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Apparently Shouting “Promote Me! Promote Me!” in a Partner’s Face Can Get You Promoted at Deloitte

Over in Ireland there's a case before the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) right now that may be of interest to our readers, our readers being people who are all too…

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AI Will Be EY Auditors’ New BFF, According to EY

While staff in tax at EY US will soon be spending more time with their flesh-based colleagues due to a return-to-office mandate that requires them in the office for an…

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Once Again, a Mid-Tier Firm Beat Out Big 4 on This ‘Best Companies’ List

Fortune has released its Best Companies to Work For list for 2026 and we just realized we didn't cover it at all last year. Shrug, it's all just marketing anyway.…

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Layoff Watch ’26: The King’s KPMG Kindly Asks 600 Auditors to GTFO

We covered this story in yesterday's Monday Morning Accounting News Brief but it's significant enough news to earn its own spot in a separate article as it's a large market…

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A KPMG Senior Director Got Beat Up By a Guy Who Stars in Reacher

Oh my God it feels like it's 2010 all over again with that headline. Thanks to the algorithm for putting this item in my feed since no one saw fit…

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News

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illustration collage of stressed woman at work

Apparently Shouting “Promote Me! Promote Me!” in a Partner’s Face Can Get You Promoted at Deloitte

Over in Ireland there's a case before the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) right now that may be of interest to our readers, our readers being people who are all too…

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Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: You Can’t Spell Audit Without AI; An Elaborate Scheme to Defraud the Air Force | 4.6.26

Hey. To our readers in tax let me just say you're doing great! Almost there! For everyone else, hopefully you're hanging in there as well. To everyone: be sure to…

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puppies in a basket

Friday Footnotes: EY Tells Tax to Get Back in the Office; Associates Are Vibe Coding Now | 4.3.26

Footnotes is a collection of stories from around the accounting profession curated by actual humans and published every Friday at 5pm Eastern. While you're here, subscribe to our newsletter to…

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KPMG building exterior with scissors overlay

Layoff Watch ’26: The King’s KPMG Kindly Asks 600 Auditors to GTFO

We covered this story in yesterday's Monday Morning Accounting News Brief but it's significant enough news to earn its own spot in a separate article as it's a large market…

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Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: KPMG Asks Hundreds of People to Go; One Big Beautiful Bill Equals Billable Hours | 3.30.26

Good morning and happy Monday, capital markets servants. I ventured out into the muck to dig up some news for you to start the week. In this news briefYour Services…

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Technology

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guy getting a coffee from his AI buddy

AI Will Be EY Auditors’ New BFF, According to EY

While staff in tax at EY US will soon be spending more time with their flesh-based colleagues due to a return-to-office mandate that requires them in the office for an…

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Surprised chihuahua

ICYMI: According to This AI CEO You Won’t Have to Go to Work in a Year

Commence to fantasizing about what you'll do with all that glorious free time when you lose your job to AI in 12-18 months because that's the confident prediction made by…

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Another Early AI Accounting Startup Just Bit the Dust

TIL that early AI accounting platform Botkeeper has died. I found out via this CFO Brew article which pointed to a post on Botkeeper's own site. Turns out r/accounting was…

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KPMG exterior building with sign, inverted

KPMG Brings Cheating Into the AI Age By Using AI to Cheat on AI Exams

The image is upside down because Australia. This story sounds like a joke but we assure you it is not. KPMG Australia has expanded KPMG's storied cheating repertoire by being…

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KPMG building exterior with discount sale signs

KPMG Brings AI Talking Points to a Fee Negotiation, Inadvertently Opens a Pandora’s Box Filled With Stingy Clients

As reported by Financial Times on February 6, included in Friday's edition of Footnotes, and widely chuckled at by public accountants both current and former across the world since, KPMG…

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Practice Management

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Top Remote Tax and Accounting Candidates of the Week | October 16, 2025

Struggling to Find Remote Accounting or Tax Talent? We’ve Got You Covered.If your firm or internal team is having a tough time sourcing qualified remote tax and accounting professionals, you're…

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Top Remote Tax and Accounting Candidates of the Week | October 2, 2025

Struggling to Find Remote Accounting or Tax Talent? We’ve Got You Covered.If your firm or internal team is having a tough time sourcing qualified remote tax and accounting professionals, you're…

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Top Remote Tax and Accounting Candidates of the Week | September 25, 2025

Struggling to Find Remote Accounting or Tax Talent? We’ve Got You Covered.If your firm or internal team is having a tough time sourcing qualified remote tax and accounting professionals, you're…

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tax hiring season

Top Remote Tax and Accounting Candidates of the Week | September 18, 2025

Struggling to Find Remote Accounting or Tax Talent? We’ve Got You Covered.If your firm or internal team is having a tough time sourcing qualified remote tax and accounting professionals, you're…

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Top Remote Tax and Accounting Candidates of the Week | September 4, 2025

Struggling to Find Remote Accounting Talent? We’ve Got You Covered. If your firm or internal team is having a tough time sourcing qualified remote tax and accounting professionals, you're not…

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Quick Reads

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Here Are Tax and Audit Salaries at Top 25, Top 300, and Regional Firms

Recruiting firm Brewer Morris has released its 2025 US CPA salary guide and should you want to read the whole thing you can request it from them here. Perhaps you,…

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Friendly Reminder Not to Work Yourself to Death For This Profession

Saw this on the bird app yesterday and thought its message would be worth passing along what with 20 days remaining until April 15 and nerves as strained as ever…

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Accounting Firm Abruptly Nopes Out of Tax Season Early (UPDATE)

Ed. note: An earlier version of this article's headline stated the sheriff is investigating. The Alexander County Sheriff's Office informed us they are not investigating, only fielding calls from the…

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This Deloitte Office Has Eliminated Trash Cans at Desks to Make Staff Get Up Off Their Asses

Boston Business Journal wrote an article about Deloitte's new office in Boston and for some reason they chose to lead with this: You won’t find trash cans at the desks…

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The IRS Decided to Troll Tax Pros For 10/15

We realize the decision to run maintenance on IRS systems likely isn't made by anyone who understands deadlines but surely someone who does could inform the IT department of these…

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Top Remote Accounting Freelancers: February 3, 2024

Looking to staff up for a season or hire a freelancer for a project? Accountingfly is ready to partner with you! Gain full access to a pool of highly skilled…

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10 Essential Project Management Principles for Accounting Firms

Every accounting firm struggles with project management, with smaller practices that are rapidly expanding taking the brunt of the damage. As your firm adds new clients, takes on more work,…

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6 Ways Email is Secretly Destroying Your Accounting Firm

Email: The word itself sounds innocent, doesn't it? Kind of like "snail mail," but faster, sleeker, and without the slimy trail. But don't be fooled—email is secretly a sinister beast,…

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Don’t Grow Your Accounting Firm Out of Business! Break Up With These Unscalable Practices Now

Business growth is always a high priority for accounting firms, especially small-to-midsize practices. Take care, though, because growth can be a double-edged sword. If your firm expands too quickly or…

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Elijah Watt Sells Award Recipients Make the Rest of Us Want to Puke

The AICPA announced the winners of the Elijah Watt Sells awards yesterday. For you mere mortals, this is an award for the 10 highest cumulative scorers on the CPA exam.
Glancing over the recipients we notice that two Big 4 firms (KPMG and Deloitte) enslave employ five of the recipients. A couple of recipients work in industry and a few more work for smaller, local firms.
This leads to the obvious question of why the hell P. Dubya and E&Y were totally shut out? Grant Thornton and BDO were also blanked. Are the honchos at the Radio Station and Big D giving the worker bees more time to study? Are P. Dubs, E&Y, et al. cutting out the bonuses for passing and thus destroying anyone’s motivation for passing? Are those of you looking to pass already choosing between eating and sleeping (and maybe sex) so studying just isn’t happening? Sells was a Big D founder so maybe the whole thing is rigged? Thoughts anyone?
Oh and congratulate the recipients while you’re at it (without vomiting on them).
AICPA-HONORS-TOP-CPA-EXAMINATION-PERFORMERS.pdf

FASB, Bankers to Continue ‘Religious War’ Over Fair Value

Apparently the wonks in Norwalk are girding up their loins to take on the banks again over fair value, described by FASB member Marc Siegel as a “religious war” (our pick would be The Crusades).
Under new preliminary proposals issued by the FASB last week, all financial assets, including loans would be marked to market every quarter and classifications like held to maturity, held for investment, and held for sale would go the way of the Dodo.
Jonathan Weil conceptulizes:

Think how the saga at CIT Group Inc. might have unfolded if loans already were being marked at market values. The commercial lender, which is struggling to stay out of bankruptcy, said in a footnote to its last annual report that its loans as of Dec. 31 were worth $8.3 billion less than its balance sheet showed. The difference was greater than CIT’s reported shareholder equity. That tells you the company probably was insolvent months ago, only its book value didn’t show it.

Got it? Well, banks are obviously not cool with this, as one lobbyist is quoted, “I guess the nicest thing I can say is it’s difficult to find the good in this.” I guess it’s on then bitches, as it sounds like the banks would much rather bleed out their orifices until the bitter, bitter end as opposed to report anything that is remotely transparent.
Accountants Gain Courage to Stand Up to Bankers: Jonathan Weil [Bloomberg]

H&R Block Still Loves McGladrey & Pullen

begging.jpgEarlier in the week we told you about McGladrey & Pullen falling out of love with H&R Block. Well, H&RB is not going to just let M&P walk away. The Company cares too much about this relationship:
“We believe the path proposed by certain of M&P’s leaders is fraught with significant business and financial risks and is not in the best interest of M&P partners, employees or clients,” Block CEO Russ Smyth in a release Wednesday. “Whether the full M&P partnership is willing to assume these immense risks remains to be seen.”
Nevermind the fact that H&R Block is the used car salesman of tax preparers. Nevermind that H&RB is probably responsible for the failed appointments of several Obama cabinet members. This about love lost (and probably sex lost).
H&R Block questions McGladrey & Pullen decision [Kansas City Business Journal]

Scoping | 07.23.09

Shakeshack_hamburgers.jpgObama Approval 49% Among U.S. Investors, 87% Overseas – “President Barack Obama has rock- star appeal among the investing class — except in his own country.” [Bloomberg]
Investment Bank Helps Boost Credit Suisse’s Net Income – Reigning in on the company wide Shake Shack outings is probably helpful too. [WSJ]
One-time gain boosts Ford results – Don’t call it a comeback [BBC]
Manure means money to handlers gathered in Iowa – Sometimes there’s money in shit [AP via Miami Herald]
Bardem Turns Down Role in ‘Wall Street’ Sequel – “The actor Javier Bardem has turned down a role in the sequel to Oliver Stone’s seminal 1980s treatise on greed, “Wall Street.” Mr. Bardem, who won an Oscar in 2008 for his performance in “No Country for Old Men,” was to have played the world’s villain du jour: a hedge fund manager.” [DealBook]

Ernst & Young Found to be ‘Marginally Negligent’ in Superior Bank Case, Will Pay Plaintiff $10M

Color us surprised:

A Broward County jury on Wednesday dealt a small blow to Ernst & Young in a negligence and fraud lawsuit, deciding that the accounting giant was only marginally negligent for a local businessman’s losses in connection with the demise of Superior Bank in 2001.

UPDATE, 7:00 pm EST, E&Y Statement: We believe we should have prevailed and will seek appropriate relief from the courts.
Ernst & Young to pay $10M in Superior Bank lawsuit [Triangle Business Journal]

Review Comments | 07.22.09

beer.jpgAmazon to Acquire Zappos.com for $847 Million – “Amazon says it is paying for the acquisition with 10 million shares of stock worth approximately $807 million. In addition, Amazon said it will provide Zappos employees with $40 million in cash and restricted stock units.” [Bits/NYT]
UK ‘is losing 52 pubs each week’ – Where will the UK accountants go for lunch? [BBC]
Who needs audit? [Accountancy Age]
Chrysler says dealer legislation could force liquidation – “Chrysler Group could again face the prospect of liquidation if legislation aimed at reversing its decision to terminate contracts with 789 dealers becomes law, a company executive said on Wednesday.” [Reuters]
Goldman Sachs Payments to U.S. Give 23% Return to Taxpayers – LB says “you’re welcome” [Bloomberg]

eBay Beats the Numbers Thanks to Lehman Schwag

ebay.pngAt least that’s what we’re guessing.
Bloomberg:
“EBay Inc., owner of the most visited U.S. e-commerce Web site, reported second-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates, a sign that Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe’s turnaround efforts are working.”
Whatevs. We’d argue beauties like this are the reason for the good Q.
EBay Profit Beats Estimates in Sign That Turnaround Is Working [Bloomberg]

Letter from the Editor – Welcome to Going Concern

accountant.jpgWorking in accounting or finance has a certain stigma associated with it. More times than not, when someone asks you the ubiquitous getting-to-know-you-at-a-party question, “What do you do?” and your response is, “I’m an [enter accounting/finance related position here]” the reaction is typically in some form of pity.

Whether it’s a look that says, “boring” or the inquisitor having to go through your painful explanation of what it is you actually do, it’s rarely a gr��������������������n.

Unless you embrace the stigma of boring, nerdy, introverts that are constantly swimming in spreadsheets, and delve into some self-depreciating humor, bitterness and ranting.

That’s what Going Concern is all about. We’ve embraced everything that makes accounting and finance so painfully dull and we’re going to turn it on its green eyeshade-wearing head.

We’re going to mock, maim, gossip, chastise, rant, and yes, maybe a little advocating, of everything associated with crunching numbers. We will bring you all the latest happenings around the world of the largest and well known firms and our analysis will be anything but accountant-like.

Check out our reoccurring features after the jump


Here are some regular features we will have (and definitely check out our archives):

Tchotchke Contests – Accounting firms love to hand out tchotchkes. There doesn’t seem to be any discernable reason for it but inevitably, your cubicle ends up filled with stress balls, Rubik’s cubes, umbrellas, etc. Some of this stuff handed out is a downright mind job. We want you to send us pictures of your strangest firm schwag.
Guess What I Got Asked to Do Today? – Every number-cruncher, at some point in their career, has asked themselves, “What did he/she just ask me to do?” Whether it’s picking up late-night dinner, footing the phonebook, or cleaning out a closet, we want your stories. The bad, the demoralizing, the thing that made you flip out.

Guess What My Intern Did? – Because having your first job or internship can be nerve racking, staff and interns sometimes do hilarious things unwittingly. Did they run out of gas picking up dinner? Shred workpapers that were signed off on by a partner? Come in hung over and puke on the client’s super-secret, there’s-only-one-copy-of-these files? We know you have these stories and you know you want to share them.

Stupid Auditor Questions – Don’t worry non-public accountants, you won’t be left behind on Going Concern. We know you have to deal with auditors. We know that auditors ask stupid questions. We want to hear what those stupid questions are. Don’t hold back, we know you want to cut loose. This is the place to do it.

What Job Would You Rather Have? – It’s 10 pm, you’re sitting in your beige cubicle, staring at a spreadsheet that has thousands of rows that are starting to blend together and you think to yourself, “How did I get here? Should I be doing something else? Anything other than this?” We feel your pain. Tell us what you would rather be doing. Picking up elephant dung? Window-washer? Artificially inseminating farm animals? Tell us your dreams of what you would rather be doing than working with Excel.

This is just the beginning but we need your help. We need your gossip, rumors, and story ideas for what you want this blog to be, because it’s for you, our loyal Going Concern readers. Send all tips via email to tips@goingconcern.com. We’ll always keep you anonymous unless you want to be named and if you want to tell us something off the record, that’s cool too, just let us know.

Now get back to your spreadsheets!

Trying to Decipher the Awkward and Scattered Sex Lives of Accountants

The blog Energized Accounting asks if accountants make better lovers. Now before you all squawking about how you’re an animal in the sack, let’s try to be realistic about this question.

First of all, this makes the assumption that accountants are getting laid in the first place. This is mostly farcical for a couple reasons: A) Lots of accountants have to choose between sleeping and eating already because of the hours they work. You throw in boot-knocking and some excel wizards are going to start starving to death; and 2) Unofficial statistics have shown that seven out ten accountants have no game. You may not know who you are but your friends do.

So based on that, 30% of you are getting some action. And since there is a rampant proclivity to date co-workers (which we will exclude for this exercise) among accountants that narrows it down to about 5% of accountants having sex with non-bean counters. As we mentioned, you’re working most of the time so where the hell is this hot sex happening? We’re thinking that national training sessions might be one spot, where you’re picking up prosties or random hot townies in whatever strange city you happen to land in? Accountants treat national training like Vegas so pretty much anything goes but what about the other 51 weeks in the year? Is that what is going on at those two hour lunches? Do some client locations have rooms set up for this like a swing-joint? Try to enlighten us without making a scene.

Big 4 Firms Will Probably Have to Cut Some Checks

Since BDO International Global Coordination was able to dodge the bullet in the Banco Espirito case, litigation against the Big 4 has been pretty quiet. Oh sure, you could bring up Schein v. E&Y but the money at stake isn’t that big and Schein is claiming Oliver Stone-type conspiracy theory so we’re hesitant to get too worked up about it.
However, if you’re craving bean counter courtroom drama it won’t be long until you’re up to your ass in Jack McCoy-types screaming about how crooked accountants are.
According to research firm, Audit Analytics, there are eight firms at risk for potential lawsuits related to King Ponzi alone along with six other potential lawsuits related to the financial clusterfuck.
Audit Analytics also was kind enough to pull together some data on who’s winning the race to pay out the most settlement. The top 50 malpractice suits against the Big 4 since 1999 break down like this, per Compliance Week:
1. E&Y – $1.92 billion
2. KPMG – $1.42 billion
3. PwC – $1.27 billion
4. Deloitte – $1.24 billion
Don’t expect the trend of the firms handing over asstons of cash to end anytime soon as settling these cases out of court seems to be best way for the firms to extend their seemingly shortening lives.

Guess What My Intern Did?

intern-where-is-my-report.jpgA commenter read our minds with regard to talking about interns, God bless ’em.
So today, in the spirit of the intern-season, we’re launching the first edition of “Guess What My Intern Did?” because sometimes they can do stupid things and we want to hear about it.
Examples could possibly include: any kind of shameless, awkward sexual advances on superiors; asking he/she to get a copy of an email from the asshole CFO; showing up to work hung over smelling like Ken Lewis; You get the idea.

Survey: No Confidence in Mark-to-Market

thumbs down col.gifThis may come as shock to some of you but mark-to-market accounting is unpopular. And when we say unpopular, we don’t mean your nerdy brother-unpopular, we’re talking George W. Bush-unpopular. Now before you go apeshit about “reality” and “economic cycles” will share some results with you from a survey provided by Valuation Research Corporation and then you can engage in your the steel-cage death dork match.
• According to the survey, 58% of respondents believe that market turmoil negates Fair Value Accounting’s validity
• Those who believed FVA was flawed and potentially not valid during market turmoil, almost 34% suggested a temporary return to historical cost accounting as an alternative
Regarding Level 3 Assets: A full 44% believed the bank values were within an accuracy of 10% and another 40% thought those values were as much as 30% off.
Regarding Level 3 Assets: Thirty-six percent believed hedge fund and private equity values were only within an accuracy of 10% and a full 49% thought those values were as much as 30% off.
Respondents were split when asked if mark-to-market should be suspended for the purposes of bank regulatory capital with 50% believing it should be and 50% believing it should not be.
So the take away seems to be that MTM doesn’t work and is pretty much not legit when the shit hits the fan, everyone trying to value Level 3 assets is using a dartboard, and nobody knows how to fix the problem.
Definitely interesting results but if anyone says, “Barney Frank knew what he was talking about”, projectile vomiting is going ensue.
Survey – No Confidence in Fair Value.pdf