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Hellblazer187
Oct 12, 2003

The guy who we missed the extension for was prepared by probably my weakest staff member and I rushed the review because it was already late and I went to file and noticed another thing that was messed up on the draft I sent before and he's gonna owe 4k more in tax than I originally thought and that's a fun email to write.

"Hey, remember how we hosed up a week ago? I just noticed we hosed up again. Here's the new 8879 sorry we're worthless!"

Edit: lmao I hate accounting why did I ever sign up for this

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PatMarshall
Apr 6, 2009

Yeah, that happens to all of us. As long as you are up front and deal with it right away, then it generally turns out OK. Worst case, the client looks for another provider next year, but everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Remember its just money and paperwork, we aren't dealing with life and death, no matter what it feels like sometimes.

Hellblazer187
Oct 12, 2003

I got an email from the IRS saying I'm among the "best qualified" for one of the openings I applied for but I have no idea which one.

Jean-Paul Shartre
Jan 16, 2015

this sentence no verb


Hellblazer187 posted:

I got an email from the IRS saying I'm among the "best qualified" for one of the openings I applied for but I have no idea which one.

If you go to your usajobs account there should be a status page where they show you which emails you get are related to which openings you've applied for.

black.lion
Apr 1, 2004




For if he like a madman lived,
At least he like a wise one died.

Has anyone used or had experience with TaxDome for client/workflow management?

We're a teeny tiny firm (now just literally my boss and me, trying to hire a cpl folks but we won't have more than 5 employees total) and have been managing workflow/project tracking/etc on an extremely convoluted spreadsheet I have created and modified over the last few years. But it's limited, and I want to get us into something that really tracks and organizes everything and just streamlines stuff.

I've looked at Canopy, but reviews seem mixed, some people hate it; I looked at Karbon, but think it's mb a bit much/bit expensive for our tiny firm; XCM is way too much for us, plus we use ProSeries which idk if that's a dealbreaker but whatever.

Anyway I came across TaxDome and seems like there's a lot of good feedback around it, relatively affordable, claims to do all the things we want - only negative feedback I'm hearing is that the client-side interface is mb a little confusing, but appears that that's being updated soon; and they are active on r/taxpros answering questions, responding to feedback, giving updates etc. which I always take as a good sign (that is, company having dedicated outreach to the industry its serving, and that occurring on reddit makes me hope that this is a company geared more toward cutting edge modern solutions and tools lmao)

Anyway, any thoughts or feedback on TaxDome for a small firm? Or any other client/workflow management solutions?


e:

Also longshot but just in case, if anyone would consider a pretty chill job in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, NC area hit me up!

Democratic Pirate
Feb 17, 2010

Got a LinkedIn ping about a manager position for a Big 4’s SDC. That may be the worst position in all of the Big 4’s areas of service.

Good Citizen
Aug 12, 2008

trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump

Democratic Pirate posted:

Got a LinkedIn ping about a manager position for a Big 4’s SDC. That may be the worst position in all of the Big 4’s areas of service.

I’m struggling to think of any job on the planet I’d want less than that. Like not just in accounting. Any job

black.lion
Apr 1, 2004




For if he like a madman lived,
At least he like a wise one died.

Anyone in here use Gusto or have experience with it? Considering switching our payroll clients over to it but not sure if it'll work for what we do, and I don't trust answers from salespeople for these loving products anymore

Hellblazer187
Oct 12, 2003

black.lion posted:

Anyone in here use Gusto or have experience with it? Considering switching our payroll clients over to it but not sure if it'll work for what we do, and I don't trust answers from salespeople for these loving products anymore

We don't do payroll, we do pretty much force all of our S-Corp clients to go on Gusto. It works better than Intuit Payroll or other alternatives and at slightly lower price I think. I don't really get involved with that side of the business but it seems to be working out.

black.lion
Apr 1, 2004




For if he like a madman lived,
At least he like a wise one died.

Hellblazer187 posted:

We don't do payroll, we do pretty much force all of our S-Corp clients to go on Gusto. It works better than Intuit Payroll or other alternatives and at slightly lower price I think. I don't really get involved with that side of the business but it seems to be working out.

Dope this is exactly what we're trying to do, all our "payroll" people (except for like 2 or 3 exceptions) are SCorps so we're just running payroll for the owner, and often just once a year. At the moment we're doing the Fed payroll filings each quarter manually through QB desktop, setting up Fed deposits manually on EFTPS, doing state filings + deposits manually. It is time consuming.

Hope you dont mind me pelting you with a few questions:

- So once we setup all our clients in Gusto, if they don't run a payroll during a month/quarter will Gusto automatically submit the Fed/State filings? Or do we still have to login and press a button to initiate those filings?

- Will Gusto let us manually adjust withholding?

- Will Gusto let us setup draws as a payroll deduction? We just restate draws as net pay instead of having the client write themselves a check

- Is there anything annoying about using Gusto for SCorp clients that comes to mind?

Really glad I asked and really appreciate the feedback! If Gusto can save me from manually filing 100+ rounds of payroll forms with "$0" all over them every quarter I'm jumping in with both feet

e: basically I want to set this ish up for clients and then be able to ignore it until they want to run a payroll, and know that all the filings are being done without me having to manually do them

black.lion fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Jun 16, 2021

Hellblazer187
Oct 12, 2003

Honestly, I don't know the answers to most of those. I believe you can manually adjust withholding - most of ours are zero income tax withholding because we specialize in the expat space so we have people doing the foreign exclusion. The most annoying part is getting client compliance. We generally try to have our clients do regular, monthly payroll and then a bonus at year end if salary is looks too low overall. The important thing is Gusto does do the 940 and 941 filings, and on the client side it's just one big transaction and Gusto handles the IRS payment and files the W2/W3, etc.

For owner draws I just have my clients do a bank transfer, it never touches Gusto. Usually I'm not involved at all in the decision about a draw, they take the money and tell me later. I'm not sure why you'd want that through the payroll service anyways, unless I'm misunderstanding something.

The only issue I see with using Gusto for people who do one payroll a year is you're paying like $50-$100 per month per company so clients might balk at that depending on how you have the fees set up. "Why am I paying for a whole year if I'm just writing one check in December?

Edit: At a former employer I used to do payroll manually for clients too, it sucks. And for whatever reason back when I did that our firm wasn't able to efile the 941s. So it was a big loving headache printing, signing, scanning 100 of those every quarter. And then if you ever made a mistake on a 941, like transpose two digits on an EIN or something, lmao good luck rip.

Hellblazer187 fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Jun 17, 2021

black.lion
Apr 1, 2004




For if he like a madman lived,
At least he like a wise one died.

Ah word, yea so most of our people just take draws as they want throughout the year and then either quarterly, or randomly, or (most often) in like mid-December we look at total income and just run one single lump payroll to get them to whatever we feel is reasonable compensation - so for most of the year we're filing payroll forms that just say no payroll was paid.

The payroll/draws thing is, rn we run payroll and do the filings through QB Desktop - we put the salary in and adjust the withholding according to whatever we want, and then whatever the net pay is we just credit against draws, so just restating whatever amount of draws they've taken throughout the year as net pay from their one-time payroll salary - so I guess I just need to be able to zero-out the net pay in Gusto with some deduction from wages that won't show up on the W2 or make any of the reporting out of wack... almost as if the client was going to give themselves their net-pay in cash I guess?

Really what matters is, if I do NOTHING, will Gusto still file 941/940 (and state forms) without me having to click through something for every client

I figure (hope) our people will generally be $50/year and our billing should be able to absorb that, definitely something I'll have to look at tho

Hellblazer187
Oct 12, 2003

Ah, right. OK. So, what we do when we have a client who refuses to do regular payroll is run one at the end of the year, but have it be a check instead of direct deposit and then they just don't deposit it. We're not doing any bookkeeping for clients though. If they're signed up and active in Gusto the service will do quarterly returns and everything.

Some clients just won't do payroll properly so... we figure out reasonable compensation after the fact and put it on 1040 Sch C as "management fees." This is obviously not ideal but it's a backdoor way into getting some social security tax paid after the fact.

Most of our clients at this point do take a regular monthly payroll and then take draws if they need more money during the year. The other benefit to this is when you have like, 401k plans set up. They can just run a predictable amount. $4k per month gross with whatever 401k deduction, just set it on autopilot. The other benefit of this is with regular payrolls you have regular federal income taxes paid (for domestic clients anyways) so less of big deal when they miss their 1040-ES which all of them always do forever.

As I said I don't really get involved in this part except for telling people how much to pay themselves. We have some non-accountant staff that actually handles interacting with Gusto for clients. I probably can't tell you everything you need to know. Getting on a call with a Gusto sales rep or something might be able to answer more of your questions. But what I can say is that I've been really happy with how they've operated for our S-Corp clients.

Hellblazer187 fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Jun 17, 2021

black.lion
Apr 1, 2004




For if he like a madman lived,
At least he like a wise one died.

Awesome well I really appreciate your feedback!!!

Mush Mushi
Sep 9, 2007
It might just be a whipsaw of post-vacation blues combined with pandemic isolation, but in a way I actually miss working at my old big 4. Yes, it engulfed my life to the extent that my friends, lovers, and colleagues all worked for the firm, but having all of that on autopilot was nice. I thought I had made some lifelong relationships but they only lasted a year or two after I left. I think I just described a cult?

PatMarshall
Apr 6, 2009

I know what you mean, I kinda miss getting drunk with my work friends every Thursday. It is in no way a sustainable lifestyle though.

dpkg chopra
Jun 9, 2007

Fast Food Fight

Grimey Drawer
Hello, accountants!

I figured this might be a better place to ask than the income thread.

I'm looking for an accountant that does work with international clients, particularly LATAM. This would be for an individual, so maybe a huge firm is not ideal but honestly as long as they know their poo poo and don't charge a fortune, it should be fine.

Any recommendations?

black.lion
Apr 1, 2004




For if he like a madman lived,
At least he like a wise one died.

What work in particular? Does this person need to file taxes in the US? Or in whatever country they're residing? Or is this not a tax thing? Need a lil more info to give good recs

Hurt Whitey Maybe
Jun 26, 2008

I mean maybe not. Or maybe. Definitely don't kill anyone.
Being a Big 4 international tax person I’d naturally recommend Big 4, particularly either the New York or Miami offices. That said you could look for a midsize out of Miami, but you’d just want to make sure they’re familiar with 1040-NR (if it’s an individual in Latin America with a US filing requirement). Most firms in Miami of any decent size should have experience with your exact fact pattern, and it couldn’t hurt to look locally as well. I sit in London doing US tax, there could easily be boutique firms in whatever country the client is in, which conceivably makes things easier.

dpkg chopra
Jun 9, 2007

Fast Food Fight

Grimey Drawer

black.lion posted:

What work in particular? Does this person need to file taxes in the US? Or in whatever country they're residing? Or is this not a tax thing? Need a lil more info to give good recs

Nothing too complex, they do contracting work as a software developer for US companies and want to set up an LLC, bank account, etc, in the US and from there flow out payments to their country of residence while reinvesting in the US the rest. All work is done from outside of the US.

I know there's a million sites that do this online, but this guy is starting to make real money and has stock options that might actually be worth something in the near future (7 figure range) so I think it merits having someone who knows their poo poo actually look into.

I've had bad experiences in the past with accountants missing big stuff when it comes to int'l clients, then having them come screaming at me when the IRS suddenly starts withholding money from them.


Hurt Whitey Maybe posted:

Being a Big 4 international tax person I’d naturally recommend Big 4, particularly either the New York or Miami offices. That said you could look for a midsize out of Miami, but you’d just want to make sure they’re familiar with 1040-NR (if it’s an individual in Latin America with a US filing requirement). Most firms in Miami of any decent size should have experience with your exact fact pattern, and it couldn’t hurt to look locally as well. I sit in London doing US tax, there could easily be boutique firms in whatever country the client is in, which conceivably makes things easier.

Yeah, Miami is probably the best bet but I don't think it's a hard requirement. IME it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff in Miami, and a lot of people swear by their accountant there and it's mostly just them not knowing their accountant is constantly loving up. I might just be biased off recent experiences, though.

PatMarshall
Apr 6, 2009

I 'd help you, but I charge a fortune haha. I can offer recommendations in the D.C. area since that's what I know. Wolf Group in Fairfax are an boutique international specialty firm that does good work, for example.

Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.
IRS,

Be fixed. Stop being broken. Process the returns and answer your phone.

Thank you,

America

Kilbas
Feb 1, 2011

Pray for me. I'll know whether I've escaped public accounting this Monday or Tuesday, and it's between me and only one other candidate. KRUSTY WANTS OUT!

Good Citizen
Aug 12, 2008

trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump

Kilbas posted:

Pray for me. I'll know whether I've escaped public accounting this Monday or Tuesday, and it's between me and only one other candidate. KRUSTY WANTS OUT!

Good luck man. Nothing quite like the feeling of never needing to fill out another time sheet again

mojo1701a
Oct 9, 2008

Oh, yeah. Loud and clear. Emphasis on LOUD!
~ David Lee Roth

I posted this in the BFC discord, but I wasn't sure if there's much activity, so I'll just ask this here:

I got a message last week from a recruiter that found me on LinkedIn a year or two ago asking me if I was interested in a job with a bigger, local firm. I'm not quite ready to leave yet as my main boss is less than a year from retirement, and I thought I'd do him the professional courtesy of not shaking things up too much (even his original plan has gotten worse because he's now taking more time to care for his wife who's starting to get Alzheimers) as he plans his exit, but since I don't want to work for the guy they recently made a partner, I thought I'd use the "I need audit/assurance hours" as my official reason for leaving.

The job offer was as an Accounting and Auditing Manager. I'm about two years from my designation, but I have over 7 years doing NTR's at a small firm, so while I wouldn't mind a certain level of management, I have no real experience with auditing. Nevertheless, I told him that I wouldn't mind if there's any openings 6-12 months from now in that field so I can get the experience.

He suggested a Zoom meeting, and then a phone call after I told him a Zoom meeting would have to be after 6pm because I don't have the hardware at work. Problem is I'm not sure what the actual protocol (or whatever you call it) with a recruiter is, if I tell them, "Hey, can you give me 5-minutes heads-up so I can go to my car. Because my office isn't exactly private, and I don't want anyone knowing I'm looking to leave just yet."?

Again, I'm not looking to split just yet. I just want to know my options because I figure 7 years in this position without much room for advancement isn't a bad time to start looking around, and I don't think working on becoming a partner at the only small-level firm I've worked for is a good idea. I figure if worse comes to worst, asking for a starting salary that's $5,000-10,000 more than my current nominal annual income, plus benefits and experience hours will either answer the question for me, or solve a few of my goals.

I'm pretty naive when it comes to this kind of thing, especially since I never grew up with anyone that had actual advice for a career (let alone one in business or finance) so almost all of this is very new to me.

Hellblazer187
Oct 12, 2003

If it made financial sense for your boss to terminate your employment, do you think he would extend the professional courtesy of keeping you employed for almost a year anyways?

Edit:

mojo1701a posted:

Problem is I'm not sure what the actual protocol (or whatever you call it) with a recruiter is, if I tell them, "Hey, can you give me 5-minutes heads-up so I can go to my car. Because my office isn't exactly private, and I don't want anyone knowing I'm looking to leave just yet."?

This should be fine.

Hellblazer187 fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Jul 28, 2021

mojo1701a
Oct 9, 2008

Oh, yeah. Loud and clear. Emphasis on LOUD!
~ David Lee Roth

Hellblazer187 posted:

If it made financial sense for your boss to terminate your employment, do you think he would extend the professional courtesy of keeping you employed for almost a year anyways?

Edit:

This should be fine.

Thanks, I figured I was overthinking it. I just needed an actual opinion. I really should network more and meet other local professionals, because the only guidance I've ever had for jobs or career has been family, and they're... absolutely wrong about everything.

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong. If I could jump ship now to another company that has me doing what I do now but with a significant pay boost, I totally would. I just don't want any information getting out until I'm sure I can.

Besides, he's slowly shifting his clients to the newest partner, so it'd be the newest partner's job to hire someone.

Blotto_Otter
Aug 16, 2013


Setting aside whether or not this particular job is right for you, it does sound like a good idea for you to start looking right now for better experience and more pay at bigger/different firms. I agree with hellblazer that you shouldn't let your boss' impending retirement stop you from leaving if it makes sense for your own earnings and career development. And asking recruiters to keep it quiet is perfectly reasonable anytime you're looking to leave a job, especially if it's moving between accounting firms in the same town.

Where is this, Canada? NTRs are basically the equivalent of a compilation, right?

I don't know how this translates to Canada, but in the US, I'd be a little apprehensive about jumping to an "audit manager" position if you have little experience doing audits or managing engagements with multiple staff members. An experienced accountant can usually learn how to do audits without too much trouble, but "audit manager" is not usually the level where you do that learning. In my experience, someone with that title would typically be an experienced, proficient auditor that staffers and in-charges can go to with questions about the trickier parts of any given audit.

That said, I don't know how things are different for the industry in Canada relative to the US, and the relationship between a job title and the actual duties/expectations vary from firm to firm, particularly at smaller firms, so take that with a big grain of salt. Regardless, I think it's important to set reasonable expectations and make sure a job is a good fit rather than rushing into it, so I would go ahead with the interview and just be frank about your level of experience (while trying not to undersell your abilities, of course), and see if they seem willing and able to support you while you learn a new line of work. Make sure to ask questions about how many audit staff they have and how long have they been with the firm, what kind of clients do they audit, and, in particular: does it involve travel to audit clients, and how much?

e: another thought that occurred to me - be wary of recruiters pushing you towards jobs that you feel underqualified/overqualified/ill-suited for. Third-party recruiters typically get a cut when you take a new job, so their incentive is to get you into a new job as quick as possible, not to take their time and find the right job for you.

Blotto_Otter fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Jul 28, 2021

Good Citizen
Aug 12, 2008

trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump
I'm not sure about your area and the firms in questions but getting an audit manager position without your CPA or audit experience seems like a stretch? Not saying you're not qualified to do the job but that seems like it would be a hard sell to the firm and a very difficult transition

Missing Donut
Apr 24, 2003

Trying to lead a middle-aged life. Well, it's either that or drop dead.

- If a recruiter wasn't willing to work around your schedule, which is being respectful to your current employer, you should question whether you want to continue working with that recruiter.

- There's nothing inherently wrong with starting at the bottom of a small firm and working up to partner. It requires you to be more open to talking to others about their firm procedures and practices, but it can work. But what you describe is not a great long-term proposition, because if you don't want to work for the new partner, I'm assuming you wouldn't want to stay to potentially make partner with him...

- You don't need to state a reason for leaving. The less said, the better.

- Looks like others have said this while I've been typing it out, but it would be a potential issue to interview for an Accounting and Auditing Manager without any audit experience.

mojo1701a
Oct 9, 2008

Oh, yeah. Loud and clear. Emphasis on LOUD!
~ David Lee Roth

Yeah, that's why I'm also curious, because the company he works for does recruiting for accounting firms, but maybe there's a miscommunication. I once interviewed for my college co-op position at the local hydro provider, and I realized afterward that the reason they were asking about my bartending and conflict resolution skills is because the job was more likely for customer account retention or something.

Blotto_Otter posted:

Where is this, Canada? NTRs are basically the equivalent of a compilation, right?

I don't know how this translates to Canada, but in the US, I'd be a little apprehensive about jumping to an "audit manager" position if you have little experience doing audits or managing engagements with multiple staff members. An experienced accountant can usually learn how to do audits without too much trouble, but "audit manager" is not usually the level where you do that learning. In my experience, someone with that title would typically be an experienced, proficient auditor that staffers and in-charges can go to with questions about the trickier parts of any given audit.

Yeah, we mostly use "compilation" but I've heard "NTR", and I just wanted to use the acronym.

That said, it might be a job that sometimes dips its toe into auditing, as it mentioned a lot of stuff that isn't exclusive to auditing.

Missing Donut posted:

- If a recruiter wasn't willing to work around your schedule, which is being respectful to your current employer, you should question whether you want to continue working with that recruiter.

I may have misunderstood what he was trying to say, but maybe it was more, "Can I call you during the day instead?" because I mentioned not having access to a webcam or anything at work.

In any case, I'll take the call and see what goes from there. I was hoping to be able to move to a firm closer to Toronto, but as long as it's not in my hometown, I'll take it. Thanks, everyone.

Hellblazer187
Oct 12, 2003



"Considerable Complexity" and "significant burden" are IRS regulator speak for "lmao you loving assholes, get hosed, pay double, like it, eat poo poo, gently caress you."

I actually got legitimately mad at "significant burden [..] on taxpayers." I'd respect it on some level if they were just like "yeah you know what we're too lazy to figure this poo poo out, go to hell." But they had to add "and so are you, shithead."

Heavily simplified context for people not in the weeds of this stuff: GILTI is from the 2017 tax reform. It used to be that US persons didn't pay tax on the earnings in their controlled foreign corporations unless and until they repatriated the money (took a dividend, basically). TCJA changed that, introducing GILTI, which makes CFC income pass though to the US owner. Some of that pass through is limited for US Corporations that own foreign corporations, but less so for US individuals who own foreign corporations. I have a lot of US citizen entrepreneurs abroad so I deal with that actually pretty often.

NOLs are not allowed in determining GILTI inclusion. If your foreign company loses 40 grand in 20X1 and makes 70 grand in 20X2, gently caress you GILTI is 70 grand. One thing they finalized last year is the "high tax exemption" which basically says "if the foreign effective rate is 18.9% or higher, you can forget about this whole GILTI thing." So this notice (from last year, but this is the first time I've had to research this issue) basically says people with NOLs get hosed for the HTE as well. Lose 40k in X1, make 70k in X2, pay 20% tax on 30k at home. But oh poo poo, that's less than 18.9 on the 70k hahahahaha

Mush Mushi
Sep 9, 2007
Does a 962 election get you the effective 10.5% GILTI rate plus limited FTC on the 70k (but based on the 30k of post NOL foreign earnings)? I haven’t worked with GILTI in a while but that seems not horrible if at least consistent with the spirit of mildly punishing un-American earnings.

You’re safe here, but word on the street is that NOL carryforwards are for bad people anyways.

Hellblazer187
Oct 12, 2003

Yes, 962 does that, which is probably what we'll do. My co-worker ran the numbers but I haven't reviewed them yet. So, whatever. I just found that "it's too complicated for you, poo poo head" stuff to be lol.

Mush Mushi
Sep 9, 2007
Yeah. It’s a funny line to randomly draw given all of the stuff in TCJA.

PatMarshall
Apr 6, 2009

Yes, most clients are best off making a 962 election, although if they luck out the high-tax election is much simpler if it works out. You generally need to run both calculations every year to see which is the best option. You should also check if there have been repatriations of cash or if the client plans to repatriate cash in the near-term, as that can affect the decision whether to make an election or not.

Hellblazer187
Oct 12, 2003

We actually haven't done HTE yet. We've done lots of 962. I was only researching it to see if they give you anything for loss carryforwards with the HTE. They don't!

PatMarshall
Apr 6, 2009

Yeah I've only done a handful, most clients are better off with the 962 since they benefit from cross crediting high taxed GILTI against low taxed GILTI (i.e., use excess credits from the sub in India to offset profits from the sub in Dubai). Loss carryforwards in a CFC are generally useless these days. Even NOLs at the parent are bad, since GILTI absorbs 100% of NOLs that could otherwise offset 21% income, rather than 10.5%.

mojo1701a
Oct 9, 2008

Oh, yeah. Loud and clear. Emphasis on LOUD!
~ David Lee Roth

Well, I responded to this recruiter via LinkedIn, told him the story, but after I told him I'd prefer chatting during lunch, he asked me again for my email address for a Zoom call for Thursday (ie. tomorrow). Told him I thought this was going to be a phone call because I thought I told him that I can't do Zoom at work (no camera or microphone, and also it's not exactly private) on Friday.

I know Monday was a holiday here, but I haven't heard back. Was going to tell him that I'm taking Friday off, so I could do a video call in the morning at home, but gently caress it, I'm not sure what's going on here. You're the one that messaged me, buddy, not the other way around.

Also, I just started the Core 2 CPA PEP module, which is going to be way worse than Core 1 because I remember very little of my original cost and management accounting prerequisites. Oh well, another two months and hopefully the tax, auditing, and two common pre-CFE modules that come after will be smoother.

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Blotto_Otter
Aug 16, 2013


Any of y'all audit and assurance types ever had to deal with fuckery on a client representation letter? I'm trying to wrap up an old financial statement review for a smallish (and notoriously tardy) client, and nearly two weeks after sending the rep letter template (with explicit instructions to talk to me before changing any representations), I just got back a signed rep letter... with the two specific representations about knowledge or allegations of fraud conveniently skipped over, then a half-page's worth of representations missing as if another page was printed and not scanned, and then the paragraph numbering monkeyed with to make it end on the same paragraph number as the original template. Also the automatic page numbering from the template's footer is gone, meaning I can't tell if they printed 3 pages and simply forgot to scan the middle one, or deleted a ton of paragraphs and said "well it's still the same page length and ends on the same numbered paragraph as the template, maybe he won't look at it very closely".

I responded with something to the effect of "hey it looks like a page is missing from the scan and uh also these missing paragraphs about fraud are mandatory, we need to talk about why you removed them", and got a response from a different person that it was all accidental, and so-and-so was using "some type of publisher" (???) and this was either a glitch or user error. Hm. OK.

Been doing audits (and some reviews) off and on for about 12 years, this is the second time I've had a noteworthy fuckup or manipulation of a client rep letter, and at least the first one (different client, years back) had the decency to make their change subtle and not insult my intelligence.

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