Debits and Credits Must Equal... except when they don't

 I'm an accountant. I love it. I know, I'm weird.


Moving on...


When I was in high school and college all my professors told me that debits must equal credits. To the penny.

Everything must reconcile. All the time.





Now that I'm in the real world and putting my degree to use I am finding more and more examples of that not being the case. I hear about companies that just want to come close.

Like anything under $X is immaterial and therefor doesn't matter.

Sure, ten bucks isn't a whole lot to a multi-billion dollar company but isn't that how fraud begins? Not being able to prove where the money went to?

I might be the exception, but when it comes to the work that I have to do and turn in I would much rather spend the extra time to find every single penny. If I don't find it in this one account, I know that down the road it is going to affect this account...

Which affects this other account...

Which in turn makes this other account wrong...





So remember future accountants.... Debits Must Always Equal Credits.... except when they don't have to.