I know this is a minor rant, and I am guitly of it as well, but as an accountant I have major issues when someone misstates this. If it is a 0 say “zero”. If it is an O, say “Oh”. Please. My lie would be much easier if at the end of the month you make a request to shift $150,000 to account WWK034 and say the zero instead of Oh. Because you fail to understand that I have valid accounts with both, and instead of the money showing up in a suspense account like it needs to, the money shows up in a vendors payable account. There is just a tad bit of difference there.
M-
I’m not even an accountant and it drives me nuts too. Just a personal pet peeve. Like the difference between a pen and a pencil. Yes, sometimes it does make an important difference whether you use a pen or a pencil. Whew! That feels much better.
You have account numbers with zeros and oh’s and by changing a zero to an Oh in a valid account number can still give you a valid account number!?? That is absurd. It is also absurd to place a zero (or an Oh) between a digit and a letter. When my company went from numeric account numbers to alphanumeric, they didn’t even allow Oh’s. Also the letters I and Q are not allowed.
And WallyM7 is right; if money shows up in a vendors payable account that isn’t supposed to be there, just move it to a suspense account.
Let me see…suspense - that would be account number WWKO34, right?
I’m sorry, I’m having real trouble picturing ANYONE with “I have been dubbed by SqrlCub as Sweetikins Peachiblossom Smurf” in his sig as an accountant. It just DOESN’T WORK, you know?
Mully, if it’ll make you feel any better, I’m with you on this. I discovered years ago that the world is full of silly people who, when you’re giving them a telephone number, will insist on writing down an “O” if you say “O”, like “555-six-Oh-two-Oh”, and then they complain that the number you gave them didn’t work. I started saying “555-six-ZERO-two-ZERO” years ago, and life has been much easier ever since.
This is also good to use when you’re having a “discussion” with a collection agency or insurance company, because sometimes the ditz at the other end of the phone can’t find your account number if you say “Oh” instead of “Zero”.
This is a slight hijack, but in the spirit of fighting ignorance, can someone tell me what the heck a suspense account is? Am I correct in assuming that it has nothing to do with adventure movie theme music?
When you have money and you don’t know where it is supposed to go, you stick it in a suspense account until you can figure out where it is supposed to go. Without such accounts, you can’t balance the books. It’s just one of the ways bean counters cheat and still follow the rules.
I agree with DrMatrix. Your IT staff should either be used as pothole filler (if they designed it that way) or held up to ridicule before each sporting event in your city for two yearts (if the users insisted on that stupidity and IT caved in to them).
(If you were a user who insisted on allowing those codes, then you should be used as pothole filler–after being coated in hot pitch. If you insisted on those codes and overrode the IT objections, then the hot pitch should be applied to previously abraded skin.)
There is no value or purpose to allow alpha-O or alpha-I in any serial number, account number, customer-id, invoice number, P O number, etc. when both letters and numbers are permitted. NONE. Being a good IT professional is sufficiently difficult without having utterly stupid users or totally incompetent fellow IT types in the business.
Trust me. I understand the pain and idiocy of using a system that has O, 0, Z, 2, I, 1, G, and 6 as different variables (especially when a lot of things like work orders and invoices flow through in a handwritten fashion.) This system is apparently older than dirt and predates my existence at this company by an era or two. My odds of getting it changed are the same as the odds of Cecil chiming into this thread to agree with me.
Thankfully, I don’t have to mess around with entry or anything. Unfortunately, the people that work for me do. And, I have to track and deal with errors. Ugh.
