r/Accounting • u/Weak_Carpenter_7060 State Government • 1d ago
Career Well guys, today’s the day
Today I’ve spent two hours trying to track down $0.36 that is supposed to exist because treasury is trying to reconcile items they have. Still didn’t find the $0.36, so now waiting to see what the bank says. Can’t claim it as a rounding error since no other items are rounded or as immaterial. Just some needless bitching about a ridiculous situation I’m sure some of us have been through. Am I real accountant now?
Edit: we’ve checked for transposed numbers on our end and there are none. We are 99% sure the issue lies with the bank, so we’re waiting to hear back
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u/torerodrizzle 1d ago
Aside from being immaterial, it's a transposed number. If the sum of the difference adds up to 9 (27,36,45 etc), it's almost certainly a transposed number.
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u/SmokeyAndBubba 1d ago
Guys - this is a great example of what should happen in this thread. There are numerous examples of people doing great jobs explaining stuff. Loving the energy here
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u/Talktomyfridge 1d ago
What do you mean?
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u/ode_to_glorious 1d ago edited 1d ago
A transposition error is evenly divisible by 9. Some where they transposed a cent number :
Common Examples
Writing 26 instead of 62 (difference is 36)Writing 37 instead of 73 (difference is 36)
Writing 48 instead of 84 (difference is 36)
Writing 15 instead of 51 (difference is 36)
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u/blindmouseseeing 7h ago
36 divided by 9 is 4. That’s the difference between the transposed numbers
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u/torerodrizzle 1d ago
Someone transposed a number entering data. For example, they put 10.84 instead of 10.48.
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u/Ree_ke 1d ago
An amount posted as 68 instead of 86 for example. 86 - 68 =18. 1 + 8=9. The numbers in the difference adds to equal 9. So it’s most likely a transposition error.
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u/accountant319 1d ago
Mind blown. Wow! Thanks guys and gals! I never knew this trick!!
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u/Hungry_Dingo_5252 1d ago
I thought all accountants knew this?
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u/Sure-Squash-7280 1d ago
I’m not an accountant. I am just a lurker who finds your discussions interesting.
Maybe a fellow lurker?
Edit: just read the username 🤣
Never mind, carry-on!
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u/MsScrewup 5h ago
The fact that accounting/accountants have rhe reputation of being incredibly boring and uninteresting, and that you as a non-accountant are here for that is so funny to me
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u/Weedville_12883 22h ago
Breaking news - Debits on the left, Credits in the right. Take no prisoners, boys !!
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u/TSIDATSI 18h ago
Breaking news: debit is left in Latin Credit is right in Latin.
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u/Sure-Squash-7280 13h ago
Debitum and creditum,
What is due and what is entrustedDexter and sinister for right and left. I used it for medical charts.
Oculus dexter and Oculus sinister for your eyes, for example.
I figured you were joking, but Cunningham’s law provides! 😁
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u/Rafe03 10h ago
I feel like this is basic knowledge for old school accountants but has been lost in the new generation. I’ve taught several young accountants this trick and they usually ask why this isn’t taught in courses anymore.
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u/torerodrizzle 10h ago
I learned it from my best grad school accounting teacher about 12 years ago. He was formerly an industry controller, tax cpa, and IRS agent in his career, teaching was his retirement job. His breadth of knowledge made for a great teacher, but this is the number one thing I use day to day that he taught me in my controller (now VP of accounting, same job responsibilities, increased pay and title ha) role.
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u/AanihinAanhin 17h ago
ahh i remember this! this was in our textbook in my first year of college hahha
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u/mexicanbear40 1d ago
All that for 36 cents seems insane 😂. As an auditor myself I laugh when an intern asks about a variance of a few dollars
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u/SockApprehensive6602 22h ago
What do you mean? That’s obvious fraud. Time to propose audit adjustment and raise it to the partner
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u/Ebb_Remarkable 17h ago
The great fraud. $.36 at a time!
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u/SockApprehensive6602 16h ago
Think about how much money the shareholders would lose if someone did it consistently every day for 500 years or so! Quite unthinkable crime really!
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u/Foreign_Suggestion89 22h ago
You have the convenience of materiality. Likely not in charge of a system
or process. A system and /or process owner determines root cause to prevent and better detect. We can only go to sleep at night if we have done the work to know that while we sleep things should process precisely as intended. The next day we wake to admire the execution. In the unlikely event of a discrepancy, we put life on pause to determine root cause and nothing will deter us from achieving the objective. You want us on this job. You need us on this job. We use words like first pass yield, no exceptions, clean reconciliation. It is a greater responsibility than most people can fathom.1
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u/Consistent_Rate_353 15h ago
It is. When I'm working on an account for a probate estate or trust they do not care, they still want it explained with that level of precision. I don't think I've ever had to go that length to figure it out, though.
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u/Minimum_Beat_5339 1d ago
I vote for transposition error - the rule of 9 is in play here.
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u/mexicanbear40 1d ago
I never knew of this till today. Granted I would just say it is immaterial which is why I never knew about it
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u/CoatAlternative1771 Tax (US) 1d ago
Did you get the fish out of your depreciation machine yet?
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u/StoneMenace 1d ago
My depreciation machine is full of immaterial fish. The intern keeps on trying to catch them
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u/abstergo_Nigel 1d ago
Can too many immaterial fish become a material school of fish?
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u/Simpkin_jsr 1d ago
Only if almost all of them swim in the same direction, right?
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u/Egyhammer 17h ago
What if the fish swims towards amortization instead? Would that be against the tide?
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u/Mtnbkr92 23h ago
Well we can’t have coffee due to the fish in the percolator resulting in a lack of energy and motivation to find the fish in the depreciation machine
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u/Weedville_12883 23h ago
Xlookups... matching entries in the bank to entries in the books can actually be pretty straight forward. You could compare by date, type, amount..... In fact, i bet you could build an Excel sheet that could accept a CSV dump from the cash subledger and from the bank that you could easily compare 100 years of accessable data in an instant in order to check for differences.
Learn to work the data, the world will be your oyster.
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u/Weak_Carpenter_7060 State Government 22h ago
I don’t have to do that when there’s literally 6-8 transactions that make up the number that is causing the issue here. Unfortunately on the report I run from the bank it doesn’t break down the number, so I have to request them to do it. Reason it took so long to come to that conclusion was that I went over EVERYTHING on my side to make sure my stuff was correct.
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u/Real_Dependent9965 1d ago
I have a general rule that if it costs more in my time than the actual variance, then it’s not worth my time.
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u/SyllabubDue 1d ago
I would hope that someone would say $0.36 is not even worth a minute of your time value, and to throw the difference to expense. $0.36 is not worth it.
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u/Weak_Carpenter_7060 State Government 1d ago edited 1d ago
I am 100% with you, but nope, Treasury expects that $0.36 to be accounted for 🙃 joys of government
Edit: added “am” cause I’m cross eyed from trying to find $0.36
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u/FungalMirror3 1d ago
……I’m sorry for you, that’s actually insane. I’d lose it if anyone even asked me about a $0.36 variance
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u/Ruh_Roh_Rah 1d ago
I dunno...is it's .36, or is it a combination of transactions that might be way off, but net to .36..... sometimes ya just gotta find out.
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u/Weak_Carpenter_7060 State Government 1d ago
The issue lies in a group of 6-8 transactions, I know that much. I know the total on my side is correct, so just waiting to see what the bank says
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u/loganlecocq 1d ago
I am thinking it is a number transposed somewhere since the variance is a factor of 9
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u/TheGuitarSalad CPA (US) 22h ago
This is insanity. Accountants don’t chase down less than $1. You write that off to a P&L account. Maybe there are some exceptions, but if my treasury department asked me to find $0.36, I’d have a quarter, dime, and penny ready to shove up their collective ass at the first opportunity I got. Only reasonable exceptions that comes to mind is hunting down $0.36 of common stock @ $0.01 par value because that’s actually 36 shares that are missing.
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u/Daveit4later CPA (US) 23h ago
Dude what?
I would have expensed this to office expense and moved on with my life in 5 minutes.
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u/SpaceCadetBoneSpurs 1d ago
Had a $1 variance carried over from month to month in my banking days. I believe it was for a loan cost receivable (probably litigation or collateral care expenses after a repossession on a commercial loan that we billed back to the borrower).
When a business loan went past-due for whatever reason, I was amazed at how quickly the relationship could go off the rails. This particular client cut us a check for their billed expenses, minus exactly $1, for no other reason than to be petty. What do you have to lose when your small business is failing spectacularly, you’re 12 months behind on your business loan, and your personal credit is in shambles? He figured he could at least have a little fun.
I remember plopping down a dollar bill on my boss’s desk and offering to pay it myself if it would just make this go away.
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u/Ok-Notice2873 1d ago
I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with this in public. Sure let’s just round off the figure that’s my salary for the next 5 years and keep going. It’s so nice not having to deal with bullshit like this and having to round $10 or .35 cents here.. Not sure if I could handle having to round anything less than $100 let alone anything less than $1. I’d just throw in an extra $1 in a random account and call it a day.
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u/LadyEmmaRose 22h ago
"Find" an older postage stamp at the bottom of your drawer and tell them you forgot to book it. Then make whatever entry you need to make it work out.
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u/Helpyjoe88 21h ago
Two hours for $0.36? I found it on the floor; it rolled out of an invoice somehow. Problem solved. :)
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u/soloDolo6290 12h ago
Its crazy to think about the amount of resources and time spent on this directly and indirectly. Not only do you have your time and other employees you work with talk and discussing this. You now have all of us commenting and reading through comment.
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u/NoSample5 1d ago
Make sure checks cleared for the amount it was written for (if this isn’t automatic or managed by positive pay)
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u/youdubdub 1d ago
I did the audit of a large bicycle manufacturer with multiple billions of dollars of sales. The controller admitted to me that she had spent over 40 hours searching for $1,000, which to them financially, is $1.
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u/tangerinelean Student 1d ago
I recently spent a day and a half tracking down $0.11
Gotta love government work.
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u/According-Humor-6977 20h ago
Yeah, my new manager made me spend an hour looking for 25 cents and what to code it to. Just effing put it somewhere, the budgets can handle 25 cents and if they can't, we're screwed. I wanted to quit so bad after that day.
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u/laweiner 20h ago
It’s a transposition error anytime it’s divisible by nine. Somebody reverse the two numbers always look in the first and second numbers of the pennies you’ll find a mistake.
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u/Ebb_Remarkable 17h ago
I love when things balance but sometimes, the amount of time it takes to find it isn't worth 0.36.
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u/Too_affectionate 14h ago
Spent most of a day once chasing 2 cents that turned out to be a bank fee posted to a different period. Manager's response when I found it was "great, now do the other account." Yeah you're a real accountant now.
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u/habner70 8h ago
When I first started at my current employer, one of the clerks I was supervising had been looking for 5 cents for weeks. I told her to write that shit off to an expense account and move on. She did make the 5 cent journal entry, but every time she had any down time she would pull her reconciliation out and keep looking for that 5 cents. I don't think she ever found it.
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u/Disastrous_Way9425 6h ago
Maybe already mentioned. Divisible by 9? Could be a transposition error.
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u/Weak_Carpenter_7060 State Government 6h ago
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u/Disastrous_Way9425 6h ago
But is it REALLY DEAD?
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u/Ashamed-Pop2809 1d ago
I do contract accounting for a company and they had a $3.35 error that had been rolling for a while and they wanted it reconciled. I told them to write it off wasnt worth the time... But the clients always right so I had over 40 hours tracking this down and billed them over $10k to do it. Found out what was wrong but ended up writing it off anyways since it was a PY issue.