This is the second part in a series, so if you have not already done so, you might want to read Part I before continuing.
“Pleasure to meet you, Anne. And what do you do?”
“I’m an accountant.”
“Oh, have you seen that movie with Ben Affleck and Anna Kendrick?”
Anne tried not to roll her eyes. That movie had been the bane of her existence since it had come out. “I have, yes.”
“I bet you wish your life was that exciting, huh?”
“Nope. Not even a little.”
“Oh, right, I mean, of course it’s always fun to watch other people do those things, but I suppose people who choose to become accountants gravitate towards it because they like the boring life.”
Anne wrinkled her brow and cocked her head to one side. “I wouldn’t say that, either. I don’t crave violence in my life, but the scene where he’s going through all those documents and adding up all the numbers to see how much money has been stolen from the company, and subsequently identify the person stealing it, that’s much closer to what I do. Although these days we can do pretty much all that stuff online, but that doesn’t look as cool as a guy locking himself in a conference room with a bunch of binders and a whiteboard.”
“You’ve found people stealing money from their employers?”
“Oh, absolutely. Not only that, but I’ve been able to point out when they’re being robbed in the first place, because if you don’t keep close track of your finances, you don’t even realize someone is stealing from you.”
“Wow, that sounds way more exciting than I ever would have thought an accountant’s life would be.”
Anne shrugged. “It’s not always that exciting, but it is rewarding. Like that scene in the beginning where Ben Affleck is helping that woman with a home-based business deduct expenses from her taxes. Admittedly, he was advising her to take expenses for which she didn’t quite qualify, but I do love helping people identify the expenses they can legally deduct from their taxes so they can keep more of their money. And it’s always people like that, the ones working small, independent businesses out of their homes, that need the most help. You know, the big corporations have teams of accountants helping them find every loophole in the book and then some, but the small business owners and solopreneurs just don’t know what to look for, so they’re the ones I really love to help out.”
“Wow, that is pretty cool. And do you find that a lot of small businesses are getting robbed by their employees, too, or just the big corporations with so much money they can’t keep track of it all?”
“It’s usually the big corporations, but I’ve had some smaller clients get robbed, too. They tend to be the ones who don’t have any security measures in place, and don’t know what to look out for when hiring employees, so while there might not be as many opportunities to steal from them, they also tend to be pretty vulnerable.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. Do you happen to have a business card on you? I have a friend who just started a business and I think you might be able to help her out.”
“Absolutely,” Anne said with a smile as she handed over a card.
To be continued…