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#13 Acronyms, What are your favorites?

Feb 2nd, 2009 by pfi

acronymsFrom GAAP to GAAS, CPA to CPE, and AICPA to PCAOB, accountants feel the need to shoehorn as many acronyms as possible throughout their workpapers and professional lives. While accountants are busy trying to save the world, the fact remains that accountants are incredibly lazy people.

Acronyms, as you are well aware, are words formed from letters in each word. For example, “w/o/m/e” stands for without material error. When accountants need to state clearly on each workpaper (read: write the same thing twenty times) what has been done, they rely on tickmarks and acronyms.

Across all industries of practice, accountants have an endless alphabet soup of acronyms to pick from. Not only that, but new acronyms are created each day to ensure accounting remains undecipherable to the masses. This also helps maintain the steep learning curve for all newcomers.

Instead of StuffAccountantsLike listing acronyms specific to one office, we want to encourage you to post your favorite acronyms in the comments.

Tags: #13, Acronyms, What are your favorites

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9 Responses to “#13 Acronyms, What are your favorites?”

  1. on 16 Oct 2009 at 3:00 pm1Skittles

    SHIT- Shareholder In Training

  2. on 07 Nov 2009 at 11:07 pm2arete84

    DFQ – Dumb F*cking Query

  3. on 12 Nov 2009 at 9:15 am3amanda

    CF – Cluster F**k

  4. on 01 Dec 2009 at 7:15 am4Vinod Kumar

    I can explain more acronyms like NGO = non govt. organisation

    and INGO = international non govt. organisation

    , BONGO = business oriented non govt. organisation

  5. on 17 Dec 2009 at 9:11 pm5Phatpurple147

    CAPEX – Capital Expenditures
    OCBOA- Other Comprehensive basis of Accounting

  6. on 07 Jan 2010 at 4:52 pm6auditor

    Can you have your CAKE and eat it too?

  7. on 26 Jan 2010 at 11:19 pm7Rudiger

    we put WGAF next to small differences. it stands for Who Gives A F**k. to which the reviewing senior would respond “I don’t.”

  8. on 27 Jan 2010 at 10:18 pm8Xtina

    PIOOMA – Pulled it out of my a$$

  9. on 28 Feb 2010 at 1:08 pm9Cal Culator

    WITTB (What it takes to Balance)
    NFC (No fu**ing clue)

  10. on 01 Mar 2010 at 9:26 am10Mat

    FINCN – F#&* it, not considered necessary.

  11. on 21 May 2010 at 8:05 am11Old Lady

    My first year told me our senior was wearing GP….

    granny panties.

  12. on 10 Jun 2010 at 7:20 pm12John P.

    CARINBIG!

  13. on 12 Jun 2010 at 7:49 pm13Cody

    My favorites from my days as a Big 4 audit intern:

    WFP = waive further pursuit
    w/o/e = without exception
    CWPY = consistent with prior year
    TGIF = thank God it foots (not in the wps. but something I’d always think to myself after adding a 50 page document)
    wps. = workpapers

    And finally, although not an abbreviation, I always liked the term “Appears reasonable,” which would invariably be followed by “WFP.”

  14. on 21 Jul 2010 at 4:58 pm14Barbara

    FAM it – Fancy Accounting Maneuvers
    DTMS – Does That Make Sense
    NC – No Clue
    GR’d – Got Reviewed

  15. on 05 Oct 2010 at 9:29 am15Kristin Nickells

    EBITDA – I can’t believe all you accounting-types haven’t posted this one yet. I love this one. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amoritzation. This falls under the category of ‘accountants are not boring people – they just get excited about boring things”.

  16. on 16 Sep 2011 at 2:33 am16Accountant Sutherland

    The reason for making too much acronyms is to do our job faster but yeah, in short, accountants are lazy on that matter to write the exact words again and again so its shortened. But its cool right?

  17. on 22 Nov 2011 at 9:40 pm17bubs

    if there’s PAJE (Proposed Adjusting Journal Entries), what does CAJE mean?

  18. on 21 Feb 2012 at 1:35 am18wit

    CAJE=Client Adjusting Journal Entry.

  19. on 17 Oct 2013 at 12:48 am19Sokun

    Hello Sir.
    Would you mind explaining the acronym of CAJE and PAJE in detail,

    Thanks and Best Regards
    Sokun

  20. on 11 Jan 2014 at 6:52 am20idriss

    hi
    when you got enough comfort, you can write:
    NFI = No further investigation

  21. on 17 Jul 2014 at 11:39 pm21Mars

    Luckily I found this site~ The acronyms are very difficult for me to understand.

  22. on 21 Sep 2014 at 10:38 pm22R B

    W T F? What’s This For?

  23. on 01 Dec 2016 at 7:16 pm23็ตถๅ“

    Awsome article and right to the point. I am not sure if this is actually
    the best place to ask but do you guys have any
    ideea where to hire some professional writers? Thanks ๐Ÿ™‚

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