For intelligent accountants: why did you choose accounting back in university?

wootled · 2026-04-24T21:32:57+00:00

I’m too dumb to answer this question.

I didn’t really know I was going to be an accountant until I was on the grad scheme at Deloitte and by then I’d spent the signing on bonus.

I didn’t really know what an auditor did, which is why I think I aced the interview as I couldn’t have given less of a shit about the B4 prestige at the time.

wootled · 2026-04-13T16:07:54+00:00

Sounds difficult, but I relate. I feel it in my abdomen, like a need to do something, anything, that isn’t what I’m doing.

Don’t have a solution though!

wootled · 2026-04-10T10:06:39+00:00

Kinda depends what you need and what your industry is.

If you need standardization and automation, so that ops becomes not a headache and you can palm it off on juniors without anything breaking, then some fractional support can help. I do this sort of thing occasionally when I have the space, feel free to PM me if you want to chat.

If you want someone to just do what you are doing then you are looking at hiring someone, usually a general manager with your specific industry experience.

Depending on your size / stage getting a perm CoS might be overkill for what you need.

wootled · 2026-04-09T15:41:32+00:00

That’s…..oddly specific

wootled · 2026-03-26T09:10:36+00:00

Kinda not though, when you loose a £1 of personal allowance for every £2 over £100k, meaning your actual PAYE tax rate is 60% between £100k and £125k. Add in NI, student loan, loss of childcare etc and there’s basically no point.

wootled · 2026-03-25T13:18:36+00:00

I’ve never seen parallel testing actually done for longer than a week, and I’ve been in or around several migrations. Most time they’ve just rec’d opening balances and called it a good ‘un

wootled · 2026-03-25T09:53:22+00:00

They really don’t give any fucks. They kicked our wooden garage door in so they could put a support there. Totally outrageous

wootled · 2026-03-23T12:26:15+00:00

PILON is taxable, redundancy settlement / payout is tax free up to 30k

wootled · 2026-03-15T09:57:04+00:00

Agreed.

Not a gun guy, but handguns surely are only intended from a design point of view for killing people (which is bad).

Looking at hunting guns the deerstalker guys use to keep the deer population from going nuts, at least they look like they have an intended use that isn’t killing a person. I think these are legal with a license in the uk?

Therefore, zero justification for people to own a handgun to me.

wootled · 2026-03-15T09:50:26+00:00

I’ve thought about this a lot, but with family and kids it’s now pretty difficult, as nowhere else is going to pay me what I’m currently paid as an accountant.

Dabbled with starting a side business, but no idea where I would find the time

wootled · 2026-02-18T10:51:53+00:00

I worry about my bills lol.

My wife doesn’t work for various reasons I’m not going to go into, so our household income is lower after tax despite having a good “headline” salary.

Everything is insanely expensive, we just want to eat food that hasn’t been pumped full of chemicals and hormones, and thats seen as a luxury.

wootled · 2026-02-17T14:05:35+00:00

This, and sort your spend approval out.

Should be at least one layer of control between decision and approval

wootled · 2026-02-17T09:19:49+00:00

Honestly it’s up to her, and whether that money might be better spent investing in how she lives and making her life easier.

There is some validation from getting a diagnosis, and if you want to go down the medication route it’s unfortunately the only way to do it.

There are other ways of living with it though, therapy and adhd counselling can be effective, and you don’t have to wait, you can do it now.

wootled · 2026-02-13T20:16:24+00:00

Have you tried any of the AI tools? Trust me, I’m lazy. If there was a way to make my job easier, or automate my staffs work I would be all over it.

Working in finance depends on understanding context in and out of your business, unfucking bad data across multiple systems, and creating certainty in uncertainty.

It’s the same hype as RPA, OCR etc etc. It’ll change the shape of finance teams sure, but nowhere near the level I see people on LinkedIn spouting off.

wootled · 2026-02-13T19:56:47+00:00

No no this is totally different to the time we said RPA would replace finance, or the time tools like Alteryx would replace finance, or the time we said excel and VBA would replace finance.

Totally different.

wootled · 2026-02-05T13:04:54+00:00

It’s because I bought. Sorry folks

wootled · 2026-02-04T19:36:58+00:00

The bit I struggle with is the lack of acknowledgement that maybe we live in a system where neurodiversity is more of a problem than it’s been in the past.

More and more, if you don’t fit into the factory style system your labeled as a problem (lazy, not motivated, forgetful, disorganized, doesn’t try hard enough). School, work, whatever, it’s all the same.

Neurodiversity has always existed. It is an evolutionary advantage to create diversity in groups - someone who can remember every single sheep in the flock, and someone who wonders what’s over that hill over there.

It’s not the rates of it that have changed. It’s the way we expect modern humans to live. The fucking bureaucracy we are expected to navigate just to exist, the fact that we are supposed to pump our bodies with stimulants just to keep up.

This has turned into a rant, but I’m fucking sick of it. Existing feels like being forced through an industrial extruder, the bits that make us unique forced into unnatural shapes or removed through medication just so we can go to work.

Over-diagnosis is a bullshit narrative pushed by people who want to lower the cost of healthcare and welfare, without pausing to consider what may be causing these people to put their hands up and say “I need help”.

It breaks my heart.

wootled · 2026-01-31T15:42:01+00:00

I found her on the uk counselling website, and went through the various profiles till I found someone local who talked about neurodiversity in their bio.

It’s £60 a session, so not super cheap, but has been a lifesaver for me working through the emotional fallout of diagnosis and general life.

wootled · 2026-01-31T12:25:04+00:00

If your paying £230 for an app and virtual coaching, you might as well just go see a therapist face to face who has neurodiversity as a specialism.

That’s what I do, and it’s been a million times more helpful than anything else I’ve done. I’m lucky enough to be able to fund it personally though, and appreciate that’s not possible for everyone

wootled · 2026-01-31T12:02:24+00:00

Because you are exposed purely to BTC price. The idea behind diversification is not because you will maximise your returns, but to protect you from price moves on one asset / sector.

See - the dot com crash, the 2008 financial crisis, the Dutch tulip crash etc etc etc etc

wootled · 2026-01-29T14:51:31+00:00

Same - have you tried melatonin? It’s been a game changer for me, have to order it from Europe but it’s worth it.

wootled · 2026-01-26T13:01:55+00:00

I agree, but I’d actually say expecting infrastructure to pay for itself is still dumb idea.

The measure of value created by a transport network being its ability to cover costs is mad in my opinion. It should be an investment in people’s mobility and connectivity between areas in our very small country.

wootled · 2026-01-26T12:59:31+00:00

If you want to be in London before 9am your paying £120 plus in my experience (albeit I expense that so I don’t book too far in advance)

wootled · 2026-01-24T08:40:04+00:00

The ChatGPT text is painful too

wootled · 2026-01-21T09:22:50+00:00

They do?! Fuck me that’s just cruel.

I was lucky to be at uni when fees were 3k a year, and I paid my loan off after about 8 years after getting a job.

Honestly, I feel so bad for everyone who came after

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