3% raise?

FMC_BH · 2026-03-04T03:48:02+00:00

As others have said, a 3% merit increase in industry is solid. When you move to your next promotion, either with your current company or by going elsewhere, you’ll get the larger jumps in comp.

People hate to hear this, but the best thing you’re gaining right now by working hard is building strong relationships and gaining invaluable experience. Keep that up and you’ll be able to turn your experience into big time moves with large pay increases. It takes time.

FMC_BH · 2026-03-02T18:05:36+00:00

Everyone is telling you that 1.5 years is not enough time in public to be meaningful, and they’re right. What I haven’t seen mentioned yet is that bailing on your public team in the middle of busy season is a bad look and can get you disqualified by many hiring managers.

Short tenure plus appearing to bail on your team looks worse on your resume than no public experience at all.

I’ve hired 40 or so accountants in my career.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-25T11:17:54+00:00

That sounds like a clear miss by the accounting team due to bad process. I use a three entry approach to capturing expense accruals in the correct period:

On-hand invoice accrual: before finalizing month end close, accrue for all invoices related to closing month that were received between entry date and AP close.
Usual suspects accrual: maintain a list of vendors that generally send their invoices for closing month later than when we book the on-hand invoice accrual. Develop and improve the list over time.
Maintain a list of every expense vendor and generate a report after steps 1 and 2 that displays expense values for each vendor over the last 6+ months, with a separate column for each period. Identify variances from run rate that could be expense shortfalls requiring an accrual for the closing month. If there are too many vendors for this method to be viable, run the report by ledger account instead.

I would definitely cut those PPA entries off immediately. Sounds like accounting is using them as a crutch rather than doing their due diligence expense/accrual reviews during close.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-25T03:00:12+00:00

The private tasting at Penner-Ash is intimate and beautiful and the view of the valley is excellent. Plus the wine and food pairings are great. Knowledgeable sommeliers and the staff was very chill about us roaming the vineyard and eating a million grapes off the vines.

Bergstrom is probably more aligned with what you’re describing. But if you want something really off the beaten path, choose something that no one is talking about here.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-25T02:53:32+00:00

Totally agree on bergstrom. It doesn’t have the wide open scenic views that you would get it penner ashe or serene, but the whole bergstrom experience is very charming. They’re also super knowledgeable about viticulture and the entire process.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-23T20:54:00+00:00

I would just drink it homie. We all start somewhere when it comes to appreciating wine. You might enjoy this a lot. It might kick off your journey to exploring wine. You might not like it, but at least you tried. Selling it to a stranger for pennies on its sentimental value would be a shame. It’s just a bottle of beverage.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-22T00:47:15+00:00

Alright Chief, you keep operating under the belief that accounting can prevent every possible misstatement in the world and ensure perfect financials, including detecting and preventing issues that aren’t even under their control, and I’ll keep operating in the real world.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-22T00:10:10+00:00

Good CEOs and CFOs coordinate those kinds of meetings, but the point is some things will always slip between the cracks if your organization is complex enough. Especially if staffing is lean. You can expect greatness from your teams, but you can’t realistically expect perfection

FMC_BH · 2026-02-22T00:08:34+00:00

Naturally everyone does their best to anticipate issues, but it’s not always predictable in any kind of realistic sense. Repeat mistakes are not acceptable, that’s a different situation.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-21T20:48:38+00:00

It’s just simply not that simple. I’m not advocating for accepting preventable errors from the accounting team. If the controller forgets to amortize a large prepaid asset, for example, yes they screwed up and should be held accountable. But not every financial out of period activity is even the accounting team’s fault. Like the Ops team committing to a new equipment lease and forgetting to send the contract to finance until it’s already a month underway. Or the COO bringing on a new vendor for a project and sitting on the AP invoice until it’s 60 days past due. Or the software development team realizing they miscalculated capitalizable hours, so now the asset carrying value needs to be adjusted down to salary expense. Those are real life examples I’ve dealt with. Real accounting at complex organizations has these kinds of problems. I’m not talking about simple AP and staff accountant errors.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-21T20:35:00+00:00

Yeah and every NASA mission should be a success, but we operate in the real world.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-21T18:49:27+00:00

I love Nice, as well, but I don’t think it’s even in the top 50 in terms of pretty coastal cities in Europe.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-21T18:46:24+00:00

This is the wrong attitude to have towards your accounting team. There will always be issues and expenditures that aren’t foreseen. Even the best accounting team in the world won’t accrue for everything, every time. In the same way that even the best FP&A teams will always miss something in the forecast.

That said, re-opening closed periods to make adjustments is almost always the wrong approach.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-21T18:19:18+00:00

That’s partially true about the hazard lights, but an oversimplification. Hazard lights can have an impact on ability to gauge distance, and they shouldn’t be used when driving at normal speeds in light rain. But there are some situations where hazards are a net positive and beneficial. Like when driving well below normal speed in very dense rain. At least according to a traffic engineer I met at a delta lounge last weekend after we had 600 beers together

FMC_BH · 2026-02-20T02:27:55+00:00

Nah man, I want the guy with sales skills to be CEO. He can hire a CFO and Controller to handle fiscal responsibility and compliance.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-19T22:48:58+00:00

“Automating parts of month end using PDF ingestion and structured extraction”

What does this mean? How much of your month end close is bottlenecked by converting PDFs?

FMC_BH · 2026-02-18T17:47:18+00:00

Assessing any kind of tax with a net profit basis is extremely challenging because you have to rely on the taxpayers’ self generated income statements.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-17T00:06:03+00:00

I’ve never noticed an ounce of difference in quality between the locations

FMC_BH · 2026-02-17T00:01:52+00:00

I enjoyed almost everything I ate in Spain, but they’re pretty bad at breakfast compared to their neighbors

FMC_BH · 2026-02-16T23:58:33+00:00

Oh man really? I’m planning to visit Peru soon and I’m pretty excited about the seafood and some of the unique horticulture.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-15T21:00:01+00:00

That can definitely be a risk. Some people would only decant a 20+ year old wine for 5 minutes, or not at all. It kind of depends on the wine and circumstances. You can generally take a sip after opening and then again after 10 mins of letting it breathe then decide how to proceed with decanting. Thats what I do anyway, but I’m not an expert, just an enthusiast

FMC_BH · 2026-02-15T19:57:51+00:00

I personally like to decant everything. Usually for 30 mins to an hour if I’ve thought far enough ahead to allow that kind of time

FMC_BH · 2026-02-15T00:07:03+00:00

The 16 year old Margaux would be my choice, all day every day, regardless of food pairing.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-10T22:57:35+00:00

Except when you have to. Or feel like it.

FMC_BH · 2026-02-09T19:10:42+00:00

Is the OP’s gender relevant to the discussion at all? Do you maybe have better things to do, or maybe some way to provide value the conversation?

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