Accountants

[Prelimtapper]

I'm a CPA and I'll just say the minimum requirements for being a CPA aren't the most stringent in my mind. They've gotten a bit harder in recent years when they merged, CMAs, CGAs and CAs together into one governing body, but it was a bit of cake walk for me. You can basically be a B- at your job and your studies and earn it. So there's a decent chance you're talking to an individual who lacks knowledge or tested poorly on certain aspects of their profession. I.e. On a CPA Exam you could score wonderfully on Financial Reporting and Assurance, decent on finance and completely bomb Taxation and still pass the exam. That being said, I have no idea how a receptionist gets her CPA, given there are very specific job requirements to have to earn it. I had to switch jobs 5 times in 7 years to meet all the requirements.

Also, as chickenbrother said we are risk-averse by our very nature and are extremely rules-orientated. We are not here to make you money, we're here to make sure you keep the money you've made. "Faithful Representation" and "Conservatism" are key words/phrases in our profession. We're here to make sure you don't do anything stupid or reckless.

Also, Fuck you too

 

[Patrick Jane]

Accountants are like autistic John Wicks.

 

[ChickenBrother]

Accountants are like autistic John Wicks.

OK this guy is overstepping his bounds and seems to think he's a commercial decision-maker. He doesn’t get to decide who gets murdered and who doesn’t - he needs to consult with his line manager. Now he needs to record an impairment on balance sheet to cover the impending criminal and civil lawsuit cost. Goodwill also likely needs to be written down. This shit is coming out of retained earnings homie.

 

[Patrick Jane]

OK this guy is clearly overstepping his bounds and seems to think he's a commercial decision-maker. He also just murdered this dude and now he needs to record an impairment on balance sheet to cover the impending criminal and civil lawsuit cost. Goodwill also likely needs to be marked down. That shit is coming out of retained earnings, homie.

It's going to be a nightshift.

 

[mixmastermo]

Have done I.t for a number of accountants/accounting firms.

They are void of personality, joy and kindness.

Pretty much what happens when you make salt a human

I'm a CPA and I'll just say the minimum requirements for being a CPA aren't the most stringent in my mind. They've gotten a bit harder in recent years when they merged, CMAs, CGAs and CAs together into one governing body, but it was a bit of cake walk for me. You can basically be a B- at your job and your studies and earn it. So there's a decent chance you're talking to an individual who lacks knowledge or tested poorly on certain aspects of their profession. I.e. On a CPA Exam you could score wonderfully on Financial Reporting and Assurance, decent on finance and completely bomb Taxation and still pass the exam. That being said, I have no idea how a receptionist gets her CPA, given there are very specific job requirements to have to earn it. I had to switch jobs 5 times in 7 years to meet all the requirements.

Also, as chickenbrother said we are risk-averse by our very nature and are extremely rules-orientated. We are not here to make you money, we're here to make sure you keep the money you've made. "Faithful Representation" and "Conservatism" are key words/phrases in our profession. We're here to make sure you don't do anything stupid or reckless.

Also, Fuck you too

You sound like an accountant I can fuck with. Are you interested in doing my taxes?

I get the conservatism.. I really do.. but for example, in the exchange I was talking about specifically, a paper trail can be created and I could have assisted with it. Either that or the ex-sales manager/current owner could have put his foot down and set hard lead times on special requests for small customers so I could buy steel more economically.

In my experience I have encountered accountants that act with authority and a "holier than thou" mentality. That's the shit I can't stand for.

I can converse with a guy like you and chickenbrother because at the very least you are admitting there are flaws with that mindset.

As far as the receptionist.. she moved into an AP role, worked with someone in the company who was retired/part time but happened to have a CPA, and eventually fulfilled her requirements over time. I do have to mention that the CPA she worked with had developed a method for inflating sales numbers to make them look more appealing than they actually were... so there's that.

 

[ShadBo]

Here's an actual exchange I had with an actual CPA

CPA: How come Steel prices keep changing?

Me Steel market prices change all the time

CPA: but sometimes the price is super low and other times it's high

Me: yes, I take advantage of offers such as getting full loads so the price of each material drops significantly. Remember we are getting delivered pricing.

CPA OK, but that causes a variance

Me: are you seriously giving me shit for saving the company money? I don't give a fuck what your standard cost is, im increasing our margins

CPA what about the times the price is high?

Me: that's because the assholes we have working in sales make promises to customers we can't keep but all they really care about is getting their commission. I had to buy low quantities of steel in a rush.

CPA why don't you get the supplier to agree to a price for a financial quarter

Me; I can, but since we have limited holding capacity and we carry so many different kinds, they are going to just quote above market value just cover their own asses.

CPA I don't understand

Me: what does it mean to have a CPA anyway?

Literally none of this conversation happened.

Spoiler

NOU

 

[Ballsaque]

Every single accountant I have worked with in my career has had a chip on their shoulder and/or an age to grind. As far as I can tell, all they really care about is balancing the books. If the books are not balanced, THEY LOSE THEIR MINDS. They don't care how they get there.. they just have to get there one way or the other.

Right now I'm dealing with the most challenging one yet. Interestingly I told the GM of the company that she needs to be fired when he first started. He thought I was crazy and he said she can be worked with.

A few months later and he says he wants to fire her ASAP.

That's just one example. The overall theme is they are making assumptions, base budgets off these assumptions, and when reality hits because of forces of nature.. it turns into a shitshow. The other side of it is every single one I've met knows how to play tricks with numbers.. such as creating some muddiness in how money is being spent. Every single one.

So this message goes out to all my accounting sherbros

Spoiler: Do not read if you are not an accountant

fuck you

You told exactly 0 about why she is annoying, or what your gribe is. On the other hand, what you wrote is basically the usefulness of accountants.

Overall I give your post and your intelligence a solid 2 out of 10.

 

[HeffDoesWant]

Sounds like they are auditing or preparing for an audit

 

[Prelimtapper]

You sound like an accountant I can fuck with. Are you interested in doing my taxes?

I get the conservatism.. I really do.. but for example, in the exchange I was talking about specifically, a paper trail can be created and I could have assisted with it. Either that or the ex-sales manager/current owner could have put his foot down and set hard lead times on special requests for small customers so I could buy steel more economically.

In my experience I have encountered accountants that act with authority and a "holier than thou" mentality. That's the shit I can't stand for.

I can converse with a guy like you and chickenbrother because at the very least you are admitting there are flaws with that mindset.

As far as the receptionist.. she moved into an AP role, worked with someone in the company who was retired/part time but happened to have a CPA, and eventually fulfilled her requirements over time. I do have to mention that the CPA she worked with had developed a method for inflating sales numbers to make them look more appealing than they actually were... so there's that.

As someone else mentioned, this, on its surface sounds illegal, but you never know how she did it. There's avoidance and then there's planning. Move sales from one period into the next and vice-versa. If she's doing it on a weekly basis, then high probability those books are cooked, but it at least leads me to believe there's sticky fingers in that accounting department. I'm in a role now, that I triggered an audit within a month of the job, by filing a sales tax form correctly, before figuring out the previous controller was clearly delaying the audit by deliberately not filing certain information.

The example of the receptionist is perfect example of why I mentioned, I think it needs to be harder to get the CPA professional designation. She works directly with a CPA in the company, her "CPA Mentor" who tells state/provincial regulatory body of CPA what she's doing and how she is progressing, it could all be bullshit. My CPA mentor was one my university professors and I had my employers independently record what I did and didn't do in the workplace, what a mark I was.

But yeah, we're not fallible to criticism. If you think they have a holier than thou mentality, they probably do, I've met plenty of them. If you think they are devoid of personality, probably accurate, I have a touch of the Asperger's, its what makes me good at this stuff. If you think, they don't know what they are talking about...could be true. I'm shocked sometimes when I visit my linkedin and one my former classmates is a company's financial controller or senior staff accountant, "That idiot made it that far up in a company?"

 

[KBE6EKCTAH_CCP]

If you dig deep enough, I think you'd find that most companies big and small are always 1 quarter away from going under, if you were to rip off all the band-aids, duck tape and jury rigged shit that's keeping everything together. It's the commercial decision-maker's job to consider all the competing risks and make the call.

CPAs who think they're in a commercial role (if they're not) are annoying. But remember what their job is. By necessity they're going to be the most risk-averse, rules-oriented people at a company - they don't get paid to take risks. If an auditor comes in and calls out their pro forma and shits all over the books, their CPA license gets revoked.

Sales guys are the opposite. Most are paid on commission so they're incentivized to take risks. As long as they make the sale, they get paid. They're usually the most aggressive risk-takers at a company.

Without sales, you don't have revenue. So when a company is small and growing, the culture is often dominated by sales. Even if it means taking a loss, you need to win and maintain those customers. But the bigger a company gets, the more conservative you have to be to keep everything from falling apart. That said, companies that are overly dominated by either sales or CPA mentality generally don't survive long term.

That s one thing I don t get though. Why are Finance/reporting department people liable to lose their licence if an auditor makes a qualified / negative opinion on the accounts? Where I am from the staff in charge of producing the figures are not even accountants. If the auditor is not happy, he threatens with a qualified opinion until shit is figured out. Oftentimes, auditors are pencil pushers that will bitch on compliance shit (like bitching about an equity contribution date not matching the date of the shareholder s resolution) or academic stuff like a discount rate used for fair value, or tax stuff like arm s length rate on a shareholder loan. But won t bother to focus on real potential issues like fraud or true going concern topics. Really low hanging fruits to justify the juicy fees they get to audit companies. That s my biggest gripe with auditors. They tend to be prostitutes and are inherently conflicted since they are paid by the companies they audit.

 

[KBE6EKCTAH_CCP]

Ok, reading the whole thread, it really seems like reporting staff needs to be CPAs in North America, I didn t know that.
Back when I lived in Québec we had CMA CGA and CA, and I thought that the CA (auditor) was the CPA's equivalent.
Now if the reporting staff needs to produce their work using their designation by law, it must be a pretty tricky situation.

 

[dildos]

Accountants rule everyone else droolz.

 

[ChickenBrother]

You sound like an accountant I can fuck with. Are you interested in doing my taxes?

I get the conservatism.. I really do.. but for example, in the exchange I was talking about specifically, a paper trail can be created and I could have assisted with it. Either that or the ex-sales manager/current owner could have put his foot down and set hard lead times on special requests for small customers so I could buy steel more economically.

In my experience I have encountered accountants that act with authority and a "holier than thou" mentality. That's the shit I can't stand for.

I can converse with a guy like you and chickenbrother because at the very least you are admitting there are flaws with that mindset.

As far as the receptionist.. she moved into an AP role, worked with someone in the company who was retired/part time but happened to have a CPA, and eventually fulfilled her requirements over time. I do have to mention that the CPA she worked with had developed a method for inflating sales numbers to make them look more appealing than they actually were... so there's that.

It sounds like you've worked with some bad apples or at the very least, some douchebag CPAs. Alonzo Harris developed a method for murdering a former drug dealer and stealing his drug money, while pinning the blame on a newbie cop he had been grooming to take the fall. But that wasn't his job as a police detective. That was literally the opposite of his job.

And shitting on @Prelimtapper isn't cool bro. The man is just explaining how his job works and he's being respectful. For the record, I'm not a CPA and I wouldn't want that job. But I've worked in corporate finance more than 15 years, crossed paths with a lot of CPAs and am familiar with their work. They're just trying to do their job like everyone else and they don't get to choose which rules to enforce. You should also realize they get pressure from every other dept to allow more aggressive depreciation schedules, revenue recognition, hedge accounting etc. and sometimes they just have to put their foot down and be like, "That's a no from me dawg. I'm not signing off on that shit."

 

[ChickenBrother]

That s one thing I don t get though. Why are Finance/reporting department people liable to lose their licence if an auditor makes a qualified / negative opinion on the accounts? Where I am from the staff in charge of producing the figures are not even accountants. If the auditor is not happy, he threatens with a qualified opinion until shit is figured out. Oftentimes, auditors are pencil pushers that will bitch on compliance shit (like bitching about an equity contribution date not matching the date of the shareholder s resolution) or academic stuff like a discount rate used for fair value, or tax stuff like arm s length rate on a shareholder loan. But won t bother to focus on real potential issues like fraud or true going concern topics. Really low hanging fruits to justify the juicy fees they get to audit companies. That s my biggest gripe with auditors. They tend to be prostitutes and are inherently conflicted since they are paid by the companies they audit.

I feel your pain. Auditors can be a PITA and I've been stuck many times having to explain and defend some shitty deal (that someone else underwrote) to an auditor who is clueless how anything works in practice and is just trying to flex on me. But that person is just doing their job, kind of like a cop who pulls you over and gives you a speeding ticket for going 5 mph over on a sunny day with no traffic. IMO accounting rules and audit practices are like USADA testing in the UFC. It's designed to prevent cheating and I think it makes it harder to get away with it, but it's a huge inconvenience to the folks trying to do the right thing while committed cheaters will just find a way around the system one way or another.

Re. having a CPA license revoked, I defer to the CPAs itt but my sense is it PROBABLY wouldn't happen over something like using 10 year MACRS depreciation (instead of 15) with 20-year straight-line book depreciation. But flip flopping between cash and accrual basis from quarter to quarter with no purpose other than to pad certain quarters? Probably getting the axe. At the deal shop I came up in in the 2000's, hedge and derivative accounting (governed by FASB 133) was a big deal. Our shop was super conservative but I heard about a lot of other shops taking liberties there and losing their shit when everything blew up in 2008 and 2009.

 

[Prelimtapper]

I feel your pain. Auditors can be a PITA and I've been stuck many times having to explain and defend someone else's shitty deal (terms I wouldn't have underwritten myself) to some auditor who is clueless how anything works in practice and is just trying to flex on me. But that person is just doing their job, kind of like a cop who pulls you over and gives you a speeding ticket for going 5 mph over on a sunny day with no traffic. IMO accounting rules and audit practices are like USADA testing in the UFC. It's designed to prevent cheating and I think it makes it harder to get away with it, but it's a big inconvenience for the folks trying to do the right thing while many of the cheaters will just find a way around the system one way or another.

Re. having a CPA license revoked, I defer to the CPAs itt but my sense is it PROBABLY wouldn't happen over something like applying 10 year MACRS depreciation (instead of 15) with 20-year straight-line book depreciation. But switching back and forth between cash and accrual basis from quarter to quarter with the obvious intent to pad certain quarters? Probably getting the axe. At the deal shop I came up in in the 2000's, hedge and derivative accounting (governed by FASB 133) was a big deal. Our shop was super conservative but I heard about a lot of other shops taking liberties there and losing their shit when everything blew up in 2008 and 2009.

The 2 simplest way to get your CPA license revoked:
> Declare Personal Bankruptcy, that's just a no-go. And its quite embarrassing for an accountant to go bankrupt. I believe this is automatic. The moment they receive a notice of your bankruptcy, its taken away.
> We have "audits" for skill development. We need to improve our skills over and over and take: courses, lessons, lectures etc. so we know the latest methods. If you show less than satisfactory at this, it'll be taken away.

 

[mixmastermo]

It sounds like you've worked with some bad apples or at the very least, some douchebag CPAs. Alonzo Harris developed a method for murdering a former drug dealer and stealing his drug money, while pinning the blame on a newbie cop he had been grooming to take the fall. But that wasn't his job as a police detective. That was literally the opposite of his job.

And shitting on @Prelimtapper isn't cool bro. The man is just explaining how his job works and he's being respectful. For the record, I'm not a CPA and I wouldn't want that job. But I've worked in corporate finance more than 15 years, crossed paths with a lot of CPAs and am familiar with their work. They're just trying to do their job like everyone else and they don't get to choose which rules to enforce. You should also realize they get pressure from just about every other dept to allow more aggressive depreciation schedules, revenue recognition, hedge accounting etc. and sometimes they just have to put their foot down and be like, "That's a no from me dawg. I'm not signing off on that shit."

I didn't shit on him.. in fact I appreciated his post and liked it.

 

[mixmastermo]

You told exactly 0 about why she is annoying, or what your gribe is. On the other hand, what you wrote is basically the usefulness of accountants.

Overall I give your post and your intelligence a solid 2 out of 10.

Sorry I forgot the internets are serious business.

 

[ChickenBrother]

I didn't shit on him.. in fact I appreciated his post and liked it.

Maybe I misread your post but it sounded like you were attributing some bad experiences you've had with bad accountants to him. Good EQ and people skills go a long way in every profession and some people don't have it. I think a lot of accountants tend to be OCD rules-based, and it's practically a job requirement. "Creative accounting" is what gets people in trouble. Just like a lot of cops like to swagger and tell people what to do. I'm neither of those personalities but I've trained with and hung out with plenty of cops and accountants with no issues. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[ralphc1]

Here's an actual exchange I had with an actual CPA

CPA: How come Steel prices keep changing?

Me Steel market prices change all the time

CPA: but sometimes the price is super low and other times it's high

Me: yes, I take advantage of offers such as getting full loads so the price of each material drops significantly. Remember we are getting delivered pricing.

CPA OK, but that causes a variance

Me: are you seriously giving me shit for saving the company money? I don't give a fuck what your standard cost is, im increasing our margins

CPA what about the times the price is high?

Me: that's because the assholes we have working in sales make promises to customers we can't keep but all they really care about is getting their commission. I had to buy low quantities of steel in a rush.

CPA why don't you get the supplier to agree to a price for a financial quarter

Me; I can, but since we have limited holding capacity and we carry so many different kinds, they are going to just quote above market value just cover their own asses.

CPA I don't understand

Me: what does it mean to have a CPA anyway?

It gets worse when accountants start running a company. They don't seem to understand supply and demand causing variable pricing. There are better and worse times of the year to buy or sell depending on what you are buying or selling.

 

[ChickenBrother]

It gets worse when accountants start running a company. They don't seem to understand supply and demand causing variable pricing. There are better and worse times of the year to buy or sell depending on what you are buying or selling.

This is true for most professions because most professions are about subject matter expertise, not general management. A manager can come up in any profession but once he's a manager, he has to think about the big picture. I've seen some CPAs become effective managers but it's not the norm. Generally the highest a CPA will go is CFO and to do even that job, they have to put the CPA hat on the backburner and think in terms of management accounting, raising capital, etc.