The Blonde Diaries

A common mistake many people make when it comes to the accounting profession is that we all sit behind desks all day add or subtracting numbers.  Even worse, all we do are taxes and audit people for the IRS.  Well, I try and give insight into my job every now and then since I do more than just sit behind a desk all day adding numbers and I don’t touch taxes or harass innocent civillans in my day to day job duties.  Today we are finishing our tie out of my client’s Form 10-Q.  Basically, in a tie out you make sure whatever numbers they are reporting in that filing are agreed to a form of support or backup.  After this we get to move into year end mode.  Basically, we have to close down our testing of controls and start planning our tests for year end.  One of these tasks will be our physical inventory observations or PIO for short.  PIOs allow us to test the inventory balance to ensure what they say they have in inventory actually exists and is in usuable condition (ie not damaged, spoiled, ruined, or obsolete).  As an auditor in Houston I have been on quite a few PIOs because Houston has a ton of businesses and the Ship Channel where large containers arrive from overseas.  In the past I’ve counted sheets of plastic, groceries, false teeth, and climbed oil tanks.  Each one was interesting and I was able to learn something new.  So there is a little more than numbers involved here.

By far, the one that scared me the most was not the false teeth but the oil tanks.  I never realized how tall those tanks are and how many steps are involved to get from the bottom to the top and back down again.  I actually thought that maybe there were elevators that took you to the top.  Boy was I surprised.  I was very grateful that someone warned me before I arrived to wear a pair of work boots and I was able to find a pair to borrow.  When I am planning our PIOs for this year, I will be recommending that everyone purchase a pair so that they can stay safe.  In the cold and rain when I was climbing two years ago, I was so happy to have some work boots and not tennis shoes.  Had I been in the tennis shoes I might have slid down the stairs and not walked down the stairs on my descents to the ground.  If you need work boots for your job check out Workbootsusa.com as they carry many varieties to fit any budget.

Tags: accounting, auditing, work boots, workboots