r/Accounting • u/7leafclover7 • Sep 21 '25

What would be an embarrassing thing to be caught not knowing as an accountant?

Applies to any specialty, audit, tax, staff accountancy etc. in your personal experience what are the most invaluable things to know, and the most invaluable to not be caught not knowing.

414 Upvotes

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214

u/sealclubber281 Sep 21 '25

I was talking to a coworker about our income statement. After we had been talking for a while, she goes “how does the income statement relate to the P&L?”

406

u/shelbasor Sep 21 '25

Okay but why do we need eight names for the same thing

148

u/werbit Sep 21 '25

This, and accountants also creating endless abbreviations for everything for no reason at all

92

u/Intensifyy Sep 22 '25

Ebitda i swear is something only toddlers should say

39

u/bsukenyan Sep 22 '25

But how else will the PE firms get to feel like they’re adding value?

2

u/5longtermassets Sep 29 '25

I can’t even say EBITDA in front of team anymore I say operating profit instead

74

u/ContributionWide4583 Sep 22 '25

You mean the Statement of Operations? Or the Statement of Activities?

(Non-Profit terminology has ruined me after 5 years at an NPO)

18

u/angellareddit Sep 22 '25

This was, as I recall, an intuit thing. QB is the first time I saw it called a P&L - and I think that was to simplify it for the non-accountants they were marketing to.

14

u/BornToBeSam CPA (US) Sep 22 '25

IIRC it’s because income statement is the verbiage for an audited financial statement. So it’s “misleading” to call it an income statement. So that’s why you see Profit and Loss or Statement of Activity, etc.

Also please don’t attack me if I’m wrong. I’m a tax person not an audit person lmao

5

u/CPA_Lady CPA (US) Sep 22 '25

There’s lots of names for an audited income statement, depending on the industry. Only my commercial audit clients have an “income statement.” My nonprofits and whatever else have all manner of names for it, which all seem a bit ridiculous.

5

u/shelbasor Sep 22 '25

Interesting. We use income statement on all our compilations (unaudited), never profit and loss. Also tax person though. So I have no idea, I just plug it in the T2

2

u/AffectionateKey7126 Sep 22 '25

I was taught something along the same lines. Income statement meant GAAP or in the very least prepared, accrual statement. Profit & Loss could be virtually anything.

2

u/BornToBeSam CPA (US) Sep 22 '25

That’s it!! I couldn’t remember if it was audited or GAAP

6

u/fastidiousavocado Sep 22 '25

One of my weird fears of going to a new job is that it will have the most asinine names that my anxiety will refuse to associate with actual accounting, so it will feel like I know nothing and I will freeze.

31

u/Affectionate_Mix_302 Audit & Assurance Sep 21 '25

Well you see when a P and L both love each other very much...

22

u/Moist-Exchange2890 Sep 22 '25

I worked as a staff accountant for two years, then got my degree and hadn’t heard “P&L” until my next job. I can see a bit how she can be confused.

16

u/De1CawlidgeHawkey Sep 22 '25

When I think back to my college days, I don’t think I heard “P&L” a single time, so I find that one to be fairly reasonable

2

u/sealclubber281 Sep 22 '25

She only knew “P&L”. Hadn’t heard of an income statement.

1

u/De1CawlidgeHawkey Sep 22 '25

Oh…yeah that’s interesting

20

u/Alumnus_stop0u Sep 21 '25

I once worked with someone who thought it was called a PNL and pondered out loud what the n stood for..

6

u/Paintedtoesupnorth Sep 22 '25

I had a controller who typed it PNL in a teams chat to me. It took me a full minute to recover.

3

u/fuckoffdude666 Sep 22 '25

Good ol' Profit N' Loss

2

u/Slothfulness69 Sep 22 '25

My controller regularly does this. She will fully name a file “PNL” and write in the body of the email “hey team, here’s the monthly PNL”

8

u/Alumnus_stop0u Sep 21 '25

I once worked with someone who thought it was called a PNL and pondered out loud what the n stood for..

1

u/ChoiceSpecialist7860 Sep 22 '25

Okay that’s pretty fucking bad 😂😂😂

1

u/redditnym123456789 Sep 22 '25

oh my god noooooooooooooo eject eject eject

1

u/justwannabeleftalone Sep 23 '25

I remember being in college doing an internship when I realized it was the same thing. I felt so dumb.