The Chartered Accountant Dance

This item was featured in 'At last the 1948 show' and originally broadcast in 1967/8.
It stars Tim Brooke-Taylor as the dancing Chartered Accountant.

No sleep for the diligent

An accountant is having a hard time sleeping and goes to see his doctor. 
"Doctor, I just can't get to sleep at night."

"Have you tried counting sheep?"

"That's the problem - I make a mistake and then spend three hours trying to find it."

Can the K-team solve your accounting problems?

"If you have a problem with accounting software, if nobody can help you sort your invoices, and if you get in touch and ask very nicely, then maybe you can hire.... The K-Team"

Ok, so this spoof 'A-Team' 1 minute video is a promo for Kashflow but it's also quite funny - as are the website notes about each of the characters featured.

 

An accountant gets one over on a lawyer

A lawyer and an accountant are sitting next to each other on a long flight from the US back to London. The lawyer leans over to the accountant and asks if he would like to play a fun game.

The  accountant just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and rolls over to the window to take a few winks. The lawyer persists and explains that the game is really easy and a lot of fun. He explains "I ask you a question and if you don't know the answer you pay me £10".

Again the  accountant politely declines and tries to get some sleep. The lawyer, now somewhat agitated, says "OK, if you don't know the answer you pay me £10, and if you ask me a question and I don't know the answer I will pay you £100".

This catches the accountant's complete attention, and as he sees no end to this torment unless he plays,  he reluctantly agrees to the game.

The lawyer asks the first question. "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?" 
The  accountant doesn't say a word, reaches into his pocket and pays the lawyer £10.
The lawyer is disappointed but still encourages the  accountant to ask a question. He thinks for a moment and then asks the lawyer: "What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?" Having asked the question he turns round and goes back to sleep.

The lawyer looks at him with a puzzled look. He takes out his laptop and searches all his references, he opens his laptop, logs on to the web and tries searching around wikipedia, tries google, yahoo and host of other serch engines but he gets nowhere. Frustrated he sends emails to all his collagues and friends. All at no avail.

After an hour he wakes the accountant and hands him £100. The  accountant  politely takes the £100 and turns away to get back to sleep. The lawyer, more than a little miffed, shakes the  accountant and asks, "Well, so what is the answer? What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?"

Without a word the accountant reaches into his wallet, hands the lawyer £10 and goes back to sleep.

The next #INABAaward goes to Elaine Clark of CheapAccounting.co.uk

This is another (virtual) award of an INABA to an accountant who operates in such a way as to confirm my contention that ‘Boring Is Optional'.

INABA stands for 'I'm Not A Boring Accountant' - more on the awards here++++ 

Elaine Clark is a forthright and feisty lady with firm views about many accountancy related topics. She is MD of CheapAccounting.co.uk and I'm sure no one would ever suggest that she was boring. On the contrary she has successfully built up her business and is widely recognised as a trail blazer in the use of social media within Accountancy. Rather than simply follow the herd she has a clear focus and marketing objectives.

Elaine was included on Accountancy Age's 2012 power list and has won the Woman in Finance category of the Network of Aspiring Women Awards. Elaine's articles are regularly published on a plethora of sites including Accountancy Age, Start up Donut, WiRE, Accounting Web, ICAEW and Business Zone.

I admire Elaine for the way she has persisted with her passion and am constantly impressed by her new ideas, initiatives and activities.

In her own words:

Wow, yes, definitely not a boring accountant because running an accountancy practice means that you have to be so much more than an accountant; especially when that practice is in the Cloud. 

Not only do I need to be a marketeer, a sales person, a PR guru, a writer, a prolific tweeter and goodness knows what else but I have to keep up with all that new fangled technology stuff and re-engineer Practice workings to take advantage of it, keeping costs low so that our client fee very competitive. How else can we be called CheapAccounting.co.uk! 

But mainly I guess I am not boring in many people’s eyes because of my reputation on social media. It’s difficult for me to say just how or why that happened but I am often told that I have a certain persona on twitter. Of course I would add that some of the time I have to wear my “thick skinned” coat to fend off the flack from those that do not find me “their cup of tea”, although recently the noise from the naysayers of the past has been dying down. 

I guess I am like Marmite and luckily I love Marmite!