to encourage eating hours the most. strange how those two things go together.
I used to work at a Big 4 firm and at a mid-level firm. Partner told us eating time was a fireable offense. But, as almost everyone has pointed out, you either eat time or are forced to explain why you didn’t conform to the budget (which was based on how long it to the guy or girl last year to do your section after eating hours). I got into arguments with other seniors, trying to tell them not to eat time because it hurt everyone and screwed us all the next year. No one listened, so I quit and now I work at a small firm and don’t eat any hours. Reality is you eat time or don’t-but if you don’t you pay the consequences, which could include being fired. The whole purpose of eating time is to make the partner’s financials for their project look better than they really are (isn’t it ironic-it’s like internal fraud!). If the project realization is too low, the partner has to defend him/herself and it make them look bad. So, they try and force everyone to fraudulently enter time into the internal accounting system to fudge the numbers. Haha, and you guys thought you were the ones detecting fraud! Every time you “eat time” you are falsifying time records and the whole purpose is to make you and the partner look better than you really are……..if you don’t care, they do nothing. If you care, then quit. Simple as that-took me 4 years to get there. Peace out.
Just just resigned from my accounting job last week. Tired of getting
Blasted for not getting jobs in under budget even though I ate
2 hours each day minimum.
Bunch of boring, socially retarded twats with no social life. But now im unemployed hahah
Hey, let’s be realistic people! Every group, every department, and every professional has a different tact and ethos.
Example: You work for PWC in their most profitable segment. You work for a partner who is profitable, a high performer. He is molding and shaping the practice at large.
Guess what, you do not need eat your hours.
Scenario 2 – One of the least profitable offices in the country. During 2008 a wave of layoffs decimated your group. You lose money every year doing 1040’s, but keep the client’s work all with your firm, preventing a risk of losing a client.
You don’t sleep, you charge an 8 hour day outside of busy season.
Audit is generally a profit center.
Tax is generally a cost center.
You do the math.
I agree completely about eating hours. I work in tax and the budgets are not realistic. Budget is based on how much the partner or manager can get the client to sign up for, not how much work is actually done on that project. I would agree with one of the earlier comments, to a small extent, about how “maybe this work is not for you”, but of course a partner or SR Man is going to say this bc they want to squeeze as much work and efficiency out of their staff as they can. Is the partner or Sr Man faster and more efficient than staff..of course that is why they are at the higher levels, but truth be told they are still making more money with “inefficient staff” than they could on their own doing all the work alone.
So, ideally all bigger firms (that hire new staff every season) like turnover after two to three years, bc it keeps all the staff salaries low and people underpaid while all the managers to partners reap all the rewards from their overtime and efficiency. A pyramid scheme so to speak…..pay into the firm underpaid in your first 1-10 yrs, then if you make partner all that investment comes back to you and then maybe even more. Firms should be project based, not hours based; more time is spent worrying about hours and how to manipulate those than focusing on finishing the project.