Grant Tait
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granttait.bsky.social
Grant Tait
@granttait.bsky.social
31 followers 200 following 30 posts
Award winning author retired Financial Director ICAEW
Why accountants make me laugh
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granttait.bsky.social
Planning makes me laugh. Accountants like farming imagery, breaking their planning down into silos between departments. From the mundane, they are trying poetic planning.

The full article is on my blog: www.granttait.com/2024/12/11/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
July 28, 2025 at 8:01 AM
granttait.bsky.social
Planning makes me laugh. Some accountants use trains in their imagery, encouraging companies to upgrade to complex capable analytics platforms.

The full article is on my blog: www.granttait.com/2024/12/11/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
July 21, 2025 at 8:02 AM
granttait.bsky.social
Garden imagery has come into accounting with the landscape. Nowadays, everything has to be a landscape. There is the planning landscape, the business landscape, even the technology landscape.

The full article is on my blog: www.granttait.com/2024/12/11/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
July 14, 2025 at 8:02 AM
granttait.bsky.social
Planning makes me laugh. Today planning has become dynamic, proactive and automatic, buzz words which are impossible to understand perhaps even for some accountants.

The full article is on my blog: www.granttait.com/2024/12/11/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
July 7, 2025 at 8:02 AM
granttait.bsky.social
Planning makes me laugh. Even the familiar FP&A has evolved to xP&A. ( it represents ‘extended’ so accountants have taken up using the second letter of a word for their acronym: xL&N)

The full article is on my blog: www.granttait.com/2024/12/11/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
June 30, 2025 at 8:02 AM
granttait.bsky.social
Accountants use ‘unwind’ as accounting jargon. More or less anything can be unwound. I found this rather extraordinary ‘probability of Technical/Regulatory Success unwind’ in an annual report.

The full article is on my blog: www.granttait.com/2024/12/04/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
June 30, 2025 at 8:02 AM
granttait.bsky.social
Accountants use ‘unwind’ as accounting jargon. You should not confuse this unwinding, with the one after a hard day at work drinking a scotch sprawled out on the sofa...

The full article is on my blog: www.granttait.com/2024/12/04/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
June 23, 2025 at 8:02 AM
granttait.bsky.social
Accountants have started to introduce ‘unwind’ as accounting jargon. It is exclusively ‘wind’ with the ‘un’ attached. I guess wind in the positive would cause some confusion with a breeze.

The full article is on my blog: www.granttait.com/2024/12/04/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
June 16, 2025 at 8:02 AM
granttait.bsky.social
And would you believe it? Now there is an EBIDAX. It should really be EBITDAE where the E is for exploration, but clearly an X is trendy compared to a boring old E.

The full article is on my blog: www.granttait.com/2024/11/27/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
June 10, 2025 at 8:02 AM
granttait.bsky.social
EBITDAal makes me laugh. The latest invention, from accountants presumably fond of Indian food is EBITDAaL.

The full article is on my blog: www.granttait.com/2024/11/27/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
June 3, 2025 at 8:03 AM
granttait.bsky.social
EBITDAR makes me laugh. An accountant somewhere came up with an R to give us EBITDAR. The R can represent either rent or restructuring but accountants cannot agree which is the correct one.

The full article is on my blog: www.granttait.com/2024/11/27/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
May 27, 2025 at 8:02 AM
granttait.bsky.social
Ever since EBIT was invented accountants have been adding letters to it in a supposed effort to refine it. A was the first letter with EBITA, followed by DA. EBITDA has surpassed them both. It is famous!

The full article is on my blog:
www.granttait.com/2024/11/27/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
May 20, 2025 at 8:02 AM
granttait.bsky.social
My favorite quote on deadlines comes from Douglas Adams, the English author who said

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing noise they make as they go by.

Accountants never hear this lovely whooshing noise.

The full article is on my blog:
www.granttait.com/2025/02/24/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
May 13, 2025 at 8:02 AM
granttait.bsky.social
CFO does not stand for Chief Financial Officer but Chief Fiddling Officer. The title has nothing to do with musical accountants. It relates more to cooking, as in cooking the books!

The full article is on my blog:
www.granttait.com/2024/08/25/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
May 6, 2025 at 8:02 AM
granttait.bsky.social
UK audit opinions proclaim that financial statements give a ‘true and fair’ view, whereas in the USA they ‘presents fairly’. What is the difference between these two opinions? Is the answer nothing at all?

The full article is on my blog:
www.granttait.com/2024/05/06/f...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
April 29, 2025 at 8:01 AM
granttait.bsky.social
Accountants write things off but never on. ‘Write it on’ doesn’t exist. They write things down but rarely ‘write it up’. They do though write it back.

The full article is on my blog:
www.granttait.com/2024/11/20/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
April 22, 2025 at 8:02 AM
granttait.bsky.social
Why do auditors qualify their auditors’ reports with ‘in all material respects’? If there are material errors, auditors would not state that financial statements were presented fairly, or would they?

The full article is on my blog:
www.granttait.com/2024/08/25/w...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
April 14, 2025 at 8:01 PM
granttait.bsky.social
I recently discovered 'headroom' in an annual report and with a value. I had always thought it measured the space between the top of my head and the ceiling.

“Headroom was $100m on a CGU carrying value of $1,000m.”

Here is the full article
www.granttait.com/2024/03/18/f...

#cfo #accounting #cpa
April 7, 2025 at 8:00 AM
granttait.bsky.social
I wonder sometimes whether top management read their annual reports, especially when they state:

“We cannot predict changes in foreign currency exchange rates.”

Who would expect management to predict currency rates?

#cfo #accounting #cpa

The full article is on my blog: buff.ly/40BPpQh
March 25, 2025 at 9:00 AM
granttait.bsky.social
Accountants have done empirical research to find out what people thought on the difference between ‘presents fairly’ and ‘true and fair’ in their audit reports. How silly can that be!

#cfo #accounting #cpa

The full article is on my blog: buff.ly/3CynCbh
March 18, 2025 at 9:00 AM
granttait.bsky.social
Why do accountants call it a balance sheet. It is neither a balance nor a sheet, and balance and sheet together means nothing. They could have called it an ‘equilibrium blanket’. Equally silly!

#cfo #accounting #cpa

The full article is on my blog: buff.ly/3PXcW9t
March 11, 2025 at 9:00 AM
granttait.bsky.social
Accountants think that cash flows. It doesn’t. Cash never flows. A river flows. When you turn on the tap, water flows.

#cfo #accounting #cpa

The full article is on my blog: buff.ly/3PXcW9t
March 4, 2025 at 9:00 AM
granttait.bsky.social
Why do auditors in the UK go out of their way to state that financial statements are both true and fair? True on its own would be fine. True is strong. Fair has a connotation of honesty.

#cfo #accounting #cpa

The full article is on my blog: https://buff.ly/3CynCbh
February 25, 2025 at 9:00 AM
granttait.bsky.social
Most of us read books then perhaps store them on shelves somewhere in the house. Accountants keep books, not as the opposite of throwing them away, but to record accounting transactions. They call it bookkeeping.

#cfo #accounting #cpa

The full article is on my blog: https://buff.ly/3EjnoFD
February 18, 2025 at 9:00 AM
granttait.bsky.social
I have always thought 'going concern' a silly expression. What if they called it ‘leaving worry’? It would be just as silly.

Where is it going? Or perhaps how is it going? As in ‘the going is good’.

#cfo #accounting #cpa

You can see the full article on my blog: https://buff.ly/3PDh1iJ
February 11, 2025 at 9:00 AM