11 Dec2013
An accountant’s favorite number
Someone recently told me that an accountant’s favorite number is zero. After spending approximately zero seconds pondering the statement, I asked why. Her response was that when reconciling an account in QuickBooks, if the difference line is $0.00, it is reconciled correctly and her work is done! I agree that it is a great feeling. (Just say “no” to reconciliation discrepancies, which is what happens if the difference line is not zero.) Come to think of it, zero is a solid number of choice for accountants. I can think of a few of my own reasons:- An accountant’s heaven is zero data entry nirvana (see Doug Sleeter’s comment in my post)
- An accountant can add, subtract, and multiply by the number zero without having to punch it into a calculator.
- Despite what you may have learned in elementary school, accountants are so good at math that they can divide by zero. Well, maybe not… but they know what #DIV/0! means.
- The easiest numbers to account for have zero decimal places, with the value being exactly as displayed.
- Zero is a great price. After all, an alternative acronym for CPA is “Cheapest Price Available.”
- A zero looks like a doughnut. Accountants love doughnuts.
- Bring a box of doughnuts to an accountant’s office and, like magic, there will be zero left by the end of the day.
Tags: reconciling
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Joel Ungar
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Seriously, when I started at what was Deloitte Haskins + Sells a little over 29 years ago, they taught us a specific way to foot a column of numbers. You entered the total as a negative number, then added the list. If you hit zero at the end you knew you had it right. I still do that today.
8. A zero looks like a bagel. Accountants love bagels.
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