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

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 😍

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

Adding machine with paper tape!

Quattro pro

My first day on the job, I was gifted a 3-hole punch. And then a semi-helpful senior walked all of us newbies down to the supply closet to get us each an audit box, and helped us fill it (15 year old 10-key, anyone?). The first day at a client, we all helped carry the loads of boxes in from the senior's car containing a printer (mid-2000's), perm file binders, PY binders, and fresh binders. Audit programs each had a "clean copy" in the office, so before you started an audit, you had to pick the right set of programs and photocopy them for your binder. Review notes were handwritten on legal paper....partner took the paper audit binder (or a section) and handed it back to you with notes attached. Cleared notes were initialed and delivered back to the partner with the updates. When I was new, we were lucky enough to have a trial balance software that we could use to group the accounts and print leads.....though any AJE or new account meant re-printing and re-documenting. We also had excel....but again, it had to be printed. So print your work, then get review notes, then fix and print again.

ask one of your retired partners
make them earn their pension checks

4. One time $1,000 prints kept showing up unexpectedly day after day. Partner lost it and famously said: “Get Wharton away from the (FastTax) terminal! Only AA Dallas folks will understand.

ask one of your partners - someone who has been around since at least the late 1990's - I am sure they would love to tell you about it. I am sure they will tell you all about their red and green ticker pencil and may even still carry it around with them for old times sake.

Years from now the same will be asked about Accountants using Excel for workpapers

Lots of paper. For perm file work papers there was an art to extending out to as many columns as possible.

I don't remember "helicopters." Please explain.

lots of footing TBs on four column paper and testing 5 haphazardly based on auditor judgment

1. Consolidated tax returns with 100+ subs were detail reviewed by senior - clear points - then by manager - clear points - then by partner. Then consolidation was done. All by hand. Then client would have a change. Grab the eraser.

2. Then came Fast Tax forms which looked nothing like tax forms. Whole separate world to master. You overnighted to Fast Tax (except in Dallas they had a drive up window like a Burger King) and got your draft return a couple days later. If any changes needed repeat the process.

3. Then came remote terminals to make changes and order prints. Each print could cost $1,000 and you quickly learned to stop and check one more time before hitting print. Fast Tax would take mainframe down every night from 12-4 for maintenance. I would be on phone right at midnight to Fast Tax computer room guys telling them to hold up until I could hit one more super expedite ($$$$) compute and print.

Great memories in here, thanks so much for sharing. So many I experienced as well (started at Deloitte in 1991 in Canada). Only a couple to add.... 1) We used green and red fine point markers. How progressive! The first time I saw a friend with a blue and green double pointed pencil from another firm, I was all HUH? Blue? Pencil? Double pointed? 2) Around 1993, Revenue Canada finally allowed us to submit personal tax returns from a tax program (instead of typed out on their forms). BUT we had to submit them on BLUE paper, the same as the RC forms were. The challenge was that blue paper would jam up the HP laser printers on damp rainy days... tax season being March and April. So tough to get an entire personal tax return to print without jamming! 3) My partner had a beautiful wood desk that was unfortunately a soft wood. He made us staple w/p sections with the staple upside down, so that it would not scratch his desk while he was reviewing them.

I remember having to add and subtract telephone numbers from pages in telephone books without looking at the calculator. You had to add up to the page and subtract again and get to zero, showing you did it correct. Casting and cross casting cashbooks and checking entries in manual ledgers. Trial balances were drafted on working papers and financial statements were manually drafted. Unbelievable how things have changed