Let’s Get Fiscal and Make Some Bets on the Future - Ep. 39

Speaker A: Well, so the thing about that is the CPE requirement, because I'm also a New York CPA, and it's 120 per three years. Like when you do your license renewal, but you only need up to like, 20 in a single individual year.

Speaker B: I have to listen to some more of your podcast. You might have to. Please. I don't know. I mean, look, I moved from Georgia, so I was a Georgia cpa, and then I moved to New York.

Speaker A: So how was that transfer process?

Speaker B: Um, it was annoying, but it was like, I don't know, a while ago. A lot of paperwork.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But other than that, it was fine.

Speaker A: I got my accounting degree in Maryland, and then when I got to New York, I realized I was three credits shy of what New York required.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I had to go back and take online course at lsu. Well, now I get to say I was an LSU alumni.

Speaker B: That's where I went.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I thought that was kind of fun. And.

Speaker B: Yeah, that is fun. There you go.

Speaker A: And I did it in forensic accounting, which is pretty cool. And it was self study, so I was able to go at my own pace.

Speaker B: Oh, cool. Where'd you go for undergrad again?

Speaker A: Mount St. Mary's University.

Speaker B: Okay. But then now you're also an LSU graduate.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I like to milk it and say that I'm a little bit of both. And then I also, when I worked at Long Island University, I started my doctoral program there.

Speaker B: Oh, wow.

Speaker A: So I was like, I'm one Doctorate of Accounting. Uh, doctorate of Information science.

Speaker B: Oh, wow.

Speaker A: Rather vague, right? I think I'd be like a pollster if I was an information scientist.

Speaker B: That sounds, like, pretty relevant, though, for today's, uh, know.

Speaker A: It's fact checking, too.

Speaker B: Kind of it's.

Speaker A: Which does check out for being an accountant. Right. Doing your due diligence, doing your professional skepticism, which, uh, speaking of, did you listen to the. The. Any of the songs on the CPE Music album?

Speaker B: I did, yes. Big fan. I had it in my Spotify. Oh, gosh. Putting me on this. I think. Um, there's like a balance sheet. There were a lot of puns on there that I liked.

Speaker A: You know, us accountants love puns.

Speaker B: Yeah, I know. What was it?

Speaker A: Um, valuation by the Balance Sheet Boys.

Speaker B: I love the Balance Sheet boys. That was a good one. Yeah, I like that. That was awesome.

Speaker A: Yeah. So, I mean, that's the making of the content that we were trying to kind of tap into. And I loved. One of my favorite things about doing that album was creating all the different cool names of each of the different artists. So, like, J. Close, J. Cole. Um, we actually had outsourced the Disco song. We had a woman who's like a professional disco singer sing that song. So that was really cool. And I can only imagine what it was like for her to probably receive the lyrics. And she's like, in Chicago or whatever, and she's in the studio, and she's like, I have to sing a song called Occurrence, Whatever, you know? And she's singing, like, this entire thing about checking invoices and, um, uh, making sure that the assets are right.

Speaker B: And where was that playlist when I was in Big four? Like, if we could have had that playing in the audit room on repeat.

Speaker A: Yeah. I have one of our editors working on right now a video which is going to be the top 10 accounting songs that have ever existed. So I think.

Speaker B: I think all ten. There you go.

Speaker A: I'm going to some of my own throwbacks, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah. Put in some of your, like, scraps and stuff.

Speaker A: Yeah. The old. The good oldies, right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. I think one of my favorites is the Money. I like the Money song and I like the Debit and Credit song.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

Speaker A: Debits on the left, credits on the right. Yeah, Left credits, right.

Speaker B: I have to keep playing. I did want to listen through it. It was awesome. I was definitely laughing at the references and puns.

Speaker A: That's fun. So, I mean, obviously, you're a pun queen, right? And so. Well, how often are you ever doing, like, what's your. What's your comfort level going now in front of the camera, from behind the camera, where a lot of the times meme account folks typically are like, I'm going to take a back seat. I'll have this little side lane.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But now, you know, kind of doing a little more stepping in front of the camera.

Speaker B: Well, it started as a place to just put all my puns. Like, I actually started, let's get fiscal as, like, a Twitter account where I tweeted, like, puns that came into my mind during busy season that, like, my friends and family were like, I'm tired of these jokes. And I was like, okay, there's gotta be people out there that want to hear these jokes. So I just started tweeting these dumb jokes, and then, like, they started getting retweeted, and I was like, there are people out there like me that, like these really dumb jokes. And then it turned into the Instagram. But at that time, I was working at Deloitte.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I am like, uh, not a risk taker And I was afraid I'd get in trouble or something, even though it was very innocent jokes and everything. So I kind of kept it a secret until I left Deloitte. And then I, like, was like, you know, whatever. It's more fun for it not to be a secret. I started telling people about my account and they thought it was cool, so I just came out with it. Yeah.

Speaker A: What's your take on, like, the Twitter world versus the Instagram world? Or was that like a straight transition or. Because I know there's like an active. I mean, the Twitter community is kind of very active, just like the Reddit community.

Speaker B: I've stopped tweeting as much. I feel like I used to be like Travis Kelsey. I was like, I saw a squirrel today. LOL. Like, my tweets 10 years ago are really, like, stupid.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then I transformed into more of an Instagram girl, and now I'm more like, kind of still mostly Instagram, not much Twitter. Uh, and, uh, some TikTok. I did a little TikTok. TikTok. Uh, dabbling. And I got to get back into that. That was fun.

Speaker A: So I like to start off the show off often with a pun. Um, of search. Right. As. As we. As we segue into the main section. Um, so this is a little joke that I. Sometimes I use artificial intelligence to help me out. Sometimes it involves tweaking, and it's always a good test to see, like, how is AI so far at being funny? Yeah, a lot of the times it's not really the funniest, but it's cheesy at least. Um, so why can't you explain accounting memes to non accounting friends?

Speaker B: Why can't I explain accounting memes? They don't get it.

Speaker A: They just don't see the asset in them. Oh, I like that.

Speaker B: Oh, that's a good one.

Speaker A: So there you go. As cheesy as it gets with it, but that's how I like to start things off. And with that being said, we'll cue the intro animation. Let's get flowing.

Speaker B: Yay. Let's do it. You are now entering the Syntex flow.

Speaker A: All right, everybody, welcome to the FinTech Flow. This is episode 39, another New York City special episode here. Um, I'm enjoying getting to bounce back and forth between the la, uh, new podcast facility that we have there, which, if you're ever out in la, you have to see that. I mean, it's magnificent. They did an amazing job with the construction and the design. Um, and I kind of am liking the evolution of the show, too, to kind of spotlight different leaders in the space. So, um, as for myself, of course everybody knows I'm Drew Carrick, the rapping CPA Petty Cash. So you want to introduce yourself here?

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, well, I'm Kristin Gayoso. I am. Uh, you might know me from my meme account, let's Get Fiscal. Uh, Kristen from Accounting. The accounting batch. Big Four Confessions. I have a bunch of different outlets for, uh, dumb accounting jokes.

Speaker A: So how did the. So obviously, let's Get Physical was the first one. Right?

Speaker B: So.

Speaker A: So what was the stimulation behind the iterations between a few after that?

Speaker B: So I started with let's Get Fiscal. That was my Twitter, um, where I tweeted really dumb puns. And I just noticed, like, oh, I got a lot of retweets today. And this was supposed to be my own pun diary. And it just kind of caught up. And then I was like, let me expand. So then I was like, oh, let me make, uh, the accounting batch. And kind of like, I don't know, this one will be more girly, this one will be more financy. And then. And then I expanded into Big Four Confessions because people were telling me all their horror stories working in, uh, public accounting or kind of scandalous things. And I was like, I have to get these out there somewhere. So Big Four Confessions was just like a whole different idea of getting out those kind of scandalous stories, uh, out there.

Speaker A: That's the stuff that's the most relatable, I think, to most people in accounting is they want to have the relatable humor of some shared miserable experience, typically. Or. Or. I, um, feel like people. Doesn't matter which firm you worked at. If you worked at any public accounting firm, you have those same relatability moments, um, from the audit room to if you were working on the tax side. So I wanna talk about, like, a little bit of your background. Tell me about yourself. Right. And, uh, we could start outside the accounting space to begin with. Just like you as a person. You know, who are you? Let's let people get familiar.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm a person behind the memes. So I am an accountant. I am a cpa. Um, I worked at Deloitte for five years. A few years in audit, a few years in M and A due diligence. And then I went over to a big media company, um, that was, like, really heavy in acquisitions. And I did M and A accounting and was basically doing financial reporting for all of the Americas, north and South America, and love the M and A side. Of things but then decided I wanted to try out the startup world. And almost five years ago I joined a startup called Simple Bet. Um, It's a tech B2B startup. Um, we have, we basically license our technology to sports books like DraftKings or FanDuel for example. Um, and it allows you to bet on any moment in any sporting event. Like if uh, the next pitch is gonna be like a strike or a ball or whatever. It allows, it refreshes the odds for that every second and it creates all these betting opportunities that are limitless. Instead of who would just win or lose a game, you can bet on anything. Um, so really cool, innovative technology. And I joined um, as one of the early accountants there and I helped build out um, the accounting and finance department and function fp. And a month um, in close, just building everything out and ah, hiring a team and um, taking us from a series B company to now. We actually just announced that we signed a deal with DraftKings so we're getting acquired. It's public, it's out there and we're really excited. Um, and you know, it's a success story. It's what I wanted out of a startup. You know, you want to go through a sale. So this is really exciting.

Speaker A: How many people were at the company when you started and how big was the accounting team?

Speaker B: It was one, I guess I was two.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: We were about 30 employees when I joined. Um, now we're 100 employees plus like 250 contractors. So like 350 people total. M. We're just a huge company now. We've seen a lot of growth. I joined pre revenue. We were making, we were just an idea like uh, zero dollars in revenue. And now like we've grown to be so much bigger and I'm really proud of where we've gone. And um, yeah, it's great to see a startup work out because they don't all. So it was good.

Speaker A: Yeah. It's all different routes. Some people are going for the merger, some people acquisition. Some people are looking to buy up other companies. Some people are looking to go public.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I've always wondered if there's a world where people are like, no, we just kind of want to be a good, profitable for profit company. Right. It seems like in capitalism m, that's not a thing. Right. It's, it's, it's either you're either growing or you're dying. There's no, there's no surviving. It's either, yeah, you're getting bigger or you're dying out it's never enough.

Speaker B: You always want to keep growing. Yeah, yeah, that's uh, that's America.

Speaker A: So you know, as far as like your role as direct Senior Director of finance and corporate development, like how was that transition coming from public accounting into well obviously you said you had worked at another startup before that. I'm curious as to like what that transition was and also like, or maybe even before that, what's the mindset that it takes? Because most accounts are kind of risk adverse. Right. You're not going to be taking the risk on a startup with only 30 people that you don't know if it's going to be successful or not. Like what was your due diligence process to be like? I'm going to go take this leap and go to a company where I'm going to be the first accountant essentially.

Speaker B: You're right. Yeah, I ah, am somewhat risk averse by nature. A lot of accountants are. Um, it was different because at Deloitte everything so structured, it's such a big company and uh, you know, you're auditing companies but you're not in there doing the journal entries, you're not working in the software that's at uh, a corporation. So I think the biggest learning curve for me when joining a startup was like being like, okay, I know my debits and credits, I know how to audit this. But like how do I book this journal entry? Like how do I, you know, do the ins and outs of the day to day? And I figured it out and I think Deloitte Big four public accounting in general teaches you those tools. Um, but I had to work in an industry and really like know what the day to day was like. And I think I learned so much from coming in at this early stage startup, building out accounting and finance and scaling it to where it is now. Like I've learned, I'm like, I feel like I've doubled, doubled my accounting brain from these past five years.

Speaker A: Was it a lot of like learning on the fly? Cause I know like if I was to come from, like I said, from public, which is I was at Grant Thornton, uh, I came from the audit route. What did you come from? Were you in audit?

Speaker B: I was audit and then I did M and A. Due diligence.

Speaker A: Sure. So yeah. So you're able to kind of see the little now it's funny that you're now in the merger and acquisition stage right there. I um, wouldn't have any idea how to actually make a journal entry, how to use any of the software that I'm auditing and I'm reviewing journal entries. I'm seeing what other people did, but I have no idea to actually input that. So how much of it was just, like, learning on the. On the fly, on the spot of, like, why I have to figure this out? Because it's got to. I know I have to close the books. I know I have to book this journal entry. Yeah, I could do it in, you know, on a piece of paper, on a test. But how do you actually do it in?

Speaker B: I. Let's just say I watched a lot of YouTube videos. Like, a lot of, like, how to use NetSuite 101. Because, like, that's what we had. And I was like, okay, great. I'm the, uh. I'm like, the only person at the time. Like, that was. That was it, like, had to book the journal entries. I'm like, what did I get myself into? I don't. Like, I had to train myself, essentially. I watched a lot of YouTube videos. Um, and you just. You just figure it out, you know, trial and error.

Speaker A: That's.

Speaker B: It's actually really easy, like, once you get through one month. I built out month and close using my audited audit brain. I was like, okay, well, I need a. I need a fixed asset wreck. Let me build one.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: And I just, like, built one. I was like, we don't have. So, you know, you kind of just figure out what's missing based off your audit background, um, what kind of balance sheet wrecks you need. And I just figured out what was missing, built them, and tried to just make it better and better every month.

Speaker A: I think it's a testament to the ability of accountants, especially. Again, I talk highly of auditing, and I do that because you. You have to go in and quickly learn a new language. It's whatever that business's language is, right? And obviously, you have the fundamental basis, which is accounting, which is the language of business. But you have to then go and familiarize with the culture, right? And the culture being the operations of that business, that industry, how they operate, what makes them efficient, what makes them effective, where they're getting their revenue, where they're finding their expenses, um, and just all the different ways that they have accounting operations. And for that reason, I think that those who have that audit and public accounting experience are able to pull on that and apply it to anything. Like, I think you can do any job, and you don't have to know what it is. It's giving you the framework to apply to any role in any function at any company.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly right. It's really like teaches you the sink or swim mentality. Like I could have been in there and been like, uh, I don't know how to do this. Like this isn't right for me. But no, you figured out you bounce around on enough clients in different industries in public accounting and you just learn how to adapt with the unknown. And the unknown, it just becomes more uh, more comfortable the more you face it.

Speaker A: Yeah. So touching on simple bet a little bit. I want to just understand like where were they in the. Was that the first. I don't know if you have this knowledge. Was that the first of doing like real time sports betting or was there another competitor that already had existed?

Speaker B: We're a one and one of a kind technology. I mean to be able to bet on every second of every game is. I mean people have tried to do it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But we were early starters. So we were there at the right time when um, when the federal ban for sports betting was lifted. And now it's a state by state regulation process. And as states legalize sports betting, it creates new revenue opportunities to launch in certain states. But we were the very first technology company to do this and hired a ton of engineers to build this technology. Uh, and it's proven it works.

Speaker A: Like so now this might be getting too into the weeds but like, because I'm thinking of, I've always thought like if I'm at a sports game, maybe I can live bet it while I'm there seeing it happen. Because it always seems that the odds move right before something else happens. And like it's like they're seeing the future. It's like they already know and obviously like there's a, there's a freeze frame period where it's like when the pitch is about to be thrown. You can't. Like bets are like it's kind of the all on the roulette table. It's like no more bets. Yeah, they wait for the pitch to happen. Because if I'm the first one that sees from the crack of the bat like that's going to be a home run. I'm like hammering the, you know, the them to win the game or something like that. How are they getting real time data like that?

Speaker B: No, it's uh, like that exactly is one of the. Was one of the biggest challenging challenges was solving the latency issue. But I mean the data is coming in faster. Our technology works really fast. And I mean there's just, it's just not. I'm not the tech wizard to say how we solved it exactly, but like you can't, you can't do that anymore. You can't take advantage of it too fast.

Speaker A: I imagine there's probably some company that is the one that's capturing the data that then you guys are able to quickly turn it into. Because, because I'm always like, is there somebody at the game that's literally like, okay, this just happened. Pause, pause, pause. You know, and it's just, I mean that's so impressive.

Speaker B: You got it. Yeah, that's. That data is collected, you know, at each game and it needs to be kind of streamlined so it can be put into this model that's then put into the sports books.

Speaker A: So were you ever interested in sports betting before starting the company?

Speaker B: Is it bad if I say no? No, I mean I just thought it was a really cool technology and I love disruptors, uh, and industries. So I just like, as soon as I heard about this product, yeah, I don't, I don't bet on sports. It's not really like my thing. I am risk averse. I am an accountant after all. But I saw this product and I saw this opportunity and sports betting like starting to get legalized and I was like, this is, this is a cool place to be in. Um, but it is risky to join a startup early on. You don't know what's going to happen. So um, to your question on due diligence, I had to really think about it. Am I willing to take this risk? And I think for anyone who's considering joining a startup, you want to figure out what's the equity, what's the base. You need to get some kind of incentive to balance the risk versus reward.

Speaker A: So is there, is it, does it fall on you and like new regulations and compliance? Sort of co. Because I feel like with sports betting becoming such a popularized activity, I mean it's almost like the, the government, you know, those are, the regulators are kind of like constantly trying to keep up with all of the new stuff. I mean AI and technology is one whole thing. Crypto is another area with like, I mean what do you even focus on if you're a regulator of like we have to kind of get in front of this and how we update accounting policies. Has there been evolving accounting policies and regulations and standards when it comes to this sort of realm?

Speaker B: Yeah, there is a lot of regulations and it depends on the state that you're in. Luckily we have like a full time person at my company whose job is to like keep up with Those regulations and the licensing and everything like that. Um, but yeah, and I think, I think it's a lot more for the actual sports books too, who are actually accepting the wagers. We're B2B, so we're kind of one step away, which helps. So.

Speaker A: Sure. And then is there compliance like issues or something? Like who, who does compliance fall on? Because that's always like an interesting thing, I would imagine, if you have. So like, there's definitely got to be some internal control way that you can. I mean, I'm thinking of like the potential fraud that you could do if you're able to get real time data about what's happening in sports. And whenever you get gambling involved, it's always a big thing. Of course. Uh, where does the compliance function fall?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean we have a very clear, like, betting policy. Like you cannot bet on, you cannot, you cannot bet on anywhere where our algorithm plugs in. And we know which sportsbooks we're running like off of. So, you know, it's, it's a very clear policy.

Speaker A: Sure. And then, and then what about like, as far as like, you know, reporting on the compliance standards to show that you are following these sorts of controls, Is that like, who does that fall on? Is that, do you have a compliance department that is in charge of that? Does that fall within accounting?

Speaker B: That kind of falls with the legal, the licensing person who does the state. By state regulations. I think we're still like, we're still a startup by nature. You know, we're still a small company on the grand scheme of things. And we're not an actual sports book. But like DraftKings, I'm sure they have their own huge, uh, compliance department and all of that. I think it's gonna, it's a lot more regulated for them, especially being a public company.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, that's cool. Uh, well, we'll talk about the stuff that continues on, of course, you know, maintaining compliance and regulations and reporting. So this is an article which, uh, is from Tech magazine. It's Super Micro. Shares plunged 33% as an auditor resigns after raising concerns months earlier. This auditor, of course, is Ernst and Young. Um, for those who are not familiar, Supermicro makes computers that companies use as servers for websites, data storage and other applications, including artificial intelligence algorithms. Company's, uh, customers include major players in the AI space like Nvidia, AMD and Intel. Um, EY resigned following months of disagreement with the firm over its governance and board independence. Ernst and Young, in its resignation letter, said it was unwilling to be associated with the financial statements prepared by management, the accountancy also raised concerns about the board's independence from CEO Charles Lang and other members of management. I was only hired for the first time for this in 2024, and they weren't even able to get that sort of sign off. And this is like, it's just a wild story, the fact that this happened.

Speaker B: Yeah. All I can say is ouch. I don't know what, like, kind of sketchy stuff is going on at that company, but for ey to walk away from a client, they must be, uh, doing some weird stuff.

Speaker A: This always makes me interested in the notion of, like, they're talking about the independence of the board from the CEO, because obviously the board is picking the CEO, and it's always like, what's the motive behind the people who are on the board and versus what the president is? And I think there's always, like, a little bit of a disconnect between ownership and management.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That's where you get. You talk about, like, incentives for hitting performance goals, and obviously you want to incentivize people to perform better. However you want to incentivize them to do that in, like, a true way. A lot of the times that's where you have financial fraud that arises because people try to manipulate it to make it appear like they hit the performance goals, but they're not actually doing it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Which is counterintuitive to the goal of, uh, setting the incentive in the first place.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I don't know. I don't know if there's, like, a clean and easy cure to that and how to resolve the two. How do you reconcile this notion of, like, if you are the board and you're putting in place somebody, you obviously have a relationship to them and. Yeah, I mean, I don't have a good answer.

Speaker B: And, uh, are the board. Is anybody on the board, like, investors in the company or investors in any of the CEOs other, you know, initiatives or whatever? Like, it's always related parties is like, it can get sketchy. Sounds like they had some weird stuff going on.

Speaker A: Well, I think that was always. I remember in audit, in the audit day, sending out the letters, like, arm's length.

Speaker B: Um, yeah, arm's length transaction.

Speaker A: Right. Because it is one of those things, which is interesting. And it seems like this happens more and more often where you're able to put a company that kind of skims along. You almost create your own ecosystem.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: If I'm an investor and I own this company and I have them buy from that company, that makes them. You know, they're now using that service, and I am showing revenue here. And then they have another company that they buy from, and then they. You create, like, a little triangle, and everybody's got this higher revenue, but it's all you just doing it to yourself.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So you're net zero out of the whole entire thing. But each company looks like it has this higher revenue, which then means, oh, well, you're worth more. You can get more investment money or you can tout it. So it is really difficult to distinguish the difference between, like, what, smoke and mirrors and what is, like, actual pure, like. No, this is a good business model. What we're doing is effective. Like, these performance incentives are actually achieving the performance that we're looking for. Yeah, we're getting everything that we want out of the. Out of the management. And they are actually accomplishing, like, real goals and not hyping themselves up.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's definitely a gray area. I can't imagine what. What was going on there that caused UI to walk away from a client.

Speaker A: So do you guys have auditors?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And what's your relationship like with the auditors? Like, coming from audit, and obviously, you're on the other side now.

Speaker B: Gosh, I'm an overachiever by nature. The auditors always tell me, like, we have the cleanest books. We're the easiest client. It's because, like, I'm just. It's my audit background. I like. I like making things easy for them because it makes it easy for me. So, like, I almost tie out the workbooks before I send to them.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um. And, yeah, I mean, I think they appreciate this. I have a great relationship with our auditors. Yeah, that's good.

Speaker A: I mean, because there's two ways people go about it. They leave public and they're like, oh, I'm gonna make their life hell. Like, I had to go through hell, and I'm gonna make it hell for you. Or on the flip side, you're like, oh, actually, um, I know. I've been there. I want to make this super smooth and super easy because I know what it's like to be on that side.

Speaker B: The thing is, if you make your life hell, like, I could go down that route, but then eventually my life becomes hell because I'm working up against a deadline. Like, I need this audit done by X date. And if I'm holding it up because I want to, like, annoy the auditors, I'm not going to win there.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: I need the audit done by a Certain day I'm, I don't know, maybe it's just like the overachiever slash ex auditor in me. I want, I want, I want everything to go smoothly.

Speaker A: Well, I think that's why there is a lot of value in companies having former auditors be in, you know, in the position of, you know, whether it's the controller or whatever, whoever's handling the audit when it comes in.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I mean I remember so many managers from when I worked at GT that went and became assistant controllers or controllers at assorted clients of ours because they were just so familiar with it. And you knew as soon as you brought them in that immediately was going to have a payoff in making it more efficient because they know every work paper, every test, what you're going to need, what you're going to look for. And what would make that life easy is like if the roll forward is already formatted in a way that makes it super easy for me to put that into my workpaper using yours as the basis, then that's, that could shave days off of the audit time.

Speaker B: Totally. And I'm always thinking through things from like my audit hats still to this day, like if a contract changes and someone from our commercial team's like, oh, I need to. The contract is changing in this way. And I'm like, okay, well did you get an amendment? Like we need to have like things in writing. Like the auditors are gonna ask for this. So I'm constantly just trying to like think now, okay, the audit's gonna be six months from now, but I need to, you know, make sure we're everything's teed out throughout the year so that we don't run into an issue later on. So it's like that's when the audit, former audit experience comes in handy.

Speaker A: Well I always say you could take the kid out of audit, but know you, you can't take audit out of the kid now. And that's, that's what I relate to. So ey. Actually um, they flagged issues with Super Micro's internal financial controls, governance and forthcomingness. That was over the summer, which prompted um, a server firm to appoint a special board committee to investigate the company's internal controls. The company hired a law firm, interestingly enough, Cooley and Forensic accounting firm to review the internal controls. And the review remains ongoing. Company said in a recent regulatory filing. So we'll see how this actually plays out. But I mean this is like a big player in this space to be basically like regardless of what the outcome is and Everything is all right. Like to have a big four auditor be like we're, we're not comfortable issuing financials because there's just too much, too many cooks in the kitchen here. Uh, at the highest level of a company you think it's concerning but I guess at the end of the day it's how effective is the business still operating of whether. Because you think, okay, well that would tank any company off the bat. But in this tech space, when there's very limited high quality talent and there's very few producers of whether it's chips or whether it's the technology or the software, um, they have somewhat leverage more than I think they used to be back in the day.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I wonder how much EY saw like the writing on the wall and wanted to disassociate from some upcoming scandal.

Speaker A: I mean think about it, you know, if you, you, if, if you learn anything from like you know, an FTX situation or Enron, any of those that have happened over like recent times.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You're like, I just, if anything is somewhat alarming, it's not worth the risk. I don't care how much the audit fee is, it's not worth the risk.

Speaker B: Yeah. Otherwise I'll make memes about you.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Good job disconnecting yourself.

Speaker A: Eyes, heroes. So, uh, last part here on, on this FinTech, uh, 411 update is uh, an interesting article from LinkedIn actually, which is workers saying no to promotions. And as far as traditional 20th century American dreams go, the big promotion was what everybody used to work for behind, you know, a new hat, a new house and getting a Cadillac. But according to a recent Randstan survey, 42% of Americans now say they don't want a promotion. Do you think this is just Gen Z feeling apathetic towards working? Uh, are people just not motivated anymore? What would be your, what, your initial gut reaction to hearing that?

Speaker B: You know, I have a lot of respect for Gen Z coming in and saying like setting boundaries. I feel like, um, I wish I had done that more. I wish that we had kind of had that attitude just a little bit more in public accounting. I think there was a point where a lot of us were being totally taken advantage of and we were not making a lot of money and we were working crazy, crazy hours. And why? Why? Like I feel like there's a happy medium somewhere in there. Like there's a balance between working really hard and trying to get that promotion. But like also you could be getting taken advantage of. So I think somewhere in the middle is the right answer. I, like, you know, I don't want to be like, I don't, I don't think being lazy is the right answer. But, you know, having healthy boundaries is a good point. And I think that that's a good learning from knowing how to say no.

Speaker A: Right. I also think that there's a value in each person's ambition. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: If everybody, I always say this. If everybody was the most ambitious, if I, if I, if what I was telling everybody to be like, well, don't you want more? Don't you want, like, why don't you want to. I only want to rep my own clothing brand. And everybody starts a clothing brand and everybody's only repping their own clothing brand and nobody's buying anybody else's clothing. And then you got a bunch of people just all out for themselves. You, like, you need consumers, you need producers, you need, you need givers, takers. And there's got to be a balance of, I think all of it. And you need people who are going to want to go push the, push the needle, like, drive innovation, try to accomplish more gun for the promotion. And you know, obviously you want healthy competition for that promotion, but you don't mind there being some people that are like, not really interested in that. I kind of like what I'm doing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And if you treat me well and you treat me fairly and you give me a good work life balance, I'm happy just doing this thing that I'm, that I'm doing. I'm happy with the pay I'm getting, I'm happy with my lifestyle. I don't need the corner office. And I think that's, that's sort of what they're talking about here. And I, I'm not sure whether this trend is going to be for forever or if it's just a. I mean, we went through the great resignation, now we're in the great stay, apparently, where everybody's not leaving their jobs for the most part. Whereas typically before everybody was leaving like hotcakes, now they've got the roles that they want, apparently. And now they're saying, well, I don't even want the promotion now that I'm there, like, I'm good, I got comfortable and now I'm fine with that. And I think at the end of the day there's a right balance of you do probably need more people who are, who are like this.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And there's no reason to force somebody to be like, well, don't you want the promotion? It's like well, if you don't. And you, you don't want to be a manager, you don't want to be a leader, you just want to do the job that's in front of you. There's no problem with that.

Speaker B: I think there's some. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. And there's something nice about just enjoying life. Um, like if you're just comfortable with your, your 40 hour weeks and you're happy and you know that's all you want, then like, like, I fully respect that. Like, I kind of wish I was content with, with, like, I don't know, just, I just, like, I don't know. I always want, I want to be a cfo. Like, that's my. I just like cannot let go of that. Um, but you're right, not everyone can be a cfo. Like, we gotta. Every, every. Everybody is important. We need all levels.

Speaker A: Sure. And even still, once you get to cfo, maybe you're like, I, I really like this company that I'm at and I kind of just want to.

Speaker B: That's true.

Speaker A: I, I'm, I'm happy with where I'm at and I'm good with this. And you can kind of keep rolling with it. So, according to Business Insider, greater autonomy and a belief that one's work is meaningful and can be potent motivators for those who no longer aspire to corner offices. So it all comes back down to what is somebody's primary motivator. And if you could just as a leader, if you tap into what their primary motivator is and you use that as the leverage. Some people want the title, some people want the pay, some people want the corner office. Some people just want autonomy and be able to go run with the project, figure out what that is, and use that to drive and motivate employees. And it's a win for everybody because everybody finds their spot.

Speaker B: That's a good point. Yeah. Different things don't motivate different people.

Speaker A: So, um, thinking of Bullish or bearish, which is one of the sections where we talk about how quickly or, uh, how bullish we are on a, on a topic or how bearish we are. And this is the ongoing conversation which has been, I feel like for the last year or two, especially since AI came on the scene and we, we've had machine learning, we've had robotic process automation for a while now, but it's really taken the forefront of automation. How do we automate as many things as, especially when there's so many tedious tasks there's so many repetitive tasks. Automating accounting is a hot topic. And so my question would be, you know, this is from Accounting Today. The title was will Accounting be Automated. Yes, but it makes the job more interesting. So you bullish on the notion of accounting being Primarily automated?

Speaker B: I'm 100% bullish. I will die on this hill.

Speaker A: Yeah. How have you integrated that into, like, what you do at work? Is it constantly just evaluating new software or is it building it yourself? Or, like, what's your automation journey?

Speaker B: It's a necessity for our accounting department because it just takes the amount of work we have to do and cuts it in half when you have really good automation. Um, which means that I can focus on solving bigger issues. Like, I have more time on my hands, My whole team has more time on our hands to make other things more efficient because we've automated so many transactions. Like, there's no reason I should be manually coding every credit card, you know, spend in our company to each GL account and department. Like, there's no reason anybody should be doing that. Like, it's really. It just, uh, in this day and age, there's so much smart software out there that it's just a miss to not be taking advantage of it.

Speaker A: Uh, do you have peers in the space that are, like, not taking advantage of it? Because I'm, I'm always, like, curious, you know, when I talk to my friends, like, who's up to date on trends and who's kind of behind and they're just sort of chalking it in.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. There's a. I definitely know people who are not taking advantage of this. And then every month for a month in close, they're manually coding things to GL accounts and uploading it to their accounting software. And I just, I can't. I can't relate. I can't.

Speaker A: Are they complaining about it too?

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of times companies, it's like you have the struggle with budgeting or getting the spend. It might be management issues of not wanting to invest in something. But like, I promise you, if you, if you are making these decisions, it is worth the investment to get really good, uh, automated software like Flowcast. Like, there's so many things out there that can make your life easier.

Speaker A: Yeah. So, I mean, the article goes on to talk about, and this is from Thomas Reuters. Uh, you know, complete the work faster, like you said. Streamline data entry, ensure data integrity easily, file advance returns, improve firm value. And I think the part that it gets at is, you know, obviously Will it kind of be automated? We're heading in that direction. If you're not, then your life's going to be miserable, you're going to fall behind, you're going to be less efficient and at some point you're going to be forced to be like, we need to make a change because we're just um, we're hemorrhaging money here by, by just doing things the old way as everybody's kind of lapping us and becoming more efficient. If you can cut your audits time in half, or you can cut the cost of it in half, or you can free up a bunch of your team's time and they can work on something different, that's important. But I think what's interesting is actually the part about how it can make the job more interesting because if you're not caught up and tied up doing that just month m over month and you're just busy with this, then you have time to come be on a podcast. Right. If you, if you set, if you set up, you know, if you set up efficiently, your systems in place, you have the ability to do that. You have the ability to research other software that could potentially make the company more efficient beyond just the scope of what you're doing on a day to day basis. You can um, take on a merger and acquisition project because this is a big move, it's a strategic move that a company needs to make and you're not caught up doing all of this old month end close process and just any tedious task that's just repetitive.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think this is good news for any accountant. And I know there's arguments like, oh, we could take away staff accountants jobs. No, it allows staff accountants to learn more and get exposed to more complex areas. Like I think this is amazing for everybody, but I will caveat it that you get out of it what you put into it. It's like garbage in, garbage out. If you're implementing a software but you don't put the time into it to properly integrate it with your accounting software, it probably won't work effectively. So it is important to be selective about which automation tools you use.

Speaker A: Yeah, you have to be dedicated to deciding we are going to go through and we're going to make this happen and we're committed to it because that's how you end up with a bunch of software that just sits. You don't use it, then you try to use it but you haven't really learned it. So then it's more confusing and now you're Doing double the work, essentially it's counteractive. But the goal is if you put that upfront energy in to just get everything set up, then it's, it's not that, oh, it's going to take staff accountants jobs. I mean it's going to do the stuff that the staff accounts don't want to do and it incentivizes you. Like I said, it makes the job more interesting. People don't become accountants because they think the job is not interesting.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But if, if you take the uninteresting, there's plenty of uninteresting stuff. Right. Um, and that's just the tedious stuff. It's not that it's not interesting, it's just kind of repetitive and boring. So if you get rid of that and have it still getting done, then you can work on more interesting stuff.

Speaker B: Totally.

Speaker A: Which is the reason why you major in accounting in the first place. Because it's the cool stuff you're reading about in textbooks and getting involved with more complex transactions and situations and the different events.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it's a good skill to have too. So if you're a staff accountant and you get exposed to all these different types of software and then you're interviewing for a new job and you say oh, I automated, you know, half of month in close like you're getting hired. People want that, that skill set. Right.

Speaker A: And you know, I think it's important to note like it can. Accounting is too complex to ever be fully automated.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Right. And that's almost with anything is like there's very few things that can be fully automated. It always requires computer, human computer interaction, hci. Um, that was for my information studies. Yeah. Pulling, pulling back on 1 1/5th of a doctor. Um, but give good opportunity for um, like I said, working on the more interesting and the fun stuff and uh, people shouldn't be scared of like oh, this is going to, going to take over what I'm doing.

Speaker B: Yeah. Embrace it. There will always be need for CPAs and human judgment in there. That's that part of our job is not going away.

Speaker A: Right. Absolutely. So um, thinking of ideals, of accounting, we got business philosophy, which I love to talk about. Um, because this is a good opportunity I think to gain like thought leadership insight from what somebody picks up on through their experience. And there's so many people who are young accountants who have only ever worked maybe in public and you know, you don't get the same mentorship uh, that you would if you were to work directly one on one in a more Apprentice type role of somebody at a private firm. And that's why I think a lot of firms have solid coaching programs. Like, I had a great, um, I had several mentors who. One was a coach, one was a mentor and a leader of the company. I was able to pull a lot of information from. But not everybody is afforded, I think, that luxury to have that. So I try to provide some information that's, you know, this is a good insight as you're growing about in your career and you're maturing and evolving and developing. Like, this would be a useful management tip or leadership tip. So one of the things which I'm curious about from your experience, uh, coming from public and then working in private and then building out an accounting department essentially where it. You're designing it from scratch. You know, what's been your evolution and like, the difference you've seen in managing like a team? How did you build that out?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, I think I have to thank public accounting for this and being switched onto different teams and different clients. And I've worked for so many different bosses or managers at different points in my career. And I've always kind of like taken notes. How do they lead? How do they lead? What do I like from that? What do I not like from that? Um, because I knew I wanted to become a leader and eventually I became a manager and then I became a director. Now I'm a senior director. And you know, I've had different direct reports and I try to be the leader that I wish I had, the mentor that I wish I had. So taking notes on your experience, the good and the bad. And I always say the quote, um, leaders develop other leaders. And I think, um, my staff that report to me, they, they want to be a leader one day. You know, they're not that Gen Z type, you know, that doesn't want to advance or anything. You know, they want to be a leader one day and I want that for them too. And I want to give the people the tools to also, um, take those, the good and the bad, and figure out what kind of leader they want to be. So I try to be an open book and a resource that they can come to for anything that they need.

Speaker A: Um, do you have any, like, thought leadership that you've seen or. I mean, I feel like on Instagram there's always some sort of motivational insight quote that's like, this is the one that's really been sticking with me lately. Or, oh, I recently saw a reel or TikTok that has this, this Management, you know, technique or strategy or something. Like has there been anything that's top of mind for you as of late?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I think it is the leaders develop other leaders. Like taking people under your wing. Like, like I'm not just gonna get there overnight. My reports won't get there overnight. Like you really need to um, invest in your team. You get out of it what you put into it. And um, you know that, that's kind of my philosophy.

Speaker A: Yeah. One that I recently saw was the appreciation for like the managers who are kind of in the middle who have to put on this front essentially. And again it's not to be like deceitful but there could be a whole bunch of BS that's going on above you that you have to kind of protect your team from and you don't really have any ability to help them beyond just protecting them from, from what's going on. And yeah, uh, I had, I had a mentor at one of my past jobs who was extremely good at just, he wouldn't let, he knew that there was some toxicity.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Above him. Um, but he made sure that he absorbed all of that. And he's like, I'm paid a lot of money to take this and I'll the, I'll take the bullets and I'll shield the people underneath me so that they didn't have to interact or experience any of that. So as far as they were concerned it was a great job and they were loving it. And I think that's one of the really special things that makes like a good leader a great leader.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I think that's exactly right. I mean I do the same thing. Like I'll, I'll shield them or I'll take, if I have to work late, I'll work late. But I like want them to maintain their work life balance. Like you know, that's, that's important. Um, and well that's one of the

Speaker A: things that, that, that showcases, you know, who, that's why some people don't want the promotion. Right.

Speaker B: It's like that's a, you don't get shielded anymore.

Speaker A: Yeah. That's a responsibility. And you know, there's, there's no shame in not wanting to deal with it. Right. Like plenty, uh, of people would not want to. And I think that's one of the more admirable traits about Gen Z is they're not going to put up with it. Right. I don't want, I don't want to be just a Gen Z ripper. You know what I Mean, like, um, because there's still. Still plenty of. Plenty of talent. I mean, this is the new groom in the, you know, crop in the workforce, actually. But the what millennials sort of started with questioning what work life balance needs to be. They've sort of completed that journey and decided, uh, is this something I'm interested in and care about enough? And companies, I think, are now stepping up to answer the call of being like, it is on us. And I was thinking about this. If you're on, on your way, or you say you need to go to work and you go to get in your car and you have a flat tire, now you're stuck there, you have. And say you have to get into the office or whatever it is, or now you have to, you have. Or you have something later, you need to get the car tire fixed, but you have, like, a meeting you're supposed to get into, and now you're either going to be late for the meeting or your car's not going to get fixed. Is it on you to have to go now? Be like, well, I got to pay for an Uber to get in there. And now that's like eating away at your cost. Or, um. Or does the company sort of body it and say, we care about our people and this is an unfortunate circumstance, and it's almost like having, like, the rich friend that's like, I'll cover this. Right. Um, I think it's gonna be interesting to see how companies evolve and adapt to just being the reliable friend to a lot of their employees.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I mean, it's a balance. And, like, look, I don't want to be negative, but I think it's like, um, a balance of whatever's going on in the economy. Like, we've been in this shift where employees have had the power and we've been able to work remote. But, like, I kind of feel like some of that power shifting, it depends on the economy. If we go into, like, a, uh, recession and things fall apart, then the employers have the power again and they want us in the office. It's like, well, you need a job. You know, it's. I don't, I don't know what, what the trend is going to be, but. But I am pro flexibility, like, especially in the accounting world. I can do accounting from home.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: Let's be real.

Speaker A: And I think, I think overall, there has been that shift to flexibility, which is awesome. And that's one of the things I appreciate, um, about companies that have flexible work arrangement policies is There's 100% value in going to the office and having mentorship and having human interaction. There's also 100% value in being able to be remote as needed and to experience the world and travel and you know, if you can go on a month sabbatical and work while you're exploring the world or something like, then more power to you and that's terrific. And as long as your work doesn't slack, that's great. But it's really, at the end of the day, just the flexibility. I don't mind. I could work a month straight in the office and then go a month, you know, roaming around and you don't. It doesn't have to be one way or the other. And I think understanding that like you don't have to have a set one way is the only way playbook, like you could just be able to adapt and find flex to the situation, to the environment, to the person, to the role, to the job. Every single thing is so unique and so individualized. And I think social media actually brings us out of us because we have an algorithm that's catered to us specifically. Right. Like you're getting fed content that is made just for you. It's not made for anybody else. Somebody else can look at your feed and be like, I'm not interested in any of this. And it could be all interesting to you and just you. And even somebody who's similar could be like, still slightly different. They're going to have something that's a little more catered to them. And I think that's just, that's one example of like how we, how we see it in a totally unrelated world. But in general, we're living in a more like individualized, custom experience world. I mean, fast fashion, I think is on the way out. People want things that are just. It's a good quality piece that's unique to them.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: The one of one movement where I just want the only one of this thing and that makes it special. Even with gift giving, like you don't want to just have, oh, I got you the same thing that I bought everybody else. It's like, I'd rather have you make me something that's special. I'm the only one that has it. Like Etsy stuff.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Which is uniquely made. So I think we're living in an increasingly customized world and it only makes sense that business policies.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Kind of follow suit.

Speaker B: Oh, that's such a good point. Yeah. It's like you personalized healthcare is like the whole big thing. Okay, well now it's personalized work, employee relationships. Like, flexibility is spot on. Like, that's key. So hopefully companies are paying attention to that. That's what we want.

Speaker A: I think. I think that. I think the good ones are. And the good ones will. And.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, there's always going to be some ideas that perhaps are just so valuable and so good that, I mean, it's the same reason that a lot of the times Big four has a lot of leverage, because you want to have the name that's associated with it. And it depends on, of course, what the competition's like, where if there becomes a shift where people are starting to value a different brand name more, then suddenly, you know, that would force the hand of being like, okay, now we have to actually change.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But again, every situation is going to be unique.

Speaker B: That's true. Yeah. Ah. And I know I rip on Big four and you know the experience there a lot through my memes and everything, but I don't regret it. It's nice having, like, that public accounting experience on our resume. It made us who we are.

Speaker A: Today I just had a spotlight interview with Grant Thornton where they did a little interview on alumni and see where they are right now.

Speaker B: Yeah, cool.

Speaker A: Um, and then I had a networking event here in the city with the Grant Thornton alumni group and just seeing where everybody's at. And it's cool because it's almost like a college reunion.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That experience and I felt like public was very much so, like, going to college, which was cool.

Speaker B: Yeah, I totally see that.

Speaker A: So, uh, talking about social media, though, and this section somewhat, you know, right in your domain, make meme. Well, I used to be accounting for memes, which. Do you remember what? The very first accounting meme.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: How should we account?

Speaker B: How should we account for me? Wow, we're aging ourselves.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: The original accounting memes before. Was Instagram even a thing then?

Speaker A: I don't think think so. I mean, that was. It was right around the. Right around the dawn of it, 2014

Speaker B: or something like that. I don't know.

Speaker A: And it was. It was a lot of gifs, really. I think that was like the original. It was just clips from shows and they just wrote a little header on top.

Speaker B: The original memes. I wonder who that person is. You should get them on your podcast.

Speaker A: I would love to know who that is. If anybody has any idea. If anybody has any idea who. How should we account for me is. I mean, that was the og. Yeah, that was. That was the first accounting content.

Speaker B: Really inspired us all.

Speaker A: Really cool. So, um, what do you think the future is of it? Because I want to, I want to get to looking at some of, uh, our favorite memes over the course of time. But like, are we evolving past that where, like the trends are now? People want to see the videos, they don't really want the images anymore. Uh, is it more captions on full screen versus, you know, you have your white top and bottom? I mean, what are you seeing?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think you have to look at it from the creator's perspective. So if you're the person making this content, you want the most eyes that you can get on it. And a lot of times Instagram or TikTok, they push the algorithm with a certain type of feed. And like we started seeing that videos were getting more views than static images. So I think creators almost adapt to what's being pushed more and getting more eyes, which is natural. And now it's like everybody's doing videos and having reels and tiktoks being like the next big thing too is like, it's almost like you have your video memes, but then also now you have these TikToks with like the dancing little images. And you know, it's, it's evolving. And I don't, I don't see as much static. I don't make as much static anymore.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's, it's gonna be interesting, I think, to see how it evolves because it is one of those things as well where just like the format and the notion of just like a caption and then something to relate to it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That seems to thematically be something that still withstands time where it's, it's like, I don't know, I think of like a parody pharmacy commercial is never not going to be funny whenever, like they have any, any like parody commercial about like a fake drug. Right. And then they solve the side effects or something like, and, or, or there's so many different. Like it's like, are he's like, are you, you know, are you, are you struggling to find work and feeling down? Uh, have you, have you tried public accounting? Right. Like, I don't know, I just made that up right now. Right.

Speaker B: You know, that's a good one.

Speaker A: Right. But it's like it's funny every single time. Yeah, I, uh, think that that would classic, you know, and so I think something about like just the meme format in general, regardless of what, like the creative element, isn't it? Whether it's a video with the on screen caption or a caption above it in the video below it or an image below it. I mean, obviously I think the video is now just the engagement, more interactive. But just this format of here's a relatable sentence, here's something that's not related but totally relates to what was written.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, taken completely out of context, that's just a repeatable format that people still like and they like it every single time it happens.

Speaker B: It's all like a different type of art. It's a different type of median or whatever. Like it's, uh, it's a classic. And I guess if the algorithm started pushing static memes, I think we'd go back to those. So it's really all in, uh, Instagram and TikTok sans.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think a lot of what the algorithm changes is based on what people react to and respond to. So as soon as somebody made one where it was a looping video.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like they're sharing with their friends are like, okay, let's, let's feed some more of these and see how they react. And suddenly they become more engaging. It's like, I'm sick of sending my friend the images. But there's still plenty of image only accounts that they're in their carousels now at this point. Right. And you just kind of could scroll through and you could see a whole sequence of them. And yeah, they're getting churned out so quickly. I think because there's so many creators out there that again, what I've just noticed is that they are still a thing. Like, it's, it's still a thing. It's not like we move past. Like, no, we want higher quality sketches. Like, no, the meme stuff still works. Yeah, still works.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I want to go through a couple memes with you here. Um, we'll throw them up on the screen for people who are watching on YouTube. And we've got. How long are you going to stay in public accounting? What's your long term plan in the big four? Are you going to stay until partner? What's your long term career goal and what is this reference of?

Speaker B: I think it's just like it goes, if I'm putting myself back in my shoes, uh, uh, in public accounting, it's like this constant fork in the road. Do I stay till partner or do I go into industry? Because they skip. They kind of scare you. They're like, oh, if you go into industry, you're gonna boomerang back. You'll be back. Or you're gonna hate it. And you know, you kind of get Scared. And, um, so putting myself back in the shoes of how I was at a public accounting firm, it's like, okay, I'm just gonna drink every time anyone asks me a question because I, I don't know what I want for my future. It's like stressful and it's like a, uh, good question. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I still, like, I'm always like, am I making the right decision? I don't know.

Speaker A: Well, we always have that day by day. I think, uh, here's the thing about social media is I think it always makes us question our decisions because you see every other possibility that's ever existed. And even if it's a one off, it's like, should I be winning the lotto right now? I mean, why haven't I done that? Like, maybe I should be working on winning the lotto, you know? And it's like, well, that odd is so, so immaterial. Uh, that chance is below tolerable error.

Speaker B: Yeah. Um, the grass is always greener. Like, could I have stayed and made partner? Would my life be better? I don't know. Yeah, probably not.

Speaker A: You always compare. You always compare. But that's so true. So then, uh, this next one here we got. When you look back at your life and try to figure out at what point you decided becoming an accounting major was a good idea.

Speaker B: Existential doggo.

Speaker A: Is that what that meme is? The existential doggo?

Speaker B: I just made that up. But yeah, that's a good name. That's how I, I don't. A lot of my memes are frankly depressing. Um, because like I said, it was an outlet for me. Um, you know, struggling with the public accounting, um, hours and everything that comes with it. You're constantly questioning yourself, especially those early years when you don't know when it's going to pay off. You're like, I could get paid more working at McDonald's. Literally, if you divide it by like the number of hours you're working, like, it's not well. And then, and then it's like, I majored in accounting, but then investment banker. People who, who majored in finance at that time, the first few years are making so much more and we're working the same hours. So there's a lot of times I kind of like, had some regrets early on.

Speaker A: I think I've spoken about this with, uh, with Joey Reeves from Universal here about how, like, the profession just has like, a bit of a branding issue. Um, and part of it is like, you see investment banking and it might seem like, oh, that's finance bro, or whatever, but it's like, yeah, but they also still ball out. And there's a finance bro admiration almost where people. I want to be that or whatever.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah.

Speaker A: So, you know, I don't know if accounting bro is the way that we want to be branded per se, but there is something to be said about, like, how do you portray and how do you display it? And again, that's what I think. Every content that we're working on creating is how do you shift the narrative, how do you change what that stereotype looks like? And it's not easy. And it's. No, nobody's asking for it per se, but I think it's what the profession needs. And there's no guarantee that it's gonna work or pay off, but the only thing you can do is try.

Speaker B: Yeah, we need a rebranding. You've got two cool accountants here.

Speaker A: Yeah, we're making it happen. So, uh, last one from you here is, um, my boss. Hey, I really need this ready for my review first thing tomorrow morning. Me at 11:50pm um, with a little thumbs up, cat cry.

Speaker B: You got it. I think that this kind of goes to, like, the people pleasing tendencies that a lot of us have, you know, in accounting. It's like we want to be those overachieving perfectionists. It kind of comes down to that brisk a first nature, um, that a lot of us have. And I definitely have been this person for a lot of my career.

Speaker A: It is really interesting that we as accountants do typically try to like, focus on being the, like, being, Being perfect. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I was always, like, trying to get good grades. We didn't want to let anybody down. Like, it wasn't an option. Letting down is not an option. Like, missing a deadline was not an option. And I think because we have that mindset, some people just be like, ah, uh, didn't. Didn't get it done. I'm like, aren't you worried about, like, getting in trouble? Like, no. What's gonna happen over there? But we are like, no, I don't want to get in trouble. It's almost.

Speaker B: No. Yeah.

Speaker A: So I don't want to find out what happens. And so we do try. And I think what's funny though, about this is like the follow up meme to this. And if this was a carousel, I feel like this is the next phase is then, uh, it's, it's. It'd probably where it's like, hey, I got it to you, and. Right. And they get it at 8am and then they don't open it for a week.

Speaker B: You know, that's exactly what would happen. And then.

Speaker A: And then it's some sort of like, uh. That's probably use the same meme again. It's like when I find out that they didn't open it for a week later, you're like, great. Or the. Or the old. The old senior citizen cup meme where the guy lifts up and he's.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that guy.

Speaker A: That's how I feel. So wrap it up with these, uh. These last two here. That. So this one is from me that I just made the other day. So I don't know if you followed baseball at all, but, uh.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: I saw that Dodgers tanks are in the World Series. And you have this guy's wild moment where these fans are ripping the ball out of Mookie Betts glove. And I whipped this up while I saw it happen. And as soon as it happened, I. I pulled it up. And so you got Mookie, who's the staff auditor who just discovered, which is the ball, a questionable accounting transaction. And then you've got the client ripping open the glove to get it out, the audit partner holding down his arm so that the client can rip it out. And you got the audit manager kind of looking on, um, because they're just kind of in the back. I was like, this is probably what. How Enron and Arthur Anderson went down. It's like, you know, somebody discovers like, hey, I feel like this is a little kind of funky. Should we be doing this? And it's just like, no, no, no, no. Or you find something bad. It's like, we can't destroy this relationship. You can't ruin this relationship. This is a big client for us.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's. And it's totally the staff accountant who finds like, that. Something fishy in their. Their, uh, audit selections. And then, uh, they start extrapolating, and then there you go. Now everybody's involved, right?

Speaker A: And I think. I think, like, the seniors probably like, oh, that's a. We got to do more testing. And then they find another thing, and they're like, oh, more. And then they're like, I don't really know what to do here. And the manager's like, uh. And then the partner's like, no, no, no, no, we can't let this happen. I don't know. Hopefully that doesn't really happen anymore. But I thought that was.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good one. I was like, relatable.

Speaker A: I was just like, I'm trying to get like, how can I whip these things up so quickly? And I saw that moment happen, and

Speaker B: I was like, I got to make this epic moment.

Speaker A: Um, and then the last thing I had here, which I thought was funny, and this is just a little friendly alert to everybody. Um, busy season, 75 days away.

Speaker B: Is it really 75 days away? Oh, man. Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, I mean, this is the Shohei Ohtani. Every single time you. I mean, you could be watching like a, uh, funeral procession on, and then out of the bottom corner of the TV screen, you'll just see a little image of Shohei Ohtani pop up. And they're like three hours away until Shohei Otani gets, uh, Shohei Ohtani bats because he's just like the biggest superstar in the league. So this is just like an ongoing thing. And I think people are gonna have a lot of fun using this concept of just having him pop up in all situations.

Speaker B: That's funny. That's a good one.

Speaker A: There's a bunch of stuff going on online where they're like, this is getting out of hand. It's just. It's him popping up in the most unreal situations. So, um, yeah, I mean, speaking of busy season, I'll get to the concluding cycle here, which is here to wrap up the show. Um, but when do you think busy season? Like, if you had to pick a date for when busy season starts, like, for you, when does that actually start

Speaker B: for me in my current job? Well, I work for a private company. Um, so, uh. April. April.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So you got a little bit of time.

Speaker B: I mean, well, now we're getting acquired, so who knows when my busy season will be under a public company, like.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Don't know.

Speaker A: I mean, it's.

Speaker B: Oh, I guess it'll be year round because there's gonna be quarterly reviews and 10Ks, 10Qs. So it's gonna be different.

Speaker A: But. So you don't consider your, your. Your January to April period to be as, uh, as busy season heavy?

Speaker B: For my experience working in a, In a private startup, no, because our public accounting firm will prioritize their public companies, audit them first, and then they'll staff the private people later because there's less of a push, like a deadline to get things done.

Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. I think obviously with public, it's typically gonna run your. I say 75 because it's kind of the end of January. Like, you gotta wait for all the clients to get the books closed and even start to compile all the PBC items before you can actually start doing the business work. And then once it starts, it's like, like it's a race and you're trying to get it all done.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Especially for public companies. I mean, I think on the audit side, your busy season almost never ends because like you audit those public companies, it's a race. And then they put you to audit private companies, like where I'm at. So then you still have to do that by a certain deadline and then they'll find somebody with a 6:30 or a 9:30 year end. I was on a never ending busy

Speaker A: season, so for some people it's not any time away because it's already happening right now. So we'll see. But, um, yeah, it's been great having you, Kristen. Thanks so much for popping onto the show. Everybody can give her a follow at. Let's, uh, get fiscal if you don't already. Um, yeah, thanks. Thanks so much. It's been awesome to chat with you here in New York and get your take on everything.

Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for having me, Drew. This has been awesome.

Speaker A: Cool. All right, everybody. Well, this has been episode 39 of the FinTech Flow, and we'll see you all next time. Thanks for checking out the Fintech Flow. As a reminder, this episode is available for CPE credit and you can get that at Flowcademy or on the earmark app. Details are in the description below.