#33 Copying and Pasting Procedures
Mar 25th, 2009 by pfi
An accountant doesn’t have to be creative to get the job done. Sure, being creative and expertly documenting (read: rationalizing errors) helps. In reality, an accountant doesn’t even need to know accounting principles to get their job done. Being able to copy and paste procedures, make tickmarks, and put documentation (header, workpaper reference, purpose, etc) is all that’s required.
With a softcopy of prior period work, an accountant can get anything done. A little copy and paste action here from last year, add some rollforwards of dates, update the names and an accountant is ready to bluff their way out of their next assignment. A common mistake accountants have to be careful of making is putting the wrong company name. When an accountant works on multiple companies, all their documents tend to look alike – because they are the same.
If an accountant is not copying and pasting procedures, you will find them trimming procedures. Why? Because the budget has gotten smaller (see: eating hours).
An accountant armed with copy, cut, paste, find, and replace is an efficient accounting machine. Work will get done, deadlines may be met, and the quality-level will be enough to pass on further inspection.
If you find a keyboard with worn out CTRL, C, and V keys, you will know that it belongs to an accountant. (If you thought of the command key, that would be incorrect.)
Getting the client name right is what “=clientname()” is all about. Then you just have to put it in the right binder/folder 🙂
I used Copy/Paste to pass my UFE (the CA exam) and continue to rely on its lifesaving functions in the field.