Internship Report

Presented By: Kevin P. Suhanic

August 15, 2003

You would think that three years of school, half a dozen accounting classes and
about thirty business courses would prepare someone pretty well for an accountin
g internship. While I will admit that I may have missed a few classes, I doubt t
hat is why my time at Cohen & Company taught me more about accounting and busine
ss than anything I have taken in school. I worked on tax research. I worked on l
arge, complicated tax returns. I helped audit a non-profit and a 401K plan. I wo
rked on litigation support projects. I helped pick software for a niche project.
I had a huge variety of experiences and was fortunate to get the opportunity to
work with so many different (and extremely talented) people. But the most impor
tant part of all this is that I was asked to do important tasks and given challe
nging assignments across this broad spectrum of experiences. That is what sets C
ohen apart for me, and it is what made my internship special Cohen & Company wil
l challenge you to take on as much as you can, even if it means making mistakes
the first time around. With little over a week under my belt at Cohen, Steve Wan
k took me out on a 401K plan audit where I tested to make sure the plan had accu
rate records of participants and had followed the plan document in allocations,
loans and other issues. I asked Steve a lot of questions about why we did certai
n things, and even more questions that had nothing to do with the part I was wor
king on at all. Each time Steve made sure I understood his answers, and that I g
rasped the whole process instead of just telling me how to do my part. As we wor
ked, issues came up that needed the controllers clarification, and after our firs
t set of questions, Steve just told me to go ask about any issues I had on my ow
n. I thought it was really trusting of him to let the new intern just ask what I
felt was appropriate, and while it may shock those with cubes near mine, I beca
me a bit unsure about myself raising issues about the plan with a controller who
had nearly forty years in age on me.

I also was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to do substantial work on a n

on-profit audit with Kathleen Murphy and Darcy Aldous, and I completed significa
nt portions of the audit program, especially on the assets portion. It was reall
y neat to work on a small entity, because I really got a feel for how each part
of the financial statements gets audited, assets & liabilities, revenue and expe
nses. This audit really helped me get the big picture as to what auditors do. I al
so worked with Kathleen on HUD compliance filings, which at first seemed like bo
ring data entry, but I soon had to learn a lot about government grants and subsi
dized housing as Darcy explained the changes that had to be made. Yet again I fo
und myself learning quite a bit about a topic that I knew nothing about before c
oming to Cohen! Another assignment that I spent considerable time on was doing P
ersonal Property Tax (PPT) returns, which sharpened my balance sheet skills and
taught me about the different types of property that businesses held. I also pic
ked up some miscellaneous PPTs later on, because I was so familiar with doing the
m in Accountware. Most of the ones I did later in the summer were for companies
with little or no taxable personal property, and they never exceeded the $10,000
minimum deduction. When I saw the new Ohio Tax Bill repealed the filing require
ment for companies whose property did not exceed this minimum deduction, I thoug
ht it was very smart to reduce this unnecessary paperwork and cost to companies.
It was a rare thing for me to see a change in filing requirements have a direct
effect on my life. (Although the sales tax increase has had a lot more effect o
n my checkbook.) During a few weeks things got kind of slow, and Kevin Noss gave
Tricia and I a project involving researching State of Ohio business tax incenti
ves and loan programs. While it did not seem to be a great assignment when it wa
s given, I think it was a good exercise because in the

future I might work with a client and with the knowledge I have gained I may be
able to help them find ways to save taxes or procure financing through some nich
e program. Another project I worked on for Radhika Reddy and Annette Stevenson w
as reviewing loan software for the New Markets Tax Credit Program. I had to inte
ract with various vendors and express concerns about their programs, explain wha
t we needed to salespeople who would call, and finally express an opinion about
what I felt was the best option. In the interim, I also learned quite a bit abou
t what Radhika does, and began to realize the possible cost savings and efficien
cy gains that could be made by clients outsourcing services or buying materials
from overseas. I really think that Cohen international could be a tremendous ass
et in the future, because as time passes the world only becomes more integrated.
Also, as more companies become involved in international trade, we as accountan
ts can provide a lot of valuable services, especially in the areas of currency r
isks and credit evaluation. Cohen International may help to bolster the I in SQIF
into the next decade. The Tax Department also supplied me with several learning
opportunities this summer. Mike Harding gave me a great assignment when he prese
nted me a thick tax file, and told me to do an 1120S, FT-1120, 1139, and local r
eturns. While I had read about carryforwards and carrybacks in my tax class, I h
ad little idea how these were actually used to generate refunds. Mike just let m
e take a crack at it and see what I could figure out, which probably created a t
on of headaches for me, but it gave me the opportunity to really understand the
forms and I also learned Go System Tax pretty well, albeit by trial-and-error. M
ike made sure I wasnt totally lost, but he let me learn my own way, and that real
ly helped me understand both where the numbers come from and how moving differen
t numbers to different places affected the amount of tax. It was a great learnin
g experience for me, and though I may have bit off more than I

could chew in trying to do the form 1139 to utilize the NOL carryback, I know a
lot more about corporate income taxes just from doing this one return (Maybe it
has to do with the fact it took me two and a half days also.) I also worked on s
ome odds and ends as an intern, notably converting our depreciation files from F
AS to CSI for the Mentor Office. Matt Griswold also took me along to an inventor
y observation for a Baker Tilly Affiliate, where I met Guy, the warehouse manage
r and also a shipping manager. A few weeks later I volunteered to sell programs
at Harborfest to benefit the Rotary Club of Cleveland (Mike Harding brought me t
he opportunity, and I still think I outsold him ... but I digress) and I again m
et Guy, the warehouse manager and we talked for several minutes about his daught
er learning how to golf and some other stuff we had talked about when I was at t
he client. It was a minor event, but I could tell he thought it nice that I reme
mbered he was taking his daughter golfing after the inventory. This made me real
ize how important relationships are in business, and how a personal connection o
r a chance encounter could potentially lead to a business relationship. My inter
nship was not all work and no play though. The events and opportunities Marla pu
t together were well planned, well executed, and very beneficial to me personall
y. The journal was a good idea not so much that I wanted to write what I had bee
n doing in there, but that it made me think about my weeks as a whole and get so
me perspective, rather than be upset at something I screwed up on Monday and hap
py about something I did right on Wednesday. Our intern meetings were also a goo
d way to see if I was having the same successes and failures as the other intern
s. The social side of Cohen & Company was perhaps the biggest surprise to me. Re
cruiting material had talked about how the employees cared about each other and
had fun doing things

together, but many firms would make such claims. I found that these were not jus
t tag lines in a glossy brochure, but rather they were real relationships betwee
n the people who fill our offices. I enjoyed the softball games, happy hours and
the like not because people went to these company events, but because people WA
NTED to go to these events. Our events, planned or spontaneous, really made me f
eel like I fit in here, that Cohen was sort of an extended family. That is the k
ind of thing is not reflected in ones salary or office size but rather it is refl
ected in the mirror, because people smile when they are happy to go to work at C
ohen & Company. I found myself happy to go to work each day, and with my college
lifestyle I would not have believed that was possible, but our people made it p
ossible. As I proofread and revised this paper, I recognized that I demonstrated
poor English by changing perspective from I to Our in the middle of this paper. But
as I went to change it, I realized that perhaps that transition represents the
transition that I made while working here. Initially Cohen was just an accountin
g firm that I worked at, sometimes on good projects, sometimes on bad. But as I
worked more closely with the people here, I began to realize that we were someth
ing special. That we would get as many opportunities as our hearts desire and ou
r skills could meet. I realized that our culture was what set us apart, and that
the greatest assets Cohen & Company, Ltd. held were not on the books, but rathe
r in the seats.
Heilind Electronics\Baker Tilly - Inventory Observation Tax returns Harding tax
NMTC FAS-CSI

NOFT Tour West Side Market Visit Cedar Point??? Happy Hour Softball Games Interv
iews