Traveling Auditor
Categories: Accounting
Would you watch a Broadway musical about an auditor who traveled from small town to small town, reviewing the books of local barbers and school band directors? No, huh? Back to the drawing board for us. Maybe we can repackage the melody to "Oh! What a Beautiful Depreciation" for another show.
In real life, a traveling auditor is just what the name describes. (But they don't hop the Silver Eagle Express from Des Moines to Omaha, like in our musical; they tend to choose the thoroughly unromantic options of planes and cars instead.) Traveling auditors review a company's financial statements and check them for accuracy. They also provide advice for setting up structures to protect data and ensure reliability.
They are "traveling" because they aren't permanently employed by the company in question. They are outside advisors, brought in by the company to double-check what their in-house accountants have done. Then, when that's done, it's back on the Silver Eagle Express and on to the next town. [Music swells; cue "Clang! Clang! Clang! Went Your Liabilities."]
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Finance: What is Adverse Audit Opinion?27 Views
Finance a la shmoop. What is an adverse audit opinion and you know deficiency
letter. Okay people this is not good you thought you had good grades but when [Report card is thrown onto the desk]
you got your report card your teachers had opinions adverse to yours... [Report card has bad grades in it]
They sent your parents a deficiency letter you know the one with all those [Mom looks shocked]
D's on it well when it's a company's audit that has similarly gone awry it's [Boss looks angry and employee looks shocked]
the nice way to say it well then it means they didn't count the beans
properly when they gave their financial reports to their investors or whoever
the auditors were serving usually this implies that companies overstated how [Employee counting coffee beans]
profitable they really were or how well they were really doing so tens of
thousands of investors if you know the company was public when this all [Big line of people waiting to invest]
happened paid twenty seven dollars and 32 cents a share when with the real
numbers the stock probably should have been trading more at like you know
fourteen dollars and 27 cents a share big difference well basically an auditor
is saying that yours are not bread-and-butter misstatements no oops [Bean report with the numbers crossed out]
it's more of a dude there were material ie important
mistakes and they were pervasive like everywhere math, science, english, history
your failure it's no mystery that's how auditors talk really
all right well then there are massive losses to massive numbers of people who hire [Protesters on a street]
massive numbers of lawyers who sue you.. massively.. in the world of finance an
adverse audit opinion is a bit like running over everyone's favorite dog [Car goes over a bump]
several times only you're the one who is likely dead meat [Guy reverses and runs the dog over again and the owner comes to fight]