Great Moments in Accounting - A to ZZZZZZZZZZ...

During dbrief periods of wakefulness the other day, as I was writing about Deloitte, I was trying to remember the Big Eight accounting firms. You know, trying to recall how many there were, what were their names and who merged with whom to form the Big Four.

I had a head start because I had interviewed with at least six of them when I moved to Cincinnati and I worked for Ernst & Whinney when they hooked up with Arthur Young. But I am embarrassed to say that I failed to come up with all eight.

I forgot Price Waterhouse, probably the only one that normal people would think of because PW always audited the results of the Academy Awards. That was the dream job of every young accounting student, CPA wannabe: to appear at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with the host, Johnny Carson or whoever, and receive worldwide recognition in not just Accounting for, but Publicly Certifying the Oscar votes. It’s an awesome responsibility.

Turns out I did not have the right stuff for PW; maybe that’s why I blocked their name. Best not to dwell on such things too much. Trying to recall the orgy of mergers that changed the face of Big Accounting made me think about the folk and rock group evolutions in the 60s/70s. Even though there were only 8 firms in the Big 8 (I looked it up) I can more easily remember the members of Buffalo Springfield and how they became Poco, Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young), Loggins and Messina and Souther, Hillman Furray or how Cream split and you had Traffic, Blind Faith etc.

While researching the Big 8::4 auditors, I wondered if there is any repository of accounting history and artifacts. Turns out, the Accounting Museum opened in 1989 in New Jersey. New Jersey: home of mobsters, corrupt politicians and felonious rabbis. Nice place for an accounting museum. They can spotlight great moments in embezzling and have a special exhibit on Arthur Anderson (Enron’s auditors – now defunct).

The actual museum is (was?) located in some accountant’s office. I’m sure it boosted their client list as the public flocked to see the star attraction, “an accounting ledger dating back to 1873” or the turn-of-the-century adding machines. I would hope they also had something documenting the first known double entendre joke about “double entry accounting”.

(The picture at the top is Luca Pacioli, the Father of Double Entry Accounting. I don't know if the person behind him is Mrs. Double Entry saying, "Luca, your multi-tasking with the ledger and the pie chart has got me so hot. Come to bed, sir, and show me the big 8".)

PS - please vote in the poll at the top right.

Accounting dSheep

My mind wandered. I couldn’t help it. I was so sleepy.

I awoke Tuesday morning from fitful dreams to find that I had a sinus headache. I took some drugs and that made me sleepy. Not the drugs, but the lack of sleep the night before, followed by the relief from the headache, had me aching to just to lie down and snooze.

Not even lie down. I snoozed at my computer. Come on, I work in accounting; it’s a wonder I stay awake any day, right? I was sitting there, hand on my mouse, moving some numbers around a spreadsheet. Then the numbers started to come out of the screen like a 3-D movie and dance around. Then I did that thing where you jump and open your eyes and look around real fast to see who had caught you sleeping. No one. Or at least, no one who stopped and waited so they could laugh at me. Not that time. Or the next time I nodded off. Or the next.

There was no way I was going to make it through the webcast last night. My company does business in China. Deloitte, one of the big accounting firms, had a webcast about doing business in China. The webcast started at noon today. That is, it was at noon on Wednesday in Hong Kong. Which was midnight in Cincinnati Tuesday night. Or Wednesday morning. It depended. Was I still awake Tuesday night or had I been asleep and I was now awake on Wednesday morning? I was both.

I was getting punchy. I logged in to the webcast. I was in the “lobby” watching a clock count down, waiting for the show to start. “The webcast starts in 5 minutes.” I looked at the title. “Deloitte dBriefs.” Of course they were not really debriefing, they were briefing; but with “Deloitte”, you HAVE to put dBrief. It’s cute.

My mind wandered. Just Deloitte? It’s really "Deloitte, Touche", right? Not like “touché”, more like “toosh”. It’s kind of a funny word. Not as much as “three-way” or “corn hole”, but sorta funny. But they just go by Deloitte. What did they do with Touche? De touche is in de briefs. Can’t touche that.

I couldn’t help it. I was so sleepy. If I were Deloitte, I would have gone out and recruited some kid with exactly the name I wanted. I would have sponsored him (or her) through an accounting education, brought him up through the firm and made him my partner. His last name would have to be “Deway”. “We are Deloitte and Deway”. Our clients would see us as their savior in all accounting troubles. Instead of being in the Big Eight or even the Big Four accounting firms, we would be part of the Trinity.

Deloitte. It’s Deloitteful, it’s delicious, it’s delovely. Deliver de letter, de sooner de better. It’s not delivery, it’s Digiorno.

I jumped and opened my eyes and looked around real fast. I was alone in my living room with my laptop. Someone from Deloitte was on there, saying, dats dEnd of dBrief. Now let’s all go to dLobby, let’s all go to dLobby, let’s all go to dLobby …

Then I woke up. It was Wednesday morning.

Be There or Be Square

I have square roots, so I am celebrating today, 3/3/09, which is a square root day. Any square can figure that out and a real square can tell me how many square root days there are each century.

These are my square roots:
My grandfather was a PhD in mathematics; it doesn’t get much squarer than that.
My father is a CPA; need I say more?

My mother wanted me to have a respectable L.A. type career as a comedian or street performer, but I could not break away from my square roots and I am, like my dad, a certified public accountant. I grew up and went to college in hip, cool Los Angeles. But I longed to seek out my people, so I majored in economics, got married, became a CPA and moved to the San Fernando Valley. When that wasn’t square enough, we came here to the Midwest.

Square, dork, geek, "L7" - whatever you call it, that's me.

So I am celebrating my square roots on square root day. I’m am cutting carrots, onions, fennel and potatoes into square shapes and making soup. That will be served with root beer in square mugs. For dessert we will serve pie baked in square pans so we can make jokes about “pie are square”. Ironically, pi*r2 is the formula for the area of a circle, which pie usually are. (SNICKER< SNICKER< SNORT!). Sorry, if you are square, you think that’s funny.

Every Little Bit Helps

Regular readers of this blog know that I am a CPA. Irregular readers now know it too. Non-readers don’t know. Suck it, non-readers.

I figured it would be generous and condescending of me to offer some free financial advice in these uncertain times:

My advice is to find lots of ways to save small amounts of money. One thing I noticed at my house was that we have pens given out free by motels, bars, divorce lawyers, marriage counselors, Hamilton County Family Court, Cincinnati Free Clinic, etc. All these places want to advertise and I’m happy to promote them for all they’ve done to me. So now I have a bunch of pens and never have to buy them at Office Depot. If I save small amounts of money in many different ways, I can amass tens or even hundreds of dollars.

So I advise staying in hotels often. When you check in, you will find they have supplied your room with a pad of paper and a pen. Stick these in your suitcase. In just a few stays at different hotels, you can amass enough free stationery and writing tools to last a year. Also, go out to dinner often and pay with a credit card; then take home the pen they gave you to sign the receipt with. Restaurants are also a good source for free Styrofoam containers, lunch bags and little peppermint candies.

You know those prepaid postage cards they blow into magazines? They make great postcards. First, go on vacation, so you have a reason to do this. Buy some magazines to take with you and collect all the subscription cards. Use the name and address section to write your "great weather...wish you were here" crap. Then stick a blank label over the magazine's address on the other side (oh yeah, buy some blank labels to take with you also). Write the address you are sending the card to on the label and mail it. Free postage! Thanks, New Yorker!
(Bonus: Stay in a hotel on your trip and collect the free paper and pens!)

If any of you have similar money saving ideas, please list them in the comments.


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