50 Wild Stories From Accountants That Prove Their Job Isn’t Boring At All

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What's more exciting than a perfectly placed excel formula?

Nothing is the correct answer.

Not a CPA but work for a Big 4. You'd be surprised how much us auditors drink. Also how often.

I worked in the finance office of an amusement park. I had to depreciate a dead swan over a period of five years.

Serious reply. Not an accountant, but in Finance. Accounting processes are hugely important in what I do, so I work closely with accountants.

So, we're working with a client on improving certain financial processes in their company. Part of those processes is to generate accounting entries based on certain financial activity. What the client tells us to do looks to be irregular and not like anything any of our other clients do. After a bit of digging, we figure out that their process doesn't comply with regulations. They're either stupid or criminals. We let them know that what they are doing isn't kosher. They ignore us, so we report them to their auditors, as we're obligated to do. A bunch of the people get fired. The end.

Work is boring however...

Few years back I was working in Aberdeen and was walking to the bosses office with some files, saw what I though was my colleague stooped down looking through a pile of files on the floor. Decided in my brilliance that I would jab him in the size with the files I was holding, to my complete horror I just done this to the boss...argh never ran so fast down the corridor. Had to walk passed his office 5 minutes later after I had stopped laughing and explain

Same job, had to call a client to discuss his return and get the documents signed as it was very close to deadline day. So rang his home address which was answered by his young son, who recognised my Geordie accent and mistook me for his dad. This proceeded to 5 minutes of me trying to tell his kid I wasn't his dad ( realise how bad that sounds ) and him telling me what he had done at school , after he had finished he then decided to pass me on to his brother where I had to endure the same discussions and same response from me that I wasn't actually his dad. Finally I thought I was going to be passed to his mother after I had asked several time I was put on the phone to a young girl who couldn't have been more than 2-3 years old and had a conversation about how much she missed me etc. At this point I had been on the phone for around 15 minutes trying to explain to three kids I wasn't actually there dad and quite a large number of colleague had gathered to listen to my attempt at to speak to an adult. After the 15 minutes of nonsense I finally get on to my clients wife and im honestly not sure who was more embarrassed about the whole thing me or her. Worst thing was I had to visit the client on my way home ( travelling back to Newcastle ) to get the returns signed. they ended up making me stay for tea and I actually had a place at the table next to the kids hahaha...

My sister in law is a chartered accountant. She had to count the cheeses in a giant cheese warehouse in Cheddar.

Once our Cashflow wouldn't balance so I spent 4 hours looking for a mistake. It was a cell formula that was wrong on one of the sheets. Also once my petty cash tin didn't balance so I recounted everything and it seems the first time I had miscounted my 10p's (I counted a 3rd time to make sure I hadn't made a mistake on the second go).

NYS Tax auditor here. One time someone got fired and had to be escorted out of the building by the troopers. We talked about it for like 3 days. It was super exciting.

Also, a few years ago during the World Cup, Cuomo gave us a 2 hour paid lunch to watch the US, so we went to a bar, had some drinks, and went back to work.

We're just a thrilling bunch.

Corporate tax accountant for a retailer. I get to learn how/why some candy is taxable and some isn't!

This one time, I asked an audit client for something, and they gave it to me promptly and with *no* fuss *or* pushback!

Nah, jk, everyone hates auditors. I can't wait for busy season to be over in May.

While not yet an accountant, currently an accounting major at university. Walked into my first accounting class this semester expecting a typical thin, old white male professor in a suit or something similar, but instead got a huge professor with the longest beard I've ever seen and tattoos all the way up and down his arms, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Not exactly what I was expecting, but he's an awesome professor so far and it's proof that not all accountants are boring & mundane.

As an auditor, I like to round numbers to the nearest dollar before doing anything else.

I recomended we post a journal to the control account without it hitting the sales ledger. They only went and bloody did it! Crazy times.

This one time the office calculator stopped working...and you can guess the rest! Wild times, wild times!

Yes but I have learned that the sales department always trumps accounting. At least where I work.

"We have to stop this client from airing commercials. They owe us over $300k going back several years."

"We need the revenue so we do not get yelled at by corporate. Besides, I'm good friends with the owner."

The client closed their doors earlier this month and owes my market over $300k and $100k in another market.

How many companies I went on audits for that had computers running from 10-20 years ago. I'm talking Windows 95, Windows 2000, etc. with full Internet access and everything. Meanwhile they would have an IT Department. Like what? Shouldn't they do something about this?

One time I switched from Flavia to K-cups.... I switched back. I couldn't handle that much change.

My mom is a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) who works for a specific non profit company now, but for years bounced between different nonprofits doing work for not much money (in comparison to other accountants), because these were nonprofits and they didn't have much money to pay her with. A lot of her stories center around how she saved X group of people a ton of money because they were absolutely terrible with money and taxes. And a lot of those stories end with her having made friends with very important people, which has some fantastic side benefits. She once mentioned to one of her clients that I wanted to go see a musical at [theater that is the equivalent of Broadway in our region of the country] but she couldn't get tickets because I told her too late and the play was sold out. About two days later, this client comes in and hands her two tickets to the show I wanted to go see. Mom was astonished and asked how they got the tickets. The client just shrugged and said "We know some people at [theater]" It later came out that they were like on the board for it or was a major shareholder or something like that. Mom tried to pay them back and they just said "It's a gift. You do very good work and have saved us a lot of money, so the least we can do is send your daughter to the theater" So I got to see a great musical with my mom for absolutely free. Things like this happened several other times.

TL;DR: People like it when you save them a bunch of money and will give you gifts and arrange for impossible favors like taking your young daughter to see a sold out musical.

A coworker walked up to me and asked for a favor. I was excited because it's a slow day, and I was up for doing something work related for once.

They ask me to open the lid on their water bottle because they couldn't get it open.

These are the most exciting parts of my day.

I once spent a half hour trying to explain to a woman the difference between an applied and an unapplied payment. She got angry and told me it's my job to "sort it out".