Audit Status: Complete!

And now...we're done.  [large belabored exhale]

Our audit deadline was Monday, January 28.  That was 120 days after our year-end, the due date to get audited financial statements to our bank so that we didn't go into default on our loan.

It was a fight to the finish.  We were nine weeks late in starting because of system issues, and the original timetable only had us finishing six weeks early, and I even thought the original time frame was aggressive.  So we lost three weeks from that window of time.

On Friday the 25th, we had our closing meeting on everything except taxes.  Everything looked good, we had haggled out almost everything.  We were happy, the auditors were happy.

On Saturday, I'm watching my friends' 6-year-old son Quentin for the day and I get the call from my auditors: there MIGHT be a problem.  Ugh.  My boss schedules a 4:30 conference call to discuss.  We go over preliminaries, and the auditors are going to work on it and get back to me.

On Sunday, I'm heading home from church, and my auditors call again.  They're still working on yesterday's issue, but they need another report drafted on a different tax issue.  I write it up and send it off.

On Monday, I e-mail the auditors to ask for an update around 10 a.m.  They say they'll get back to me when they have something.  At 3:30 p.m., they call us and say they're ready to show us their findings, but that we should come to their office so we can figure out how we're going to get all this done.  So the President, the CFO and I drive up to Fresno.

They explain these problems with last year that are going to make gigantic swings in this and last year's numbers, and then I watch my boss make magic happen.  He clarifies a couple pieces of information in the timetable of events, and challenges it from a business reasonableness point of view, and those gargantuan numbers dwindled away.  It was art in words and numbers.

The auditors then need some more time to retool their numbers, so the three of us go to dinner.  We return at 8, run through it all again, sign our representations, and we receive the audited financial statements at 9:30 that evening.  I sent them off to the bank, chit-chatted with the auditors for a bit, and then we all went home.

The even happier ending is that I was finally officially promoted to the position of Controller (formerly the Senior Accountant) and received a nice raise and bonus.

I am SO glad that this is FINALLY done!