Author Archives: lifeinnumbers.net

FASB Chairman Bites Back over Mark-to-Market

This interesting tidbit was buried in a Wall Street Journal “Heard on the Street” article.

“Financial Accounting Standards Board Chairman Robert Herz had a derisive response for banks who argue that market-value accounting rules are hurting economic prospects. ‘So why don’t we just pass a law requiring broker-dealers to send out monthly statements to their retail customers that show nicely rising values, thereby engendering consumer confidence, spurring more spending and helping us avoid a recession?’ Mr. Herz asked. Don’t laugh, the government is desperate enough to try it.”

The full text of Mr. Herz’ speech can be found here.

Source: “Overheard,” The Wall Street Journal, September 23, 2008.

Day in the Life

I decided one day to write down more or less everything I did at work for an entire day. Here is literally a day in the life of a staff accountant at a small accounting firm:

  • 7:30 am: Check email, enter yesterday’s time into billing system
  • 8:00: Print draft of compiled financial statements for client review
  • 8:30: Update another draft compiled financial statement for client changes; extreme difficulty with formatting because of strange setup by former coworker
  • 9:30: Restart laptop due to ever-increasing problems; downtime is killing my productivity
  • 9:45: Look into inconsistency in prior year reviewed financial statements
  • 9:50: Review for open items a tax return started by a former coworker; thought this would mean lots of time spent familiarizing myself with client and workpapers, but turns out return was never started
  • 10: Watch Senior Accountant correct an error in one of my workpapers which prevented the cash flow statement of yet another set of compiled financial statements from totaling properly; yet another one of my stupid mistakes leads me to problems with a statement which has become the bane of my existence; I understand statements of cash flow, I just can’t ever get mine to work
  • 10:30: Start again on audit with expectation I’ll be interrupted again on some random project
  • 2:30: Still working on audit, with little interruption; no lunch today, too much to do; I hate audit planning, but it’s amusing to me that I’m completing the planning documentation when the audit is nearly complete
  • 3:45: Take call from partner working from home; time to update draft financial statements that client urgently needs early tomorrow morning
  • 4:00: Attacked by partner about a client I haven’t worked on in six months; return is due 9/15, client is out of town for a few days, then spends two days in town before traveling somewhere else until after the return’s due date
  • 4:30: Receive tomorrow’s marching orders from Senior
  • 4:32: Prepare PBC (provided by client) list for tax return that former coworker didn’t start; notice I’ve worked on six different clients so far today
  • 4:50: Total my time by client to see if I can go home
  • 5:00: Out the door