Year-End Tax Work...

Well, the year and tax work seems to be a really never ending story. And it's definitely that has been haunting me since May or June. The tax guys finished their work and everything has been properly recorded. At least that's as much as I knew. I really didn't want to know too much about it, since it very often means more work. Therfore I didn't really care too much about what had to be done in the Austrian Company, since my main respinsibility is the German Sub-Company. My plan was to get all the necessary changes done by the end of the week.
By the devil is in the detail. My boss calls me in and tells me that he wants to have that changes done quickly. Just before I could ask him why he's telling me that...he drops a little bomb on me. He wants me to do those changes. So I ask him if there is a specific reason for that. The only thing I could get out of him is, that the tax guys want me to do those changes. This brought back a conversation I was having with the tax guys during preparation of the year-end tax work. They do like the way I do my job and they know that I'm aware of all the rules and regulations that have to be observed. So I got a ton of work more on my plate.
But it also brought back a conversation I was having with one of the tax guys about my co-worker. Yes he's young and kinda inexperienced, although he has the necessary basic accounting education. But the tax guys got the impression that my co-worker isn't that interested in accounting to begn with. And if you're not into accounting, it can be one of the worst and most frustrating jobs you can have. For me accounting is fun and I do enjoy myself. And yes I think it's not only interesting, but also a great field to work in.
So this week I started with the final work in the Austrian Company. And I knew it was going to be some time, before there's a light at the tunnel. First I started to see if we have the same base values. I was pretty certain that would be the case. But being an accountant you don't trust anyone. After that I started with the list of the final balance changes. And I didn't get too far with them. One of the issues is that the sometimes we and the tax guys are not using the same accounts. So I gave them a call to send me all the balance sheets. That way I can get a clear picture of what happened and what went from A to B. And with that you can apply it accordingly. And that can be a painstaking slow process. And of course it is mentally draining. For me that meant, when I was getting home I was too drained to even watch TV. I just wanted to eat something and chill on the couch with a couple of beer and listening to some music.
Today I finally got done with all the entries. And of course you have to check it against the official paper work. Turns out it was mostly correct. I found 3 errors. One was that I recorded something into the wrong direction. A minus in front of an amount where it doesn't belong is quite a big deal. But this was a really easy fix. Erroer number 2 was equally easy. It was just a little typo and that was the reason why there was a balance difference of 40 cent. And then I got to error number 3. There were 60 grand recorded in a tax account where they shouldn't have. So I looked it up in the list of the tax guys...and the account number was right. Then I looked at the name of the account...and turns out that it was one of those instances where the tax guys and we are using the same account number but for different things. So I changed that to the accounts where it actually belonged. This mistake is result neutral since it is plus/minus thing in the same business year. Therefore it wouldn't have changed the end-result, but I just hate having things recorded on the wrong account.
Once I was done with that, I was actually happy and felt that I had accomplished a lot. I'm still not quite finished yet. I still have to make 3 corrections. It's one of those cases when I really hate our accounting software. In a BMD or SAP I could have just recorded it according to the papers from the tax guys and would have been done with it. But our software doesn't allow me that. The problem is how our software handles debendures. Under normal circumstances I am not allowed to touch a debenture omnibus account directly. That would really screw up our system royally. But year-end tax work is another cattle of tea. Here I acutally have to do that in order to come to the same result as the tax paper work. The thing I have to do is to record the dependure back into the last business year, where the tax guys put it to begin with. In doing so the opening value of the new business year is exactly according to paper work. But on the second business day of the new business year I have to take the value away since the dependure has been already recorded in the  dependure omnibus account of the new business year. If I weren't to make that correction I would have recorded ot twice. Sounds complicated?...Yep, it is...and it is a nightmare for an accountant. On top of that I can't do that during the regular work day. While I make these changes nobody is allowed to make anything at all in our accounting software. If I weren't to take that precaution, I might end up screwing our accounting software up royally. So I couldn't have finished anyways.
This was actually a good thing, since I had to leave this Friday early for my class in Advanced Payroll.