What concept or term in accounting took you longer to understand than you'd like to admit?

I do NTRs and Reviews all the time!

NTR/Compilation: I'm creating financial statements from the client's books. Normally my adjusting entries pick up PPE depreciation, accruals, etc.. sometimes I'm given the year's bank statements and I'm doing large adjusting entries for the client's whole year. Normally with small companies. Essentially I'm just putting the client's stuff into financial statement format and stating we did next to no evidence gathering as to whether the numbers are correct or not. (Client says $250 AR, I put in $250).

"We don't stand behind the accuracy of the numbers, we just put them where they're supposed to go"

Review: A little more work, I'm actually matching bank statements to the GL and doing a lot of variance analysis to make sure the numbers make sense. It's not an audit so I'm not contacting people on their A/P list to make sure they actually owe the money but there's a lot more corroboration with evidence and receipts.

"Nothing came up that made us think the numbers are wrong"

/r/Accounting Thread Parent