The Not So Ordinary Accountant

Key Point: This article provides the reader a description of my job as an accountant and some of its aspects

I am an accountant, but I am no ordinary accountant. When most people think of accountants, they imagine someone who does the taxes, which some accountants do but not me. Do you want to know what I do? I am an auditor. What is an auditor you ask? Well read on and you will know.

If you know what audit is, you are either part of the financial industry or are somehow involved in the financial industry. For the rest of the world, we probably don’t exist. An Auditor is a person who tests company financial statements for their accuracy, completeness and tests for fraud in companies. We spend our time tearing apart financial statements to learn about the company and then reconstructing them before an investor looks at them and makes his/her decision about potential investments in a company.

If I had to use three descriptions to sum up the duties of an accountant, I would use the following:

1. Detective
2. Lawyer
3. Knight

I’ll describe each of these using examples from my everyday schedule:

Detective:

Just like a detective, one of my biggest tasks every day is to dig deeper into financial statements and test various financial accounts to find clues as to whether there is any fraud happening in the company. For example, if I were to test the inventory account of Company A, assuming that there might be fraud, I dig deeper into the financial statements to figure out what constitutes inventory in Company A. Once I know what makes up the inventory, I will go test that by going to company storage, sales centers and shipping docks to make sure the reported inventory not only exists but is reported correctly. If there is a problem we take it back to the company to resolve and fix the financial statements or we report it to the public and investors who hire us to find fraud in a company.

Lawyer:

In this role, an auditor studies the laws of financial reporting and consults companies about corrections to their financial statements. Not only that but like a lawyer, we also defend our clients’ use of certain accounting policies in courts, to investors and to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a government entity that oversees all public companies. We work for investors to look into specific accounting policies of a company before they make an investment. E.g. we work on debt offering, which is when a company decides to take on debt but needs investors to give them money as a debt. We would look into the accounting policies associated to the debt offering, making sure whether everything looks good, and if there is a problem, we consult the company on how they should change their policies. If policies are according to the law and provide an accurate financial picture of the company, we explain these policies to investors and defend them.

Knight:

This is the most dramatic role of an auditor. We are the knights of the financial world because we look for frauds such as Enron and WorldCom and warn the world about them. If we however miss these frauds, it can lead to major financial issues such as company bankruptcies and loss of investor money and more importantly investor faith in the financial market. We protect the people from financial harm, not just people who work in finance, but also employees of companies. E.g. a lot of employees invest their retirement money in company stocks, bonds or pension plans. All this money can be used for fraudulent purposes but as knights of the financial world, we keep a check on what a company is doing and stop it if a fraud occurs. We care about the financial well-being of the country and its people, and that I believe makes us Knights.

So that is what I am, an auditor, a special kind of accountant that looks for fraud and inaccuracy of the Financial Statements. I make sure that the world is aware of a company’s financial health. I believe we are like detectives, lawyers and knights of the financial industry, finding fraud, defending clients and protecting the people. So the next time you see me or any other accountant, remember we are more than we appear.

Readability Statistics:

Passive Sentences: 6%
Flesch Reading Ease: 53.8
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 11.1