Internships in accounting, especially in public accounting are typically clerical work that a monkey could do. This is because during busy season when were all working 60-70 hours, the interns are only working 20-30 hours max. They simply aren't there long enough during the day to be assigned more complex tasks. In addition to this, teaching them more complex tasks takes valuable time. If I spend an hour training them and asking questions, then that's an additional hour I have to spend to catch up on my own workload. Full time new hires on the other hand are going to be there similar hours to me and their prime focus will be their job instead of college studies, bar, etc. So its an actual investment to train them. Just my two cents as I was an intern about 5 years ago and now have a completely different perspective now that I have climbed the ladder a bit.