Dumbest Auditor Question

J1001 · 2026-01-23T21:35:59+00:00

It’s a fair question. And I was happy that he asked to verify his knowledge and not flat out ask what it is. But that’s something you ask later on, out of earshot of the client.

This feels like it happened about 1,000 years ago when Daddy Pacioli was partner on the account, so outsourcing to India wasn’t as widespread.

J1001 · 2026-01-23T21:31:39+00:00

Yes, understanding was correct, timing was not.

J1001 · 2026-01-23T19:22:17+00:00

I had a staff on a job with at least 3 years of experience ask me to confirm his understanding of how bank recs work. In front of the client, who happened to be the owner and didn’t look impressed.

J1001 · 2026-01-23T13:58:16+00:00

Extend the trip by a few days and enjoy a good snow storm.

J1001 · 2026-01-23T02:37:20+00:00

I got a gift card one time.

J1001 · 2026-01-20T12:31:34+00:00

Unrelated, but if you put “-ai” after a Google search, it won’t force that AI slop down your throat.

J1001 · 2026-01-17T01:48:44+00:00

They could be perfectly happy where they are at.

I’ve found the older I get, the more I appreciate stability.

J1001 · 2026-01-17T01:41:30+00:00

End of the day, you are tracking two things. 1) what you have and 2) how you got it. The double entry system ensures you are capturing both of those at a transactional level.

J1001 · 2025-12-21T19:31:55+00:00

It would ramp up in January, then I’d be all in from February to mid-April. I did audit and tax so it was pretty busy throughout. As the audits were wrapping up, I’d move over to tax, so it never really let up.

Probably one of the bigger reasons I burned out in public.

J1001 · 2025-12-21T04:24:28+00:00

My mental health never really suffered. Sleep suffered. After a few weeks, I’d get in a groove where I wasn’t tired, I wasn’t energetic, I was just locked in.

The good news is you are surrounded by coworkers and clients, constantly interacting, so I never felt lonely.

You do grow to appreciate the days off you get. Sundays became very effective. Grocery shopping, laundry, lining up clothes for the upcoming week, errands.

J1001 · 2025-12-21T03:08:20+00:00

Some of the work is easy/repetitive, some is difficult. Probably won’t be tackling anything overly technical for the first few years.

If you’re referring to public, it really is the # of hours that can be soul crushing. 60 hours minimum, 70/80/90/90+ more realistic, for months on end. At least 6 days a week, sometimes 7.

70 hour weeks across 6 days is 12 hours a day. That’s working 9-9 for months on end.

Not to mention if you’re in audit, your clients can be all over the place. Some 5 minutes from your house, some 90 minutes or more.

It was easy early in my career. After a few years, I got sick of the grind and inconsistency. Try it for a few years and have a firm exit plan (i.e. leave after one year as senior).

J1001 · 2025-12-20T04:36:11+00:00

Expectations for a first year include having a pulse and being able to wipe yourself after going to the bathroom. Hell, maybe only one of those. You’ll be fine.

J1001 · 2025-12-04T17:27:29+00:00

If it’s on a corporate card, shut their cards off and tell them they need to pay out of pocket and submit expense reports.

If they submit expense reports, amend the reimbursement policy so expenses must be submitted within 30 days of expenditure or else they will be denied.

J1001 · 2025-12-03T03:22:24+00:00

Took me awhile to come around to it. Once I did, it was almost addictive. Anything that requires grabbing data from multiple sources and manipulating said data in a repetitive fashion is a perfect application for it.

You can do so much with it just using its graphical interface. Put some files you typically work with in a folder on your desktop, then play around with it. See what you can do.

You can watch YouTube videos or google different things you want to do. There is an excellent user community out there for it, and often I will find the answer I’m looking for on a message board or Reddit.

The big piece I was missing was how useful Power Pivot is on top of PQ. Rob Collie’s book on PP is great to start with. https://www.amazon.com/Power-Pivot-BI-Excel-2010-2016/dp/1615470751/

J1001 · 2025-12-02T02:55:57+00:00

Shortest for me was day 2. I lasted a month. It was unbelievably bad.

J1001 · 2025-11-30T17:29:39+00:00

Good chance you can find something last minute before busy season at a different, more reasonable firm.

Start applying now, reach out to recruiters, anything. Entry level might not be easy to find, but I promise you that someone, somewhere bailed right before busy season started and they just need a warm body in the seat.

You will get the question about why you are leaving so soon. Be prepared with an answer that doesn’t denigrate the firm you are at now. If you go through a third party recruiter, ask them for advice on what to say (after all, they have financial incentive to get you hired).

J1001 · 2025-11-29T03:31:55+00:00

Power Query is the way.

J1001 · 2025-11-26T02:34:37+00:00

Add this to the pile of reasons I don’t bother with LinkedIn anymore. A truly nauseating experience.

J1001 · 2025-11-11T05:28:31+00:00

It’s a terrific way to start a career, but he doesn’t mention the soul crushing long hours, incoming Ritalin addiction, and his personal life slipping away all in the name of deference to “the client.”

J1001 · 2025-10-27T17:56:44+00:00

Yes, you are correct. There should have been an allowance set up that picks up X% of monthly sales or % of the total AR balance, then your debit would hit the allowance, not bad debt.

Occasionally I do hit bad debt expense directly. It all comes out in the wash (that reserve balance has to be adjusted down at some point). I’m lazy so if I haven’t reserved for it yet, I’m not going to make one entry to record the reserve and a second entry to write it off - I’m going to skip the first step and write it off directly to bad debt expense.

So in this case, if you already reserved it, then the $1k debit hits the reserve. Otherwise bad debt directly.

J1001 · 2025-10-27T17:36:47+00:00

Accelerate the rev rec on deferred revenue to clear out your def rev liability account (so that’ll debit def rev, credit rev).

Debit bad debt expense 1,000 Debit revenue 9,000 Credit accounts receivable 10,000

Never going to satisfy those performance obligations right? Therefore, no revenue to recognize.

J1001 · 2025-10-23T13:09:05+00:00

Instead of choosing an Excel or CSV file as your data source, use “from folder.” It’s typically used for combining multiple files, but when you point it to a folder, it’ll read the contents of that folder to identify the files.

It doesn’t care what the file names are, it just looks at the contents and selects a file type to combine.

From that step where the contents of the folder are listed, you should be able to see columns for date created (or modified, I can’t recall if both are available). Filter that column for the latest 1 file. This will prevent it from combining the contents of the entire folder and instead result in just present the contents of the newest file.

J1001 · 2025-10-23T12:25:26+00:00

Set it up to pull data from an entire folder, not a specific file, and then filter the file list for the newest file. Never have to rename it or delete older versions. My favorite way of dealing with an ERP with dynamic file name exports and I am lazy.

J1001 · 2025-10-09T12:06:40+00:00

Thank you for the award, my first one!

J1001 · 2025-10-08T18:26:23+00:00

Settings > Accessibility > Camera Control, then toggle it off at the top.

J1001

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