[Anonymous]

I work in AP and discovered that I made a big boo boo during my 2nd week on the job. (Been with the company for a month now) I mistakenly entered 6 invoices totaling $2000 under the wrong vendor name and a check was cut and sent out to them. Got in touch with their accounts receivable person. They had already cashed the check a while ago but we eventually worked something out. I told my supervisor what happened but not until I resolved the issue myself. Surprisingly, he didnt get too mad at me.. maybe because i’m still kind of new. But oh man… that sinking feeling that I got upon discovery of my grave.. grave.. mistake.. holy god i wanted to cry!!!

So what about you guys? What was the biggest mistake you’ve ever made at work?

[mmp7183]

Oh-Hey-Yoh Candidate

FAR - 89 Dec 2013 (CPAExcel)
AUD - 89 Feb 2014 (CPAExcel)
BEC - 83 Aug 2014 (Becker)
REG - 85 Oct 2014 (Becker)

CMA (Aug 2011), CFSA (Dec 2008), Philippine CPA (Nov 2004)

[Anonymous]

Just almost.

I was like 22 and she was 24 or 25 and neither of us wanted an illegitimate work love-child at that point in our lives.

[Tripp11]

Informed an equivalent level co-worker (who I thought was my friend at the time) that I was going to be out sick for at least two days, and he let me know he would pass on the information to the partner in charge of the office, our local HR person, and also the managers. He did not, and later on, found out it was on purpose.

Foolish, rookie mistake. Never did it again. Upon my return, I was called into the conference room and a formal disciplinary action report went in my personnel file.

Moral to the story: Public accounting, especially when you are starting out, is a dog eat dog world.

AUD - 93
BEC - 80
REG - 86
FAR - 83

[klmc]

I send the wrong vendor $12,000 by mistake once. The upper managers did not catch it and the money was transferred. They told me to call the vendor and request for a transfer back which I did. She seemed understanding on the phone and we even joked that it was a funny situation. The next day I come in to work and find out that the lady I talked to on the phone had contacted an agency that deals with fraud cases. She though I was trying to scam her to transfer the money back lol. Long story short I we got the money back and I didn't get fired -_-

|FAR| - 72, 83
|AUD| - 73, 76
|REG| - 76
|BEC| - 73, 82

ALL DONE!!

[Anonymous]

I once forgot to change the depreciation expense amount (schedule) in my acct software after the huge leasehold improvement of the manufacturing building. I was a full charge acct. at the time. They didn't notice for a while after I left and had to redo all the income statements, B/S, VAT statements etc. It was 10 years ago or so, I am obsessively checking my work since

[MommyBear]

Two weeks ago I walked out of my V.P.'s office with a parting comment, “Since you're going to do what you want to do anyways, I'll just worry about my CPA exam and you just let me know how you're going to run my department.” Worst mistake of my entire career and I have no idea who the person that said that was. That is not like me at all. I blame it on exam stress and sleep deprivation.

[wombataholic]

@MommyBear I suggest that you go around work and blame an evil twin who is going around and ruining your good name.

AUD - 91
BEC - 85
FAR - 91
REG - 92

CPA, CFE
Passed all 4 CPA exam sections with Ninja Notes/MCQ/Audio

Licensed CPA
Passed each section on the first try with Ninja Notes/MCQ/Audio

[MommyBear]

@wombataholic–That is exactly what I should do! 🙂 We'll call her Meaniebear!

[Anonymous]

@MommyBear

What happened afterwards? Did you get a chance to apologize?

[Tax lady]

Hahahaha! “Meaniebear”….lol lol lol

AUD - 80
BEC - 75
FAR - 85
REG - 82

CPAExcel, Ninja MCQ's

REG 8/15/14 (73); 11/13/14 (82)-expired 🙁
AUD 5/30/15 (80)
BEC 11/28/15 (75)
FAR 7/30/16

Studying with CPAexcel and Ninja notes/MCQ's/Flashcards

[MommyBear]

I had the chance, but I didn't take it. I was put in a very awkward situation, which is why I was mad. It's still a little rocky and I didn't do myself any favors, but I I don't think apologizing would have helped that situation. Tensions are high around here because of other things that don't involve me directly. I think things will improve significantly on my end after I'm done with this test and can talk rationally to people again. If I had been put in that same situation 2 years ago with an average of 7 hours of sleep per night and no stress from studying I would have reacted completely different. My fuse is short right now. I've been at this exam for 16 months. Luckily I have worked there for 7.5 years and don't have any marks against me and quite a few accolades in my favor. Everyone else has seen the best of me and the worst of me (hopefully) at this point. Unfortunately the V.P. is fairly new so she probably had to ask around to make sure I wasn't like this all the time.

[Peterman25]

In a previous job I was the accounting representative in charge of inventory. Well, the distribution center manager was horrible at properly receiving orders in the accounting system (he had plenty of training). It made managing inventory a mess and a lot harder than it needed to be. We used an internal chat system within the company. I had 2 chat windows open – one with the distribution center guy and another with a coworker friend. Being frustrated with distribution center guy I began to vent about him IN THE WRONG CHAT WINDOW. So yeah..I basically told him how much i couldn't stand him at times and told him that I just want to punch him in the face sometimes. Good thing I quit that job a few months later.

BEC 7/14 - PASS
FAR 10/14 - PASS
AUD 1/15 - PASS
REG 4/15 - PASS

AZ license - Official 8/20/2015

[Hank Scorpio]

I paid $300,000 to the wrong vendor at a previous accounting job. Nobody caught the error.

AUD - 71, 79
BEC - 69, 74, 75
FAR - 71, 74, 80
REG - 74, 78

FAR - 10/3/16
BEC - 69 - 10/31/16
AUD - November 2016
REG - December 2016

[OMGJUSTINBIEBER]

this thread should be renamed: aftermath of poor internal controls at your work

[MommyBear]

We have awesome internal controls at my company, but invoices have been paid to the wrong vendor. Mistakes happen and unless I am wrong, it is not a requirement to pull up every invoice and check it against a check register for every check cut or wire sent. It is necessary to check for reasonableness and if you have large vendors then paying a $300,000 payment to a wrong vendor would not be unreasonable.

[Author]

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