Help for the next time you're audited, and sighting of The Last Templar
I find myself in Montréal once more.
One of my friends immediately asks by e-mail:
And what are you doing there now? Business again? Or yet another in
your endless string of vacations! I should have become an accountant,
though it may not be too late to change that.
My friend, you see, is studying for his doctorate in finance. Awesome.
I just rode the metro to buy 6 bagels, had a proper dinner of smoked meat with pickles at Schwartz's, then walked 'home' to the hotel - which was a good idea since spending the entire day auditing people generally isn't the best way to get some exercise. The walk from Fairmount to the deli was healthy enough (check out the funky google "walking map") - going all the way home was an excellent idea.
And of course, on the way home I saw horses, which weren't pulling one of the typical Old City carriages, but which were, rather, decked out in medieval regalia.
A movie shoot for a TV mini-series set in New York city, of course.
Anyone famous? Well, Mira Sorvino is in it.
Anyway, to answer my friend's question - I promised I would - I'm doing yet more audit work.
How is it that I find myself traipsing around so much?
It's little more than a matter of being the right person with the right timing.
My friends of the same experience level would do just as good a job as me at this sort of thing, but their schedule was booked, while mine was open.
If the job needed someone a month from now, I would've been out of luck since I have a nice long engagement that'll keep me busy in Toronto for most of the summer.
Fortunately some of my friends at work are either on vacation or just back from vacation, so they can't possibly be too jealous about my little adventure - besides, they'll find themselves on the road again sooner or later.
Hopefully it'll also be somewhere fun.
I have some wonderful pictures already and I would upload them, except I don't have a card reader with me. I suspect I'll find myself buying a new one in the near future - I'll return with some pictures from the movie shoot when I get a chance. Until then, I'll stick to some photos from Paris which I could almost cheat and pass off as being from Montréal.
As for the way to help people next time they're audited? It's the concept of giving brilliantly simple advice. After wrestling over some concepts with the person you're auditing for an hour or so, remind them to archive all the pieces of electronic evidence they've generated for you.
Next time an auditor rolls into town - internal, external, or something funky like a federal tax agents or SOX specialists - you'll have a folder full of examples that document how you do your job.
Of course, that pile of information will be relatively useless if you can't make heads or tails of it, so remember to label screenshots and other files appropriately so you can quickly remember what information or steps they're demonstrating.
This works best if the work you do is subject to yearly or more frequent "walkthroughs" of what you do. If you're involved in an area that's less regimented - I'm thinking of creative types here - then you may never have to worry about this sort of thing.
But then, that's probably yet another reason why you took the 'pure creative' route in the first place.