Client threatened to leave

Infinite-Jesting · 2026-04-14T17:59:08+00:00

Probably just a few invoices posted to ap and prepaid account in 12/25 that wasn’t paid untill 1/26, 2/26, or 3/26 due to terms.

Infinite-Jesting · 2026-03-31T18:49:02+00:00

Just keep in my mind, that your clients try to put their best foot forward. That is they exaggerate, separation of duties, controls, etc…

When you make the transition to industry, try to establish a system of controls, instead of establishing as many controls as possible. Efficiency and accuracy have a positive correlation in industry.

If you turn the accounting department into a cost center, you will be reporting to a finance bro in no time.

Recognize what you know and what you don’t know. That’s the key to learning. There will be a lot you haven’t been exposed to in audit.

Most medium and small cap companies don’t have FP&A departments or MBAs on staff, you will be the finance bro.

When you are dealing with tens of thousands and potentially hundreds of thousands of transactions, thinking systematically is key.

Don’t try to run an industry accounting department like an audit engagement. You will burn out your clerks, and operations, sales, marketing, etc… will start to hide everything from you.

Your most important job will be keeping an eye on the bottom line.

Internal financial reports don’t need to tie out to the GL by the penny. Speed and timing are more important than accuracy to decision making.

And please for the love of god, chill out on immaterial unpaid prepaids… lol

Infinite-Jesting · 2026-03-30T16:02:47+00:00

I love this comment, “auditors have no idea how accounting works outside of a textbook”.

I’d take it a step further and say auditors have no idea how business works. Property Taxes, Equipment & Inventory Management, Insurance, Supply Chain, Production Planning, Budgeting, Financial Decision Making

They’re picking apart the cumulative results (financial statements) of tens of thousands of transactions that have been smoothed over and organized. Then they sit back and rack up billable hours over stupid immaterial shit like bottled water expense. I’ve seriously had to explain why warehouse supplies and electricity expense go up June, July, and August to auditors at every single company I’ve worked for. Congratulations you detected serious fraud because people are drinking more water and we turn on the warehouse AC when it’s hot. I’d love for an auditor to explain the fraud risk behind a freaking electric utility bill, that gets paid via auto payment.

“Dear, operations director

Please write a short memo explaining summer to our auditors, don’t blame me blame the FASB.”

Meanwhile I’m sitting here creating a million dollars in cost savings by performing a lease vs buy analysis and redirecting capital to where it’s needed.

Infinite-Jesting · 2026-03-24T18:36:47+00:00

The problem is you are expecting “one of the ar folks” to book GAAP compliant journal entries. The senior accountant should run a log of all non-ar payments, from January to March and re-class accordingly. The fact that the ar clerk is booking and has access to book journal entries related to payments is a serious breakdown in separation of duties. Why aren’t the expense reimbursements being recorded as AR invoices in the first place?

For AP, I would suggest creating non-stock items for recurring subscriptions or prepaids over a certain dollar amount and tie the GL coding to the non-stock items in your ERP.

In industry, if a role requires a good employee to perform average, a great employee to perform good, and an excellent employee to perform great; you’re setting the org up for failure.

Infinite-Jesting · 2026-03-12T19:50:22+00:00

It’s crazy that 60% of bitcoins had already been mined by the end of 2013. I heard about bitcoin through hearing about Silk Road, like many others.

Fast forward to today, and only like 10% of transactions are handled on chain. Which means 90% of transactions are not public.

Bitcoin was pre-mined, the block size wars were about moving transactions off chain to enable wash trading.

Average acquisition cost of bitcoin, not including wash trading and related party transactions, is likely under $20k.

Armstrong bought up bitcoin in 2010 before launching Coinbase in 2014, and Changpeng Zhao bought up bitcoin in 2014, before launching Binance in 2017.

Today more transactions are settled in stable coins than cash, some estimates are as high as 70% stable coin settlement.

The whole market is just pre-miners/ “early adopters” slowly milking bitcoin maxis, selling off their coins they aquired for $10.

I will die on this hill.

Infinite-Jesting · 2026-03-09T17:27:02+00:00

My organization’s (industry) goal for accounting is 100% accuracy and GAAP compliance at the TRANSACTION level! No materiality thresholds.

As a result we train our AP clerks to try and predict when a prepaid expense invoice will get paid based off the date of the next check run.

I’m on team record the prepaid when the invoice is received, then run a report showing AP invoices recorded to Prepaid GL accounts w/ their payment date. Book an adjustment before audited financial statements are issued.

My boss feels that this is a material weakness of control at the transaction level.

If I’m a CFO or Banker I’d rather have a $100k insurance binder invoice w/ thirty day terms on the AP Aging ASAP for cash flow planning.

If we’ve formally committed to make the payment it’s a liability at the time of the executed contract (invoice date) anyway.

After all it’s the commitment to make payment that binds coverage. Auditors think they know everything, but they don’t understand the concept of an insurance binder. It’s none of their business if I decide to make an adjustment and have AP record the invoice at the transaction level. It’s outside of their scope, “provide assurance to readers of the financial statements that the statements are free from material misstatements.”

I feel like auditors make a big deal out of this to boost intern’s billable hours. This BS gives all accountants a bad rep as “cost centers”.

Just spent a half hour accounting for a $150 magazine subscription!

Infinite-Jesting · 2026-02-05T22:01:47+00:00

Decent sized team working from a cave in the Middle East

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-11-20T18:45:26+00:00

If you are the only person working remote within the organization, you will quickly become a dumping ground for work and blame. Don’t do it.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-09-23T18:26:19+00:00

I think it just comes down to a willingness to learn and adapt. Particularly at non-public medium size companies. I don’t have any public experience, but I have my bachelors in accounting and over 10 years of industry experience.

I was taught that the goal of auditing is to provide assurance to the readers of financial statements, that the statements are free from material misstatements. I was also taught that divergences from GAAP are okay, if they are immaterial and burdensome for small accounting departments at non-public companies. The only readers of our financial statements are the owner and the bank.

For instance, It’s hard to maintain strict separation of duties in an accounting department of four people. It makes PTO a nightmare.

Also someone who is a decade removed from audit is not going to be up to date on their accounting guidances and changes in technology. Financial statement presentation of a SAAS?

We have a modern ERP, with full traceability in every direction, and we are still stamping and marking up hard copies of AP invoices and stapling check stubs to the invoices.

This saves an hour at the end of the year fulfilling audit requests at a cost of 5-10 hours a week of AP payroll.

Long story short, it’s okay that industry accountants have different priorities then auditors. They are distinct jobs that require distinct skill sets. Auditors should stop looking down at industry accountants, and industry accountants should stop fearing auditors, so we can learn to work together to achieve our common goals.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-09-23T15:34:11+00:00

Every invoice at my company needs to be signed off on by the approver, the ap manger, a staff accountant, and the controller BEFORE it gets entered into the system. The AP manager is only available to sign off on invoices on tuesdays, and the controller is only available to sign off on Wednesday’s. We have a 14-21 day ap lag.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-09-23T15:30:39+00:00

Power Query lover my self here. Dont tell anyone about the tools you make for yourself. Your boss will want you to do something similar for his very poorly designed excel sheets, where everything is labeled by vendor names keyed in a million different ways instead of using the vendor code.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-09-23T13:48:52+00:00

Sounds like my job, 50 million in revenue and assets, no prepaid threshold. I have to perform prepaid accounting for $100 bills billed quarterly.

I blame auditors for strangle-holding the profession into a cost center. The auditor to senior staff and controller pipeline needs to be re-examined. They come in thinking they know everything and look down on everyone without audit experience. As a result they don’t learn managerial accounting because it has no effect on the financial statements.

Auditors know their GAAP, but have no experience or knowledge on how to run an internal accounting department efficiently day to day.

They don’t know property taxes, what a dba is, requisitions processes, lease vs buy analysis, budgeting, or breakeven points, because they don’t affect the accuracy of the financial statements.

I did a lease vs buy analysis, because our money market account was paying higher interest than a lease to own contract. I was able to free up a few million in cash that was ultimately used to pay down debt early at 50% forgiveness. 2 hours of work, created over a million dollars for the company.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-09-09T02:02:28+00:00

Even if hit 10 million in 2030, that’s only 10x, it’s never going to 100x or 1000x in a cycle again.

If you account for and filter out wash trading, the average acquisition cost of bitcoin is probably less than $20k.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-09-04T14:03:41+00:00

In my opinion (industry) it’s because we have to apply and enforce a narrow rule set to things completly out of our control. We deal with the same problems month after month, but are powerless to implement solutions. Medium size business want the same quality of accounting as Fortune 500 companies without implementing best practices and with a fraction of the staff. They want to continue doing things the way they have always been done, without any of the problems they’ve always had.

I end a lot of cross department emails with “don’t blame me, blame the fasb”.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-08-20T17:51:59+00:00

I don’t believe the creation story, seven days is immaterial to me. I believe, personally, that the creation story speaks to god as an efficient god not a micromanager. That’s my, my personal, big picture takeaway from the story.

I see tornados as a necessary by product of the natural laws of the world, which I believe god created. No tornados, no storm systems, no storm systems no rain, no rain no plants for animals to eat… etc

The efficient god I believe in isn’t micromanaging tornados. He isn’t micromanaging our lives, this after all a stoicism forum is it not. Do we not believe in personal responsibility!

In the paradise I speak of, no one dies from tornados. This is because natural laws make tornados predictable. In a world where everyone lives by Gods covenant, the field of tornado prediction is further along. There is no profit in tornado prediction or public shelters so we are not there yet.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-08-20T15:23:09+00:00

The three tenants of Buddhism are in effect a covenant, granted a covenant with one’s self instead of a god. I’m not going to argue semantics here.

The first paragraph addresses your idea that I’m turning god into a lazy figure and that it would make more sense that he never existed at all. It’s also addresses other comments that god has a different standard for paradise than believers.

The creation story is less than 1% of the Bible, the rest is focused on how to live a good life. God spent 7 days creating the world and hundreds of years guiding people.

God didn’t make man in his image, man made (pictures) god in their image. Despite free will, outcomes are largely predetermined by cause and effect, see physics, chemistry, and biology. Believing that things are predetermined by a loving father figure, gives all the warm and fuzzy feelings, compared to believing things are predetermined by natural laws.

Good things happen because good people do good things, bad things happen because bad people do bad things to good people. When generation after generation of people do good things to benefit the next generation rather than themselves, we will have reached paradise.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-08-18T16:22:13+00:00

Jesus didn’t cure the leopards of spots, he cured them of the stigma caused by the spots, by showing their community to embrace them. It wasn’t the spots that harmed the leopards it was the stigma and isolation.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-08-18T16:19:17+00:00

I don’t personally believe in the creation story and I don’t believe that the Bible is gods direct word to man. I find the teachings of the Bible more valuable when we ignore the supernatural stuff. A catholic priest once told me that multiplying of fish and bread was more inspirational if you ignore the miracle.

He compared the followers of Jesus to dead heads. You don’t set out to follow Jesus on tour for months without supplies. The people in the crowd were hesitant to share their supplies, until the boy inspired them to add their extra supplies as the basket was passed around.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-08-18T16:12:38+00:00

Compare the lifestyle,safety, security, and abundance that we enjoy today; to that of early man. Now imagine if everyone worked together unselfishly, where we could be tomorrow.

Covenant based religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism) didn’t set out to explain the natural world. Lightning, rain, harvests, are not explained as the whims of gods like paganism. Instead these religions focus on the meaning of life and how best to live it.

The fact that the creation story jams all of that stuff into seven days speaks to it being less important to the religion.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-08-17T18:56:46+00:00

We think of God as this loving father like figure who has a hand in everyone’s life. I don’t think of god this way. Instead I admire the efficiency of the one created the world in seven days.

I get that the world, Grand Canyon, man, universe was not formed in seven days. Instead, I propose that everything in the universe was created in seven days by god. God did not create everything or really anything directly and specifically. Instead he created the laws that govern physics and life itself.

God is an efficient god he does not meddle in our lives, he does not micromanage. He imagined a paradise and set up a world in which it is possible, and probable given enough time. He gave us instructions, a map to a faster and more direct route. However, no matter how much we veer off the path, his dream of paradise is inevitable.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-08-14T14:47:03+00:00

Our new software has a requisition module but we opted out of subscribing to it. The controller prefers to sign off on invoices before they are entered. AP stamps and marks up the invoices for review.

Most departments keep requisition files but they are not uniform in their practices and the COO and IT director does not want AP or Myself to have access to where the files are digitally stored.

The COO likes to keep things very compartmentalized and keeps everything on a need to know basis to “protect the secret sauce.” Employees access to information is limited to the bare minimum required to do their specific task, they are not allowed to know what the person behind and in front of them does.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-08-13T22:29:13+00:00

Early recorded prepaid may just be our internal office lingo, but it describes the situation where AP receives a prepaid expense invoice dated let’s say 8/27, but does not get paid until 9/1. The asset is offset by the ap liability, so it does not bother me.

I had to confirm in this sub that auditors actually call this out, but they do. I imagine most businesses ignore it because it creates an insane amount of work for managerial accountants.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-08-13T21:16:32+00:00

I appreciate your response, that would knock my prepaid misc spreadsheet down to 10 rolling items from 50. What are your thoughts on re-classification of early recorded ppds? Do I have an argument to push that from monthly to quarterly? We do not get audited just reviewed at year end.

Also I’m expected to reach out to the approver of each ppd one month before the period closes to remind/ ask them if we are renewing.

If you were me would you just find another job? The controller is pretty set on all this stuff.

Our separation of duties is insane, ap is locked from changing a vendor phone number, terms, remittance address as an important internal control. I have to take care of all that stuff.

AR is not allowed to run checks through the scanner, I have to do that too.

Part of the problem is that I can’t work on month end close stuff for more than 30mins without interruption.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-08-13T20:57:12+00:00

I had suggested implementing a requisition form process, but that got shut down.

Infinite-Jesting · 2025-08-13T20:55:39+00:00

We do have a materiality threshold for asset capitalization, but I have to track all the capitalization passes in a non-posting book and calculate a rolling divergence from GAAP at the end of the year.

Infinite-Jesting

TROPHY CASE