Accountants are misunderstood.

Accountants are misunderstood.

It’s not that we are necessarily boring (although some of us are). It’s that we like boring. We prefer boring. Boring is good and, in fact, much better than most alternatives.

Let’s take the audit report. Organizations keep records and put together financial statements. Independent auditors look over the records and give their opinions on what they think about the statements. The unqualified opinion is the goal. It says, “We went through your books, and things look good.” It cannot be more boring.

There are, however, exciting options available:

- There’s the qualified opinion, which says that things look okay “except for….” I promise you that nothing good ever follows “except for.”

- There’s the disclaimer of opinion, which essentially says, “Your records are such a mess that we cannot form an opinion on your financial statements.”

- Accounting gets really exciting when the DA’s office gets involved.

Federation just received its 2020 audit report—another unqualified opinion. How boring!

Thank you to Federation’s accounting staff for another great year of reporting and our finance committee for your oversight.

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