Back from Punta Cana

Wow, it’s been a while! I can’t say as I’ve missed this thing since I last posted about two weeks ago; I have been in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, enjoying a much deserved vacation. Best of all, I was able to use a travel voucher that BDO gave me for passing the UFE last year to pay for the trip for both me and my girlfriend Christine!

The trip was amazing. We stayed at Barcelo Premium Resort and when we weren’t enjoying the white sand beaches, we visited the capital city Santo Domingo and snorkeled with stingrays and nurse sharks at the Marinarium! I miss it so much, it has been so hard going back to work this week.

I’ll have a full set of photos from the trip on my Flickr as soon as I can find the time, but for now you can see the pics on Christine’s Facebook. If you’re a friend of mine you can see my pics since she’s tagged me in them. And if you’re not my friend, add me.

The travel voucher was a pretty sweet perk for passing the hardest exam of my life, and I was glad to finally take advantage of it. Not to be too booster about it, but I haven’t heard of any of my friends at other firms receiving something like that.

Most Chartered Accountants want interesting work above all

A recent CICA members survey has revealed what matters most to the Canadian Chartered Accountants who answer member surveys, and the August issue of CA Magazine highlights those findings:

Chartered accountants want work that is interesting and challenging, but only if it leaves them enough time to have a life.

Those are the results of a recent CICA member’s survey on workplace priorities, with 86% of CAs rating interesting work as “very important” and all respondents rating it as at least somewhat important. In addition, 20% ranked it as their top priority.

Retention of talented young CAs is a pressing issue facing all firms, as the demand for our services increases and opportunities outside the audit profession abound as the Canadian economy rolls along. Firms should make sure they are consistently challenging the brightest and best staff they have.

Are accounting standards public enough?

CA Magazine might be freely giving away their content for the benefit of all stakeholders in the CA profession and public accounting in general, but the goodwill doesn’t extend to the CICA when it comes to Canadian accounting and auditing standards.

The CICA, through the Accounting Standards Board (AcSB), develops public accounting standards through a remarkably public process of consultation and comment, but once the standard makes it into the Handbook, it is rarely seen in public again. The Handbook is available online, if you’re a member of the Institute. That is, only if you’re a CA do you get access to the goods.

Additionally, when one Googles “CICA Handbook”, the first result is a link to “Enhanced online access to CICA Handbook”! (This the access available only to CICA members.) A link to the protected Handbook is featured prominently on the CICA homepage. “Great,” a new visitor thinks, “the Handbook is only a mouse click away!” But that click takes you again to the paywall.

I posed the question directly to the Institute, and later in the day received my response: “The CICA Handbook is only granted to members as a part of their annual dues thru their Provincial Institute. You may be able to come across a copy in print in a local Library, assuming the Library has one for public use.” Pay the dues, get access to the public standards.

The profession exists to protect the public interest, so I have to question whether access to the fruits of the profession’s labour, the standards themselves, are holding up this ideal. What do you think?

Pay off debt, then start saving and investing

I took the plunge this weekend and expunged my debts to the depths of the hell from whence they came. It was a tough move for some reason, even for a cold, calculating accountant. Subconsciously, I held on to the debt in order to keep my asset balances high. Artificially high.

This is a bad move, and you don’t need to be a bean-counter to follow the logic. I had credit card debt at 18%, a personal line of credit at prime + 3%, savings earning me 3.5%, and a chequing account costing me the monthly plan fee less a paltry amount of interest. In summary, a net cost to me.

I had enough cash in the savings and chequing to pay off the debts, but for some reason I had held off on doing so for months, all the time allowing the interest costs to pile on. I felt more secure maintaining the artificially high cash/savings balances. Why is that?

It wasn’t until I started tracking my expenses using the so very Web 2.0 tool expensr.com about two weeks ago that I realized the time had come to man up and pay the debt off. Only then could I save with a clean conscience, knowing I had no interest expense completely wiping out the interest I would earn on savings.

Note: I plan to write a post soon about expensr.com. It has really helped me get a hold of my expenditures and features a mobile version I can access on my cell phone to capture cash outlays as I make them.

So now you all know my dirty little secret. I’m an accountant and auditor, I find other people’s mistakes and control weaknesses, and until this weekend I wasn’t even managing my own finances like a pro!