At the risk of getting yelled at: I'm an engineer - accounting isn't something that's hard to learn and do IMHO. It's just simple math with a bunch of rules.
Engineers know math and love rules - it ain't rocket science.
The people screaming are just all as guilty as sin and all need to be shipped off to a desert island and never seen again and I'm tired of pretending that they deserve any respect or mercy.
I participated, as an auditor, in 2015 in an engineering operations audit at a major division of my then (now former) employer. All 3 auditors were engineers. I was working on an MBA at the time, so I'd taken a couple accounting classes, but that's as close as any of us got to being an accountant.
"If you’re in an Operational Audit, and someone Asks You A Question With Intent, never, ever, ever respond with “Well, that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Just don’t."
And that's how I became a training expert, and wrote my first formal training program.
When the USS Jimmy Carter calls their buddies in the three letter agencies, and says, "We have lost faith in PSNS's ability to make encapsulated cables, we need you to look at this." People come down and look at your program. When the person that is in charge of your program gives an answer like that above, the "look" becomes a bit more.
When they ask about the training program, and the answer is "We don't have to have one, our instruction tells us that we are authorized to train OJT."
The response is to haul out the NAVSEA 06 manual where the first sentence is something to the effect of "This manual is the final authority on all cables manufactured for use on US Submarines, it supersedes all other instructions." and is signed by a 4 star admiral, and counter signed by another one... Then they flip to part 4 of the manual where it lists the required training program, and says "Now, once again, I'm going to ask you, 'where is your training program documents so that we may audit them." It becomes a very bad day for the command.
As the only encapsulation expert not part of Encap at the time, and thus not tarred with the "you guys couldn't make a bathtub submarine safe" brush, I got nominated to develop the program.
When I worked in the medical devices industry, a gal there once wrote a memo with a statement that was very similar to 'that's the way it's always been done'.
Management went ballistic and we had an all hands wherein it was said you NEVER put anything in ANY document that did not have a definitive answer. Or to which you did not know the answer, even if it had nothing to do with our business (and her statement didn't).
When asked why, the VP said they were now in the process of spending fifty thousand dollars to research and answer that question, so when we got audited, we'd be able to avoid the inevitable half-million dollar fine.
Sobering lesson when you work in any sort of industry with enforced compliance.
I’ve had the dubious pleasure of being drafted to do a compliance audit of a supplier of nuclear safety related components for our power plants. I’m an engineer, not an accountant and it wasn’t a financial audit. More along the lines of “Why did you change the design without following your own QA procedures?” Not an experience I want to repeat.
The short answer is, shenanigans often happen "in the books" where accountants can spot them, but it's not universal; shenanigans can also happen somewhere in the process BEFORE "the books", and if that's the case you might need subject matter experts on-hand and on the auditors' side to say what's what.
At the risk of getting yelled at: I'm an engineer - accounting isn't something that's hard to learn and do IMHO. It's just simple math with a bunch of rules.
Engineers know math and love rules - it ain't rocket science.
The people screaming are just all as guilty as sin and all need to be shipped off to a desert island and never seen again and I'm tired of pretending that they deserve any respect or mercy.
I participated, as an auditor, in 2015 in an engineering operations audit at a major division of my then (now former) employer. All 3 auditors were engineers. I was working on an MBA at the time, so I'd taken a couple accounting classes, but that's as close as any of us got to being an accountant.
Oh, and Ian, you are a Child of God.
We just won't say *which* god... 🤣
"If you’re in an Operational Audit, and someone Asks You A Question With Intent, never, ever, ever respond with “Well, that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Just don’t."
And that's how I became a training expert, and wrote my first formal training program.
When the USS Jimmy Carter calls their buddies in the three letter agencies, and says, "We have lost faith in PSNS's ability to make encapsulated cables, we need you to look at this." People come down and look at your program. When the person that is in charge of your program gives an answer like that above, the "look" becomes a bit more.
When they ask about the training program, and the answer is "We don't have to have one, our instruction tells us that we are authorized to train OJT."
The response is to haul out the NAVSEA 06 manual where the first sentence is something to the effect of "This manual is the final authority on all cables manufactured for use on US Submarines, it supersedes all other instructions." and is signed by a 4 star admiral, and counter signed by another one... Then they flip to part 4 of the manual where it lists the required training program, and says "Now, once again, I'm going to ask you, 'where is your training program documents so that we may audit them." It becomes a very bad day for the command.
As the only encapsulation expert not part of Encap at the time, and thus not tarred with the "you guys couldn't make a bathtub submarine safe" brush, I got nominated to develop the program.
When I worked in the medical devices industry, a gal there once wrote a memo with a statement that was very similar to 'that's the way it's always been done'.
Management went ballistic and we had an all hands wherein it was said you NEVER put anything in ANY document that did not have a definitive answer. Or to which you did not know the answer, even if it had nothing to do with our business (and her statement didn't).
When asked why, the VP said they were now in the process of spending fifty thousand dollars to research and answer that question, so when we got audited, we'd be able to avoid the inevitable half-million dollar fine.
Sobering lesson when you work in any sort of industry with enforced compliance.
I’ve had the dubious pleasure of being drafted to do a compliance audit of a supplier of nuclear safety related components for our power plants. I’m an engineer, not an accountant and it wasn’t a financial audit. More along the lines of “Why did you change the design without following your own QA procedures?” Not an experience I want to repeat.
I admire you fortitude. Educating against a Dunning-Kruger stream is always a thankless chore.
Larry Correia (IRL CPA and auditor in previous years) over at Monster Hunter Nation covered this too. Much the same as you have said.
Love the fox pics.
Larry Correia -- who used to be an accountant and do Financial Audits -- posted about that side of things and why you might find non-accountants even on a Financial Audit team: https://monsterhunternation.com/2025/02/18/educating-the-stupid-on-how-audits-work-in-real-life/
The short answer is, shenanigans often happen "in the books" where accountants can spot them, but it's not universal; shenanigans can also happen somewhere in the process BEFORE "the books", and if that's the case you might need subject matter experts on-hand and on the auditors' side to say what's what.