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Accounting News Roundup: Tardy Audited Financial Statements; Avalara’s IPO; Too Many Food Choices | 05.14.18

No, I do not want to go to the stupid prom with you.

Xerox Drops Fujifilm Merger Plan, Strikes a Deal With Activists [WSJ]
The saga of Xerox and Fujifilm has taken a new turn, as the company has abandoned its merger plans to work with and activist investors Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason. How did they weasel out of the deal? Simple:

Xerox said it opted to back out of the deal with Fujifilm because the Japanese company didn’t deliver Fuji Xerox’s audited financial statements by April 15, and there were material deviations in the audited financials when compared with the unaudited financials.

Any auditors seeking additional evidence that, yes, somewhere your work — although not necessarily your work — means something, should bookmark this page.

Avalara files for IPO [AT]
The cloud-based digital tax compliance company filed confidentially last summer and plans to raise $150 million in its offering.

That Endless Series of Menu Options Is Paralyzing Diners [WSJ]
About a year ago, I noted some trends in lunch, and now, I guess, it seems the latest development in food stuff is that people are terrified of making decisions:

As menu choices multiply—and multiply and multiply—diners are suffering from option paralysis. Especially troublesome are assembly-line-style chains in “fast casual” restaurants where diners have just seconds to answer rapid-fire questions such as whether they want tahini or aioli sauce on their chicken shawarma, or prefer the turmeric almonds or pickled ginger on their beet falafel bowl.

Applebee’s VP of strategy even confessed that he suffered from the plight of too many choices, “When you’re standing at the cashier and you haven’t made a decision yet and there are people behind you, you can sense the impatience.”

Now that both food and TV are a constant loop of impossible choices, we’re about a step or two away from an entire country of Chidi Anagonyes. It’ll be a relief when our lunch and TV watching decisions are either offshored or automated.

Previously, on Going Concern…

I wrote about IBM banning flash drives.

From the archives: Why Yes, This Guy Did Pay His Accountant’s £800 Bill in Coins Purely Out of Spite.

See also: The Only Thing Better Than Working an Eminem Lyric into Your Accounting Paper Is Your Professor Calling You Out For It, and Aaron Rodgers Has Heard of Ernst & Young, Just Not Sure Where…

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