Controls. What controls do you have over the accuracy and completeness of the numbers your company is reporting? See Sarbanes-Oxley for details. But this accounting compliance law came into being on the backs of a bunch of really bad bean counting, wherein huge public corporations committed fraud, and its management (and a bunch of their auditors) were sent to work on their putting short games (wealthy, white man jail).
Controls involve things like gathering data on transactions from two different sources. Like, yes, the bank wires all foot...but do the inventory draw downs also foot, and do the numbers all match...exactly? If so, then great; if not, then you have work to do to figure out what went wrong, either in the reporting of the actual numbers or the mismatches that...missed.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is AICPA?6 Views
Finance a la shmoop what is the AICPA alright people when you think wild and [People dancing in a club]
crazy parties rock stars jumping into swimming pools from the seventh floor [Man jumps off rooftop into swimming pool]
teenagers in skimpy swimsuits running down the halls of hotels you don't think
of the AICPA why because it stands for the American Institute of Certified
Public Accountants and their parties are just different [Group of people sipping cocktails]
yeah the AICPA is responsible for setting US accounting standards it
sets ethical standards so there isn't a CPA somewhere writing off weekly [Roosters preparing to fight]
trips to a cockfighting arena as, you know travel expense it sets all kinds of
professional standards as well like common tax practices, financial statement
auditing practices and quality control for accounting firms so that no matter
which accounting office you visit the coffee in the lobby can't be cold [Man drinking coffee]
come on AICPA you can do better than that all right well the AICPA also puts
together and grades the exam you have to take if you want to become one of those [Boy studying for exam]
accountant people the uniform CPA exam ...Fail to pass that
baby and you may only be able to get a job counting actual beans not the [Man counting beans on conveyor belt]
financial ones so yeah the AICPA is the wizard behind
the curtain of the world of CPA-ing certified public accounting yeah they're
they're just concerned with a different kind of green like AC/DC green [Man singing AC/DC into microphone]
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