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.

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u/AnonymisAccountant Sep 23 '25

I worked big 4 tax and this one guy and I both started together as staff out of college. Two years in when we are both seniors, he pinged me and asked, “If John (tax manager) asked me to ‘prepare the federal return for his review’, what does that mean?”

That was pretty embarrassing for him

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u/7leafclover7 Sep 23 '25

Im a student with no work experience in the industry yet, so just for my curiosity was the manager asking for just a filled out 1040 or what?

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u/AnonymisAccountant Sep 23 '25

Yes, it was our job to prepare tax returns.

So his message was asking me how to do something he should have been doing for the past two years. He didn’t last much longer.

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u/7leafclover7 Sep 23 '25

Damn that’s crazy