The Angry Auditor

...and I don't mean that in a deragatory sense towards the auditor. I've had the unfortunate experience of having to fire an employee, who I thought (on the surface) was a really nice person. The employee worked for us for about 7-8 years.

For some time the financial statements and the money reports presented just didn't make sense to the rest of us who were responsible for the overall well-being of the organization. Not being CPA's or anything like that, we don't claim to be know-it-alls in the accounting arena, but we all know the basic concept of money-in-money-out, and basic accounting principals like that. Common sense and intuition comes into play.....we all had a "feeling" things were not right, but the employee who got fired always had some explanation, excuse, and general finger pointing as to why things did not add up.

A few months back it was announced by the fired employee that the organization was broke and that it needed more money. Hmmmmmm.... We asked why and to justify it.
A little time goes by and LOTS of other unacceptable drama and the inevitable happens -- he got what was coming and got canned.

A sudden departure of a key employee obviously leaves a gigantic hole. I was "nominated" to fill in to pay the bills, process payroll, etc., and hold the finances together until we got things straightned out. The rest of the board of directors needed to know exactly what in the hell was going on.

I walked into financial-bookkeeping HELL. There were papers, receipts, and uncashed checks just strewn about. The bank accounts had not been properly reconciled in months. Don't even ask about the petty cash. We didn't even know a petty cash account existed until one of the other employees asked for it to be replenished. I put an end to the petty cash account immediately. I put an end to all cash. Period. The type of organization this is does not need cash -- as it always has a way of 'mysteriously' disappearing -- as I soon dealt with that little scenario. Little did I know at the time it was just the tip of the iceberg.

Where do I begin? I could feel a swirling of anxiety fill my body. Deep breath. I just put my head down and started chipping away. The first thing I needed to do was to get current bank statements so we knew EXACTLY how much money we had in the various bank accounts and investment holdings, as of course, the internal records were completely out of whack.

Upon getting the bank statements, it was discovered that there were several credit cards all set up on "auto pay" that were never approved or reported to the board of directors. The plot thickens....we're now dealing with fraud and embezzlement. What else am I going to discover? I needed help. I reported what I found to the rest of the board members. We decided to hire an outside auditor to help us get this mess straightened out.

Enter the Angry Auditor. This person chews nails for breakfast. I'm in love. It's just what we need. I spent quite a bit of time with the Angry Auditor explaining the dynamics and politics of the organization. I filled the Angry Auditor in on all of our dirty laundry. Angry Auditor thanked me profusely for the information, as all of it generally comes into play with everything else. I have nothing to hide.

Angry Auditor then began to tell me about other fraud scenarios encountered upon his career. Of course, professionalism prevented him from disclosing names and such, but he went on describing cases where "outstanding citizens" of the community were squandering tax dollars and participating in fraud, improper exuberant spending, crony-ism, and embezzlement. To top it off, Angry Auditor said that some of the spending was used for so-called community betterment -- such as luxury boxes at sports arenas for volunteers and such paid for with tax dollars.

What I'm drawing from all of this is that this is just a microchasam of the bigger picture of what's *really* going on with our tax dollars and other pools of money. Does the massive government bail-out come to mind? I think there is so much fraud and abuse out there it would make people sick if they really knew. It's happening right here in our own area. Of course, they all have their hands out wanting more, *more* and MORE. It's an insatiable monster were feeding. Let's stop feeding the monster.