The Dilemma of an Accountant

The Dilemma of an Accountant

Daniel Potter is an accountant at Baker Greenleaf and has been chosen to be a part of an special auditing team for an huge account for the company. The team lead is Oliver Freeman and he is known for being a complete authoritarian on projects. The account that they are in charge of auditing is a company that they had always shared with another Big Eight accounting firm.

The issue is that Mr. Potter found some discrepancies while doing the audit on his part of the account. While he was able to work through most of them, he could not overcome some property that was on the books for $ 2 million dollars. He values the property at $100,000, considering that it has been vacant for years and is in a rundown part of the neighborhood. The company that the audit is being conducted on says that the property should stay on the books for 2 million dollars, because they are going to get renters into the units. When Mr. Potter completed his work he brought it to Mr. Freeman and showed him the discrepancies. Mr. Freeman said that he wanted the pages taken out that show the new estimate of the real estate property. Mr. Freeman also wanted him to remove his “subject-to-opinion” designation and substitute a “clean opinion” (Brooks, 2007). Mr. Potter wrote back that he would not alter his assessment, that if he did it would violate his own reading of accounting regulations.

Oliver and Dan had a meeting later that day to discuss the problems that they were having with the audit. Oliver stated that he had six years of experience and he knew better than Dan on how to handle the situation. That Dan was responsible for a “clean opinion” and any neglect of his duties would be viewed as an act of irresponsibility. The problem was not material to the Client and the Sub’s opinion would only be used “in house.” That no one read or cared about these financial statements anyways. Dan pointed out that if the report was altered and it was used to...