It'll Get Done

I’d forgotten how intense it can be closing the books at year-end. Most of the other departments were off during the holidays, but the accounting staff worked through both the Christmas and New Years weekends. There were partnerships and big-ticket assets to value, and lesser tasks such as the usual year-end accruals and clean-up of unreconciled differences.

More than in previous years, we have to provide extensive documentation for all the adjustments we’re making. One reason is that the Sarbanes-Oxley rules require an enormous quantity of paper to support actions that affect the financial statements. The second is that this year’s adjustments are very large--“material” in accounting parlance. Management had already announced the rough impact of these adjustments in a press release. But estimates, rounded to millions of dollars, are easy to do. In the accounting world, we have hundreds of companies that each must balance to the penny.

But ‘nuff said about this. The books will get closed on time, and the auditors will sign off, and I’ll move on to my next assignment, after serving as interim controller for eight months.

The rains finally stopped, so I took the 1-California, which goes up Sacramento to Nob Hill. After browsing in the stores and munching on a pork bun, I walked back to the office.

StocktonStore with more businesses than a conglomerate. Toys and real estate: watch out, Amazon!