Associates, how thoroughly are you checking analysts’ work?

Are you hitting F2 on every cell? Or do you only jump in when something looks “off” visually? Need to know for my own purposes, unsure of how hard my work is supposed to be scrutinized.

5 Comments
 

But you’re still checking, right? There’s an associate that refuses to check work… makes it difficult working with them. I assume it’s because bonuses are coming up and they have an offer/are planning on leaving after, but still annoying.

 

Not the original responder but yes, I sanity check work even if the analyst is amazing. Ultimately, if the analyst messes up, the associate will take the heat (usually) and the ones that put all the blame on the analyst tend to be disliked. Think it’s beneficial to check work unless the associate wants the person above them to catch a mistake to make a point. 

 
Most Helpful

Ignore title. Aso3. Depends on Analyst and level of trust. A few thoughts below, but basically it helps immensely if things are formatted well as to be easy to audit. The work needs to be "right" first and foremost, but you should also think about what the does output mean and what is it tied to (either in the same workbook or on a slide):

  • Baseline checking is: are the comments/changes addressed either in the model/presentation and/or annotated with an answer?
  • Do key numbers tie across the workbook or slides (If we show an implied value or a multiple in one place, is that also reflected in the workbook/deck in other places)?
  • Do the numbers themselves make sense (Any weird jumps in margin or growth or multiples)?
  • If I broke out a calculator and did the math manually does it foot?
  • Does the slide make sense, contain the right information and is there anything that needs to be added/removed (labels, footnotes, page numbers)
 

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