Can anybody here speak to what accounting was like before Excel and work papers were on paper? How did audits get done?

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Loved paper files vs electronic files!

PAs, acco fasteners, helicopters, green and white paper computer tab runs, handwritten point sheets, hardbacks, 2 hole punches, colored pencils, colored pens (for partners), 14, 21 and 28 column paper, lockable workpaper storage trunks, indexing that made sense.....and so much more!!!

Those were the days 😍

likefunny

The art of interesting tic marks.

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This thread is great...so nostalgic.

The memories keep coming.

- flying to DC to hand deliver IPO filings

- hand typed audit reports and then the Wang data processing system that changed everything

- the first PCs being checked out...we're they Compaq 286 suitcases?

- 3 piece suits...anyone here old enough and from East Coasr to have worn hats?

- I recall the first in house developed electronic workpaper platform at Andersen...Docman

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Hats were a thing into the mid 70’s. Fortunately I started years after that and never had to do the Don Draper look.

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I heard they had a budget in terms of hours per engagement. Once you’ve reached that budget, the audit report is issued whether or not the actual audit is completed. Lmao.

likefunny

Budgets were blown back in the day same as now.

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Most files would have multiple coffee stains and at least one hole from a cigarette burn.

likefunnysmart

Spending an entire day sticking reinforcement rings on paper filling binders.

likefunny

Ah yes -Ten keys, 14 column, PAs, ACCOs and GSRs (green squiggly rulers) - we had a whole different language back then.

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Green column paper and alcohol

likefunny

It smells like bengay and mothballs in this thread. People really showing their age lol...the good ole days

funnylikeuplifting

CR2 holds fast to the rule to never trust anyone over 30

likefunny

I didn’t realize a lot of partners (retired and otherwise) are still very active in this app! Gotta love it!! ❤️

likefunny

We are old - we're not dead! :-)

funnylikeuplifting

Circa late 80s to mid 90s - Does anyone remember that in order to be able to print a lotus 123 spreadsheet, from one of the desktops in the computer room, that you had to type in the “setup string”, which was a combination of more than a dozen letters, small and large cap, numbers and symbols? My goodness! And if it wasn’t exact it wouldn’t print. I spent many a frustrating day/night. But, I retired in June after 25 years as a partner, so it’s laughable now 😂😂.

likefunnyuplifting

Wysiwyg was a lifesaver!

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Multi-column paper and 10-keys.

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What a time to be alive, sounds way better. Truly the good ole days!

likefunny

Paper working papers. Lots of standard, red and blue pencils. A 10-key and hole reinforcers.

Work papers were never finished - even at the time of report issuance. It was a wild a crazy time!

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Yellow ledger paper. Notes in pencil and tick marks in red pencil. Arts and crafts when you had to add an extra flap to a work paper vs starting a whole new work paper.

Funniest thing was trying to review prior year work paper when someone stapled thermal fax paper into work paper. Would be a blank sheet with red tick marks on ghost numbers.

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We all carried our adding machines and a series of rubber stamps, which made it easier when you had to do things like paginate and date every page by hand. We spent a lot of time taking data from manual sources and comparing it to other manual data. Ledgers were footed and crosscast by hand, and 2 way cross referencing was critical to make sure you didn't lose something. We needed a lot more staff, as work was done much more slowly, based upon the flow of manual evidence. We also used massive binders that were spiked in the upper left corner to hold the workpapers in, and the workpapers on a fortune 500 job could easily fill a room. Technology massively changed the audit world.

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Lots of folks in here need to retire.

likefunny

I’m in my early 40s. Technology has expanded quickly and widely during my 20 year career.

I remember having paper files AND smoking allowed indoors. Some client binders you could sniff out in the file room!

likesmart

I worked with a director that had yellowed the wallpaper in his office from all the smoke. When he eventually retired, they gutted his office down to bare studs - no joke. After they had pulled down the wallpaper and ripped up the carpets, they realized that the smoke smell had crept into the drop ceiling and the walls!

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Paperless has a lot of advantages but paper had advantages - sometimes it was just faster. It also had a way of limiting what you could test etc.

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It took just a a little more man power. Frankly auditing standards were less onerous then - we used to write the MD&As for our clients, do the FS, etc. No controls audits. No trickle-down of PCAOB standards. Higher materiality. In essence, the lack of "pace" we have now was made up for by less things to do. We didn't realize how good we had it.

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Green sheet

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Remember the green notebooks with 5 or 7 columns with them? Picture huge binders with hundreds of those sheets, with paper calculator strips stapled to them.

For really huge sheets, there were fold out work papers that would accordion out. All in pencil (so mistakes could be fixed). All with lots of calculator strip totals to prove they footed. And an annoying anotatation system with letters, numbers, dashes and slashes to indicate if something was the source document or the sub document.

And huge wheeled briefcases to haul all the binders. And huge storage rooms full of stored binders of papers from prior year audits.

And redweld folders. Soooo many gigantic, stuffed full redwelds.

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redwelds. the name alone makes me shake.

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