Now as I look at the calendar it’s hard to believe that the end of the year is almost upon us.  With the end so close sometimes there’s a sense of urgency to complete all those tasks that we’ve put on the back burner.  To push the staff a little harder to finish those audits under budget or ahead of schedule just to make the numbers look good for the end of the year.  But wait, what was it I learned from Professor Tandy’s session on Ethics?  Is it really ethical to cut corners just to make my budget?  What if that one finding I don’t follow-up on turns out to be a material misstatement, how will I explain that to Audit Committee?  No, it’s just not right.  I would rather explain why we ran over budget and completed the audits correctly than to try to explain why we came in on time and did a half-baked job.

Professor Tandy did a great job of explaining Ethics in accounting and how we use it in our jobs, but if you think about it you use it every day in all kinds of ways.  We use it with our kids when we teach them right from wrong, with customers when we tell them we cannot accept tips or with the public when you return a lost wallet.  Ethical decisions are all around us, we just have to keep making the right ones. 

Our other November session presenters were Joe and Jenny from Anthem Forensics.  They discussed the always changing world of forensic accounting.  No, that does not mean they do the books of dead people.  They actually have a very interesting practice that usually revolves around litigation, divorce and business solvency.  Frequently one party wants to know how much the other party is worth, or how much a business is worth.  That’s where Anthem Forensics comes in.  They perform an investigation, piecing together information from the books and records of one or both parties and give as accurate a financial picture as possible.  The cases are as varied as the clientele and no two are alike.

Until next month when we learn about the Cloud, PCI & IT Auditing – See you December 8, 2011.

Karen