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That sounds like you’re at or near a control failure in one of your journal entry processes
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Apr 5, 2024 16:09
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Good Citizen posted:That sounds like you’re at or near a control failure in one of your journal entry processes In what regards? They pulled like a bunch of eclectic things.
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Apr 5, 2024 16:13
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Apr 5, 2024 16:13
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Sounds like they should scan the GL for unusual activity and note none but what do I know
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Apr 5, 2024 16:23
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As bad as that sounds I would take this every loving day of the week over having to explain annuity reinsurance accounting to some big 4 new grad doing sample testing every day of the week.
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Apr 5, 2024 16:26
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Covok posted:In what regards? They pulled like a bunch of eclectic things. Yeah I don’t know the level of sophistication of your GL system labeling of what’s manual and what’s not, or the sophistication of the auditor’s sampling process , or even what they think might be failing (maybe it’s even some IT interface control?). But late sampling of random GL sounds like an expansion of the recommended sample size due to instances of control failure within the tables’/model’s tolerances. It’s been years and years since I’ve done audit side work but I doubt an audit manager of 6 years suddenly decided he would love to do more tedious gl line testing 3 weeks before filing. On the materiality comment that was deleted, yeah I do, that’s why it sounds control related and not substantive as they would have probably filtered out for very low values in substantive. Not disputing that auditors are commonly annoying and occasionally dumb, and I also love explaining materiality to them
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Apr 5, 2024 16:26
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Good Citizen posted:Yeah I don’t know the level of sophistication of your GL system labeling of what’s manual and what’s not, or the sophistication of the auditor’s sampling process , or even what they think might be failing (maybe it’s even some IT interface control?). But late sampling of random GL sounds like an expansion of the recommended sample size due to instances of control failure within the tables’/model’s tolerances. It’s been years and years since I’ve done audit side work but I doubt an audit manager of 6 years suddenly decided he would love to do more tedious gl line testing 3 weeks before filing. I mean, one question was on a $1 Adj for rounding, for instance, so I don't know if its materiality that is the concern. Also, nothing has changed. They have audited the business for 10 years, every year, and this guy has seen our books for 6 years so I really don't know why we got questions like: "Why don't you have debt?" We don't have loans. We didn't have loans last year either. We don't generally take out loans. "Why is sales tax a general journal entry?" Because the Senior Accountant makes the return, it goes to the manager to review. Then, when approved, the payment is setup and needs to be approved by 2 out of the 3 following people: the CFO, the Controller, and the Assistant Controller. Then, once set to go out, the Senior Accountant records the payment. "Why are all the bank fees put in by senior accountants and not AP?" Because they hit the bank directly so we just put them in the book when they arrive. "Why do you have all these FX adjustments?" Because we have been multinational since 2010 and its often the case that the value of the money when AP logs it for ACH does not remain the same by the time the ACH is approved and accepted. We analyze the ACH and book the adjustment for the difference between what AP entered at the time the payment was setup to go out and what was ultimately the value of the money when it cleared. "Why are all the payroll entires manual?" We receive a report from HR after they confirm payroll with ADP. Then, we book the payroll using a matrix in excel we have setup to load it into our CRM because ADP doesn't have a capabilie file format for upload. It's been that way sincr 2005. And it was like that all the way down. Nothing new or original from what we did before. Covok fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Apr 5, 2024 |
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Apr 5, 2024 16:39
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It's funny because auditing is totally broken, and the only solution on the horizon (AI) would only make it super duper worse.
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Apr 5, 2024 16:43
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Covok posted:I mean, one question was on a $1 Adj for rounding, for instance, so I don't know if its materiality that is the concern. but are these questions actually coming from that manager, or from the staff on the job? because this could all be explained by some combination of "audit staff is mostly new college grads who don't know anything about anything", "audit manager is splitting time between several audits and doesn't have time to baby the new staff this year", and "this audit got picked for some internal audit quality review this year and the reviewer thinks their workpapers suck"
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Apr 5, 2024 16:57
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Gabriel Grub posted:It's funny because auditing is totally broken, and the only solution on the horizon (AI) would only make it super duper worse. if the auditor ever tries to make me answer questions from staff_bot09 I'm going butlerian jihad
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Apr 5, 2024 17:00
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Blotto_Otter posted:but are these questions actually coming from that manager, or from the staff on the job? because this could all be explained by some combination of "audit staff is mostly new college grads who don't know anything about anything", "audit manager is splitting time between several audits and doesn't have time to baby the new staff this year", and "this audit got picked for some internal audit quality review this year and the reviewer thinks their workpapers suck" Good question. Technically, we didn't get these questions. We got a general: explain all these manual entries. We got a pivot table with summary figures. If you double click, you see what makes them up. I am inferring these questions because they're asking about these standard entries. As for who sent it, it went to the controller. My controller says it was from staff but she knows the audit manager asked for it because of the email chain. But I didn't see the email chain. For the record, there are some things worth questioning in some lines. I want to be fair. But out of the ones I looked at, that made up 1% or so. Like, if they just sent those weird ones, I'd get it. We had a situation where AP put a voucher in the wrong currency so we told AP and they reversed it and put it back in the right currency. It was 7k to 9k so I get that one. We had a weird situation where ADP refunded us a payroll check. Turns out someone went on vacation and tried to cash a payheck oversees at a check cashing store and set off some fraud alert thing on our bank. I'd say 10 or so items were worth asking, but they sent somewhere around 500. But, what's weird is they clearly gave it some thought. Like, they sent us a question about every single line of payroll for all 52 weeks, but not any of the times we accrue for the final payroll that won't complete until after month end close (we have it auto reverse at day 1 of the next period). So, there was some thought. To be precise, it seems they wanted to know about every manual entry that directly affected the P&L. But, these weren't anything new that we did. Edit: I can definitely see someone saying they weren't doing enough internally and causing them to be extra vigiliant. Especially since the audit manager has been on it for 6 years. They could have been told to be more careful.
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Apr 5, 2024 17:06
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Could be a firm reviewer determined inadequate testing around manual JE controls so now they need more work done. 33bps isn’t material on $300M revenue but it’s also $1M if someone starting gambling.
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Apr 5, 2024 17:19
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Is Glassdoor basically unusable now? It asked me to verify my work email to update my employer / profile, so I just noped out of there. I'll just apply directly after searching. The big job search boards are Glassdoor, Linkedin, Indeed, and not much else it seems? So many terrible listings out there nowadays. I've been all over Linkedin and Indeed and it seems to be the same lovely jobs looking for the right person to exploit. Covok posted:Good question. If it makes you feel any better, in my current job, the situation is so terrible we're on our 3rd CFO within the last 12 months. The new one is spazzing out after I explained to him the issues. It doesn't help my director has this attitude of "I told you this would happen, and you ignored it, so yeah its happening" with all the terrible poo poo that's going on. Said director is actively looking to quit, has advised me to quit and to start applying as of yesterday, and my previous CFO before leaving had called us and advised us to quit. Yes it is that bad. I had some personal poo poo happen and I couldn't apply right away when our last CFO left in January and told us to seriously get the gently caress out. My auditor was visibly laughing when I told him explanations for stuff that was happening way before I got here. For one of the accounts, my explanation was "I don't know, they probably moved it to another account back in 2018 so that it wasn't material." I heard him make a sighing noise and then not say anything on the call lol. I've been an auditor and been in his shoes, he just wants to finish the audit, not have serious poo poo he has to now move up the chain instead of just rolling workpapers forward lol So anyways, yeah, that's why I've been trying to find a new job, but the market is a bit tight right now for good roles. Smif-N-Wessun fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Apr 9, 2024 |
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Apr 9, 2024 03:29
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Smif-N-Wessun posted:...Said director is actively looking to quit, has advised me to quit and to start applying as of yesterday, and my previous CFO before leaving had called us and advised us to quit. Yes it is that bad. "Bad" as in going out of business, or "bad" as in it's just a terrible mess...or perhaps both? If the organization is really bad and not realistically correctible, the writing will be on the wall. Unless there's a chance you'll not be receiving paychecks, CFO/Directors shouldn't be telling their downlines to abandon ship. There are a lot of executives who join organizations in disarray and simply can't/won't step out of their comfort zone. In many of these cases, the hiring committee simply omitted important the details about the state of the organization or they hired a resume rather than a person. Magicaljesus fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Apr 9, 2024 |
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Apr 9, 2024 16:43
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Well, the tax season is ending and I've procrastinated too long on applying for jobs. I did quite like tax prep work, and they're keeping me on part time after the season is over, but I need full time work to pay my bills. Does anyone know anyone in the South Bay Area (San Jose and surrounding environs) who's hiring that might be willing to take a shot on someone with low levels of experience? I can provide a good recommendation from my current workplace, which seems quite happy with me.
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Apr 9, 2024 21:21
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Nea posted:Well, the tax season is ending and I've procrastinated too long on applying for jobs. I did quite like tax prep work, and they're keeping me on part time after the season is over, but I need full time work to pay my bills. I PM'd you
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Apr 12, 2024 18:34
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The audior turned out to be a massive prick and all the executives are mad. We actually did fine on the audit. No serious deficiencies were determined or issues found. But, he opened the meeting insulting the Controller's availability and saying she wasn't responsive enough and that she was not helpful. Thing is, she has been putting in 12 hour days as she moves out of her role of controller to treasurer and tries to balance both jobs AND train her replacement. She even logged in on her vacation, despite our protests for her to relax, to make sure things ran smoothly. She personally flew over to HQ to be there in person for the audit. And she had us prepare 90% of what they needed before they showed up by using information they requested last year. By comparison, the audit was nearly late and he blamed that on our controller AND one of his people being on paternity leave. The CFO got pretty pissed and called him out on how he was blaming our Controller after all she did, letting it into him about all the poo poo she was doing to be available, when he couldn't keep adequate staff levels on his end or plan around his employee's paternity leave. Said he shouldn't blame her for his inability to properly staff or keep track of his own time. Then, he got even madder and called him out on the fact that he saw their screens and saw two of the auditors were actually working on a different audit when they were in our HQ. He wasn't going to complain until the auditor decided to blame the controller. It was an awkward meeting. There was no yelling. No one here ever yells, thank God. But, it was that kind of passive aggressive tone that lets you know he was very pissed but trying to stay professional. I mean, our international partners were on the call for christ sake and the auditor called her out like that. What a jerk. At least we had no material isssues and did well. The team got praised for the good work afterwards and they took us out for lunch at a nice restaurant the next day. Covok fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Apr 13, 2024 |
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Apr 13, 2024 23:43
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I feel like a fool. I was clearing an account on quikbooks with an incorrect balance but instead credited to a wrong account. I have to wait until monday to fix my errors.
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Apr 14, 2024 00:11
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Annointed posted:I feel like a fool. I was clearing an account on quikbooks with an incorrect balance but instead credited to a wrong account. I have to wait until monday to fix my errors. Me, all the time, 13 years into my career. Mental lapses happen. Typos happen. Earlier this year I hosed up entering qualified dividends into a clients return, accidentally put $200,300 qualified dividends instead of $200 of qualified dividends and $300 of capital gains distributions. I guess the tab/enter key didn't register when I was inputting. We didn't notice until my client was reviewing the return after it was mailed to him. He's a high earner so I thought him getting some money back was just him overdoing his estimated taxes, turns out my software taxed $200K of his income at capital gains rate instead of ordinary income rates and he really needed to pay out $30K. I'm just glad it was noticed before April 15th.
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Apr 14, 2024 01:58
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as long as it gets caught before the statements are released who really cares. I misbooked 16 mil in reserves last month and was indignant about it because the root of the issue is another department constantly messing their report up.
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Apr 14, 2024 02:04
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One time I tried to file an extension with a $4,000 payment but I accidentally processed it with a $40,000 payment.
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Apr 14, 2024 02:36
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I restored a backup of data for all divisions instead of just mine and zeroed out billions of revenue projections and all the downstream financial lines that follow.
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Apr 14, 2024 05:21
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Magicaljesus posted:"Bad" as in going out of business, or "bad" as in it's just a terrible mess...or perhaps both? Both. There's a chance one day we won't receive paychecks, that's how bad the situation is. Every single finance related person they hire, comes in and looks shellshocked. They usually quit, but not before throwing an unprofessional fit. I just got back from a trip dealing with some more family stuff (aging parents, etc) that's really time consuming or else I would have bounced a while ago. I'm looking now, but the market is filled with really awful jobs to be honest and I'd really like to be able to settle at my next place for a while.
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Apr 21, 2024 23:32
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Work wants me to sign a two year contract in exchange for covering the course costs for getting my CPA. ludicrous that I'm required to because I'm the only finance person residing outside of Ontario or Quebec but whatever I don't give a gently caress just pay me the loving passing bonuses and reimburse tuition costs like you do for everyone else. I am curious if anybody has been in this situation and hopped jobs before and been successful in negotiating the new company to cover those costs? With a salary bump I think it wouldn't really matter but I am curious what the success rate of getting that covered as part of offer negotiations is.
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Apr 22, 2024 01:18
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My public accounting job 8 years ago required a one year contract. I don't think two years is too excessive, considering it takes like a year to pass if you're passing all on the first try. It was one year since most of us were fresh out of school/masters programs so it was mainly review, not learning new stuff.
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Apr 22, 2024 01:26
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yeah its a perfectly reasonable request, although the circumstances leading up to this even being offered were some of the most unprofessional ridiculous bullshit I've seen in my 10 years at this company and I've seen some bullshit while at this company. I am however 100% planning to bolt when I get the designation which I'm anticipating is around midway through next year, no big deal if the next employer won't cover it (at least this company held onto the costs interest free for a year and a half or so) but I am curious if thats a battle worth fighting with an offer.
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Apr 22, 2024 01:37
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Chances are they won't cover it, that was a point of discussion amongst us first year staff. I don't think any of us got that reimbursed. Maybe if you negotiate a sign-on bonus you can use that to pay it off? I stayed on to get my CPA passing bonus and commitment because I planned it that way. I mean if you know what you're gonna do, just squirrel away the funds to pay it off if it comes to that. Best of luck!
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Apr 22, 2024 02:18
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For everyone thats been interviewing, I have to ask if you've encountered alot of companies asking technical questions during interviews?
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Apr 22, 2024 03:58
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