The party bus at Bay and King: wheeled debacle or the most brilliant application of motor coaches ever? As much as I'd like to think I'm just making jokes concerning the amount of travel auditors often experience, Mark Lee has brought our attention to a perhaps long overdue concept: AllABoardroom , a portable meeting room now available in the UK for the truly dedicated road warriors. It all makes me keep thinking back to a certain movie's caravan camp; with St. Patrick's Day upon us, perhaps Irish Travelers of the Business World may be a more apt term for the denizens of Audit Land. Regardless, now you can now book a tour bus for rockstar accountants . How much does it rock? It has an onboard fireplace. And, naturally, a bar. Interestingly, the fee for drinks is donated to charity. Whether this is done purely to be charitable or to make compliance with British liquor laws easier - are there really any laws regarding liquor in the UK, anyway? - is perhaps a moot point but...

First of all, I'd like to state that I do not in any way suggest that anyone should go out and watch either of the films discussed below. This article regards these films solely as the representatives of different standings in the filmmaking industry, and does not endorse either of them. I also do not suggest that anyone watch the Academy Awards (I received all of my knowledge of them via live blogging.). This year's Academy Awards were frontlined by James Cameron's Avatar and Katherine Bigelow's The Hurt Locker . They were complete opposites in more ways than one. First of all, a few facts regarding each film. Avatar is James Cameron's first blockbuster film since Titanic . Titanic held the world record for the highest gross revenue of a film in history, until James Cameron broke his own record with Avatar grossing (at the time of this writing) $2.6 billion. He spent $237 million to make it. The Hurt Locker is Katherine Bigelow's eighth feature film. It was independently...

Some people are working over 50 hours a week. Others barely have a reason to come in to the office, because they're just going to chat with their friends and make four trips down to Tim Horton's. Is this curious phenomenon limited to just accounting firms? Maybe not, but who cares - if this next quote represents "you," then you're Doing it Wrong: "I also have a lot of nonchargeable time when i'm unscheduled..i sometimes ask 1 or 2 managers(since there are lots in the office and i don't know most of them) but usually have no result..i'm concerned that this will reflect poorly on my performance evals..what are people's experience on this?" This is courtesy the comments to a blog post on people underreporting their time. I'm pretty sure I've railed against stupidly obeying the budget instead of documenting reality, but that's not where we're ranting today. Instead, let's deconstruct that scenario. The comment writer doesn't...

No doubt in direct response to my last post , the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario has just announced a wonderfully charitable and clever rule change for CA students who aren't currently employed by a CA firm. Clearly the snark worked its magic Until now, if you wanted to write the CA accounting exams in Ontario, you had to be employed by an approved CA training office - a "CATO". With the recent wave of layoffs and the resulting shortage of vacancies at CATOs, it's been understandably difficult for many people to sign up, get their work experience, and the associated ability to sit for the UFE, and the qualifying CKE and SOA exams. And the ICAO has realized this, admitting just as much in their official announcement : "In recognition of the difficulty that a significant number of otherwise qualified individuals may be having in securing employment in a CA Training Office (CATO) during the current economic downturn, the Institute’s Council recently approved...

This month's CA magazine features a mention of Stefano Picone, CA , founder of mycasite , but before you can read that you may read the following unrelated trainwreck of a paragraph - read it and guess what went wrong here : " Firms only interested in training CA students who wish to practise public accounting but lack the audit hours to do so should also consider hiring experienced CA students who have already completed the required chargeable audit hours at another firm. CA students can complete their practical experience requirements for qualification at your firm and may be eligible to practise public accounting. The current economic situation has resulted in the availability of a number of experienced CA students ready and able to take on new opportunities. " Did you see it? Avert your eyes children! Did they just casually say "current economic situation"? I'm sorry, I think the editors must have accidentally hit "find and replace" on the more...

This image pretty much summarizes the last two or three weeks. It's been a wild a joyful blur. Between supervising ICAO low-income tax clinics, hitting multiple deadlines with aplomb and celebrating Canada's Gold, there's barely enough time to go skiing. Last chance for me is likely today. The one big downside I have to admit is that it's not exactly easy to just disappear in the middle of the week to go replicate the feats of snow sports excellence we got to enjoy last month. Unless you plan for a winter vacation. Maybe next year. When I see a car perfectly painted the colours of our great land, I wonder, "did they specifically pick those colours knowing one day they'd be parading up and down Yonge St. after a stunningly perfect Canadian hockey victory?"

This teaching is about 55 minutes long. It is an exposition of John 3: 1 - 20. It is about Nicodemus, regeneration, free will and holiness . Any and all feedback appreciated, steeplefriends. May the Lord bless His Word going forth. B8

Congratulations to Alexandre Bilodeau for bringing a glorious golden victory to Canada's western shores! In tribute to his spectacular mogul run, I offer some Big 4 snow sport action. The snow profile above, sadly, is a little too similar to that in Vancouver this month. Who would've expected mild weather in February - aside from anyone who's ever visited or moved to B.C. for that very reason? Alexandre's victory reminded me the fall recruiting season - yes I'm going there - where two of the Big Four firms trumpeted their involvement with the Winter Games. But before we get into who's doing what on an official level, let's see what's going on from Google's point of view, searching for "FIRMNAME" and "Vancouver Olympics: PwC: they're running a study to figure out whether or not the Olympics end up breaking even or perhaps even generating a profit for the hosts. How very stereotypical for accountants, I know. KPMG: a profile on Executive...

I really do wish the following tutorial was not necessary, but recent events have showed me that our education system has clearly failed us. Now that there is an influx of people with absolutely zero life skills arriving in my neighbourhood, I have, as usual, found it thrust upon my shoulders to deliver a new guide on How to Survive Life. Long-time readers will recall this site's brief master class on business travel . The only thing it lacked to be considered the peer of workplace training was an introductory " You should be able to " Goals section, and a instructions at the conclusion regarding how to get your Continuing Professional Education credits. The new and improved courses delivered by A Counting School address those concerns. How to successfully wait in line at a Polish deli Upon completion of this course, you should able to: know how to stand in line to be served in a Polish deli, and not look like a cursed fool. Lesson one: arrival. Upon arrival, gauge the line...

There's actually a rule on how to treat "stolen property" on your US tax return: " Stolen property. If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner." Someone reported a robbery? As usual, I remind you that I'm not offering you any tax advice here - hire a professional if you need any of that. Of course, I don't think the target audience for this bit of tax law would even care about my disclaimer - they probably have other issues they should instead be dealing with. What makes this funnier is seeing this featured on Failblog, although I stumbled upon it courtesy CPASuccess - thank guys, that's just epic. Possibly be an epic win rather than a fail depending on how you look at it, though. I was going to say "I don't have the US tax code on hand to verify if this is in fact real," when I first saw it on their blog, but then I skipped...

If you started, say, an engineering program at one given university, could you switch partway through to a Chartered Accountant prep program instead in the same university's business school, and quickly get all the credits you need to graduate in a mere year and a half? One of the regular CA 'commentators' on the blogs and forums, sardaukar - who does an excellent public service in opening people's eyes to the "hell years" that await them as CA students, incidentally - did just that, and people wondered how this is even possible. Since I'm not really into Sudoku, and this is just the sort of "puzzle" I enjoy solving, I'll answer the question for the writer of comment #427. The funny thing about this exercise is that when you review the list of courses needed - I include links at the end of this article - many courses will count for "3 hours" even though they're full year, or half year. That means you can't divide 51 by 3 and...

If there's one question students in university may find hard to ask - even though it echoes in their mind all the time - it's "how much am I going to earn if I get hired by a CA firm?" If you're bold and outgoing and have friends who are already employed, this can be easier to find out. Otherwise, hopefully you'll stumble across either this post or the next forum as you turn to the all-knowing internet for answers. Stefano at mycasite took it upon himself to contribute to our collective knowledge by conducting a public survey - you can see the results here and comment on the outcome in this dedicated forum . He reports that the range of median salaries runs from $29,300 in Winnipeg to $45,000 in Toronto, with the size of the firm - big four or regional - playing less of a role than some might expect. A fair question you may ask, though, is why there's a 50% increase just for moving over one province. This is explained by the fact that regional pay depends...

One of the many fun things about travelling around the world is finding out the rather different way people do common tasks. Surprises abound, even with something as prosaic as saying "Back in 5 Minutes." At least, that's what I assume this meant in a Chinese mall. Similarly, the sales staff embrace different sales tactics, particularly depending on where you find yourself. There were three examples which stood out. Hard ball haggling At most markets and stores were haggling can happen, it's traditional for salespeople to lower their last price if you're walking away after a bit of haggling. How odd to have the staff who will play hardball. You try and get a better price, but they don't want to budge. So you leave - and they call after you twice, each time saying, "no, I'm not lowering the price any lower." Sure, well thanks. Your sales pitch adds nothing to the conversation, bye. You walk away a third time only to get called again. "Ok, fine...

In Matthew 7, Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’" I was stunned speechless as I pondered this verse anew recently. Think of the judgment day. Think of being in the very Presence of God. Think of talking with God. O, the depth of self-deception, to actually view God, to actually speak with Him, and to STILL BELIEVE that you are a Christian, but you are NOT. Isaiah fell on his face as dead. John the Baptist declared he could not even touch Jesus' sandal straps. The lost argue with God and point to their prophesies, exorcisms and mighty works, never pondering infinite Holiness and Glory before their face. Jesus points...

Completely random promotion: check out My Life is Polish - the site is hilarious, particularly if you are of Polish descent. If you're not, I recommend keeping a bookmark to Google Translate's Polish to English engine to get some of the jokes painfully true stories. Example: Today, my mom poured water into our shampoo bottle and said "no to wystarczy do konca tygodnia". MLIP " The "punchline", automatically translated by Google is " no it is sufficient to the end of the week ". Close, Google, but the correct translation would be "now it will last until the end of the week." You get the idea regardless, but I submitted a correction to Google anyway. It'll be interesting to see if they fix it down the road. Some work even if you don't speak the language though: " Today, I realized that all of my closest friends have been forced to memorize at least 3 words in polish. By me. I quiz them every couple of weeks and get angry when...