Category: Uncategorized

If I Get Asked to Work One More Weekend…

lumberg1.jpgWe got pointed to this article in the World’s Finest News Source from last week and frankly, we thought it might sound familiar to some of you:
More, after the jump

dozens of minor policy changes, coupled with his easily cowed personality, have gradually served to make each work day an unbroken series of degrading humiliations…In addition to the single small raise [you] received and the loss of various benefits that have almost imperceptibly contributed to his professional impotence, [your] good nature and work ethic have made [you] subject to domination by both his superiors and peers…Though [you have] been stripped to little more than a neutered shell of [your] former self, [you have] reportedly started carrying out pathetic, completely unnoticed acts of rebellion in an effort to preserve some shred of what [you] believes to be [your] dignity.

Another example might be, say, eery silence.
Or this, courtesy of tip we received:

EY only gets Christmas Day and New Years Day off for the holidays…not even christmas eve…Considering they cant roll vacation time, it is just a firm way of getting people to burn vacation they cant take because their chargeable hrs and utilization will go down

We’re not sure how other firms handle the last week of the year, which tends to be worthless, but if you’re working, trying to remain chargeable that week, that’s enough to make you feel trampled on. And since accountants seem to be gluttons for punishment, they have a tendency to put up with it. But hey, if we’ve got it all wrong, let us know. Just putting it out there.
So if you’re getting walked all over and you get a kick out taking home post-it notes and printer paper for personal use, this post is for you. Try to keep it together.

The Year Ahead

We’re sure that some of you need some cheering up, so we’ll throw out a little participatory exercise.
The BBC ran a piece yesterday asking readers to predict their year ahead in three words. We’ve noticed that brevity isn’t a strong suit for some of you so this should be a nice challenge.
In the comments, describe your year ahead in three words. If we get enough good submissions we’ll run a poll tomorrow because we’re sure we won’t want to work that hard. Keep it relevant people. ‘Pwn more noobs’ and the like will be ignored with extreme prejudice.
Impress us.

Grant Thornton Will Now Let You Tell Everyone How Great the Weather Is

We’re happy to report that the generosity at Grant Thornton continues. We found out earlier in the week that those of you that did something special, which may or may not involve an outift that wasn’t of your choosing, would be included in GT’s small bonus pool.
According to a tip we received, The Baumer and Co. has now decided that those of you that remain will be rewarded with the ability to make banal status updates at work:

During the experienceAugust all-personnel call, Ed Nusbaum announced the firm’s plans to open access to several external Web sites from Grant Thornton’s network. These sites include social networking and personal email sites such as Facebook, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, and MSN Hotmail.
I am pleased to announce that access to these sites is now open.

This unexpected show of appreciation is almost overwhelming. As a tribute, leave cliché responses to this latest development in the comments. In this particular case, the more cliché, the better.

Are Inventory Counts the Bane of Your Existence?

inventory.jpgThat’s probably a stretch but we have a tendency to over-dramatize some things, so hang with us.
Since we’re coming up on the end of Q3 next week and many of you are of the audit cloth, we’ll start a thread on inventory counts and how they have the uncanny ability to f*ck with your universe, particularly come December.
One source dropped us a response they received after requesting time off in December:
After the jump

At this time we are not granting any time off for associates during Christmas or New Years weeks – conditional or unconditional. Over the next few months as we receive inventory requests for the holidays, we will make sure that these requests are adequately covered, then we will be able to review our holiday policy and let you all know if time off will be granted and how.

So hold off on making plans because you might need to go to a chicken farm in the middle of Missouri on New Year’s Day. Get it?
Discuss in the comments how well/poorly your office handles the inventory sitch and feel free to give the new hires an idea of what they’re in for. We heard a story once that involved a headless chicken. Run with it.

More Foam Fingers for Everyone, Except You BDO

green#1.jpgNot surprisingly, the Big 4 find themselves on another best of list, this time the best for Working Mother 100 Best Companies for 2009. RSM McGladrey and Grant Thornton also made the list so it seems legit.
All these firms also made the magazine’s work/life balance list, although there doesn’t seem to be any difference sans one company we didn’t take the time to identify.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of formal ranking, unlike the BW list, so no firm has the ultimate bragging rights, which is probably upsetting Deloitte who was probably going for the Grand Slam of magazine Best Of Lists.
A quick run down of some stats after the jump:


• Deloitte had the highest number of women on their Board of Directors at 29%
• 50% of PwC’s top earners are women
• 44% of E&Y managers are women and they have the most women partners, according to the list
• RSM’s total workforce is 55% women.
You can check more stats at each firm’s page. Frankly, for a major firm to NOT make this list doesn’t um, look too good (ahem, BDO).

Analysts, Journalists, and Short Sellers Are Out to Get Overstock.com

iStock_000006509640XSmall.jpgProbably not. But the Company has been subpoenaed by the SEC again regarding its restatement of its financial statements for 2006 and 2008.
Patrick Byrne, the Overstock head honcho isn’t crazy about all the attention:
Bad numbers, after the jump

“All of the matters that are the subject of the subpoena have been thoroughly disclosed and we are disappointed, given the extensive public disclosures Overstock has previously made, that the SEC, given all of the challenges it faces, has apparently chosen to expend time and resources on another investigation of Overstock,”

The SEC’s problems are certainly a matter of record. However, we wouldn’t call Overstock financial reporting history stellar. Restatements occurred in 2006 for “freight costs” which, we’re pretty sure is covered in the first month of Intermediate Accounting. In addition, Audit Integrity has given the company a a ‘very agressive’ rating for Accounting and Governance for 9 of the last 11 quarters.
Regardless of this lack of basic accounting knowledge or borderline reckless financial reporting treatment, Byrne has no qualms about giving the whole sitch the Maxine Waters conspiracy treatment, “Byrne has accused some financial analysts and journalists of working with short-sellers to drive down his company’s stock price.”
This claim is made in addition to the company blaming its upgrade of its Oracle accounting system. Apparently this upgrade caused revenue to be overstated by over $12 mil and understated its loss by over $10 mil back in 2005.
So if wasn’t for Oracle, analysts, the media, and some hedge funds, we’re assuming Overstock would be turning a profit by now.
Overstock.com Hit with Another SEC Subpoena [Web CPA]

Bonus Watch: Grant Thornton

Pleasant surprise out of Chi-town, as Eddie Nusbaum got everyone on the phone yesterday and happily reported that GT had a better year than expected and there will be a “small bonus pool”.
Our source also said that the Baumer qualified the bonuses being for people that “have done something very special”. The rest of you that weren’t capable of doing anything special will get bupkis.
We’re not really sure what “doing something very special” could be but, depending on the parties involved we’re guessing it involves Def Leppard or Lover Boy and probably a Chippendale’s or French maid outfit.
Discuss your own thoughts on special in the comments

Grant Thornton Continues on Some Sort of John Gotti Teflon-esque Run

john20gotti.jpgThe Wall St. Journal reports that a judge has tossed a case brought by freaky-ass, longlife milk company Parmalat against Grant Thornton and Bank of America.
Parmalat filed for bankruptcy back when everyone thought invading Iraq was a good idea so this thing has been dragging.
This is another major lawsuit that G to the T has managed to avoid, along with the dismissal of the Refco suit last month.
GT seems to be quite the bullet dodger and can probably breathe easy. For now, anyway.
Judges Tosses Parmalat Lawsuits [WSJ]

Crowe Horwath Sticks to Their Guns and Gets Fired

Crowe_Horwath_2c_lo.jpgCrowe Horwath either has some shrewd auditors working there or they need to work on their people skills because First Place Financial Corp. just kicked their asses to the curb over irreconcilable differences.
The whole thing came down to the “material weakness” versus “significant deficiency” debate you auditors love so much.
More, after the jump


From the 8-K:

On September 1, 2009, Crowe notified the Company that it was its opinion that the Company had not maintained effective internal control over financial reporting as of June 30, 2009. This was in contrast to Management’s opinion that it had maintained effective internal control over financial reporting as of June 30, 2009. After subsequent discussions, the disagreement remained. The essence of the disagreement concerns a single internal control weakness which resulted in an error in valuing loans held for sale as of June 30, 2009. Crowe determined that this internal control weakness was a material weakness while the Company determined that this internal control weakness was a significant deficiency.

The shitty control in question missed an error that overstated loans held for sale by $2.17 million and understated the net loss for fiscal 2009 by $1.41 million. Crowe said that this was cause for the material weakness and First said nonsense poopy-pants, it’s not material, so it’s a significant deficiency.
Well, it was obviously mule vs. mule because First Place’s audit committee ultimately decided that firing Crowe on Tuesday was the best course of action.
Maybe First Place are the assholes. WTFK, really? Whatever the problems, KPMG gets the pleasure now. If you’ve got any further information on this one, want discuss MW/SD (vomit) or just feel like speculating, discuss in the comments.
First Place Details Disagreement with Auditor [Business Journal Daily]

By the Time Everyone is Converted to IFRS, We Won’t Need Roads

doc brown.jpgRemain calm IFRS fanboys and girls. You’re probably sick of our piss-poor attitude with regard to progress on anything remotely related to accounting rule convergence.
Well now you can tell us to suck it as the better-late-than-never anointed Chief Accountant, James Kroeker because he, “assured a roomful of accounting experts that the roadmap is on track,” according to CFO.
Continued, after the jump


We’ll give Kroeker credit for not using the economic crisis as an excuse like every other talking head or bureaucrat in the universe. No, his turning the tables, “Kroeker noted that the crisis may have, in fact, underscored the importance of IFRS. That’s because the discussions related to the credit crunch were global in scope, as were the responses and potential solutions, he added.”
Small issue: Kroek did admit is that even though a few companies could probably be coverted by 2011, most wouldn’t be required to do so until 2016. That’s all very nice but we’re sure we’ll all be driving flying cars by then.
Global Standards Alive and Kicking, SEC Accounting Chief Says [CFO]

Is the Era of Work/Life Balance Over?

work life.jpgDid it ever exist? We hope accounting firms have gotten their act together and don’t have to resort to more layoffs even though rumors still persist.
Whether the shooting is over or not, it’s a pretty sure bet that, at the very least, lots of you are doing the same amount of work with less people on your team. So any illusions you had about work/life balance before have progressed to full blown poppycock.
The question remains though, is your firm still pitching this as one of their “core rhetoric values” (insert respective buzzword)?
Continued, after the jump


Call us idealistic but it seems that with everything that has happened over the last 12-18 months, most firms would want to level with their employees. You know, give them the straight shit:
“Look, we’re really sorry but we’ve got to drop this whole work/life balance thing. We just can’t keep a straight face any more.”
It’s a very tricky situation that firms find themselves in since recruiting is in full swing. Painting the rosy picture for the recruits but leveling with current employees at the same time? Is this even possible?
What’s your firm’s latest message? Are they still encouraging the work/life balance or has slowly reached the “not applicable” stage? Did it ever exist for you at your firm or have you been deleting those emails since the day you walked in the door because you knew it was bupkis? Discuss in the comments.