Business Jokes

A young accountant, straight out of uni, applies for a job advertised in the Sydney Morning Herald. He is interviewed by the owner of a small business who has built it up from scratch.

"I need someone with an accounting degree," says the man, "but mainly I'm looking for someone to do my worrying for me."

"How do you mean?" says the accountant.

"I have lots of things to worry about, but I want someone else to worry about money matters."

"OK," says the accountant. "How much are you offering?"

"You can start on seventy-five thousand," says the owner.

"Seventy-five thousand dollars. How can a business like this afford to pay so much?"

"That," says the man, "is your first worry."

An internal auditor for a manufacturing group was concerned about anomalies in stock levels. He thought someone might be pinching stock but he couldn't prove it. He had his eye on one shifty-looking individual who every day drove his old truck out of the factory with the load covered by a tarpaulin. Time after time the auditor stopped the bloke, made him remove the tarpaulin and then inspected the load. On every occasion there was only scrap metal in the truck which the driver said he was taking to the tip. On three occasions the auditor made the bloke remove the tarpaulin and then unload the scrap in front of him, suspecting that there might be stolen stock hidden underneath. Nothing. He could never find anything amiss.

After a few months of this the auditor was offered a better job elsewhere and resigned. A few weeks later he was drinking in a pub when the shifty character walked in. On an impulse the auditor went up to him and said, "Look, I've left the company, I'm not interested in taking it any further and I won't shop you, but I just have to know. What were you taking?"

And the bloke said "Tarpaulins."

Three partners in an accounting firm go out to lunch. They are the audit partner, the tax partner and the senior partner. One of them sees a brass lamp lying in the gutter.
Curious, they pick it up and give it a rub. Instantly, a genie appears.

"You know the deal," says the genie. "Three wishes. But seeing there are three of you, you can have one wish each."

"Great," says the audit partner. "Take me to the Whitsunday Islands, give me a blonde and an endless supply of XXXX and leave me there for ever."

Pouf! There is a flash of light, a puff of smoke and he is gone.

"Now me," says the tax partner. "Take me to the Cook Islands, give me two blondes and an endless supply of offshore tax schemes and leave me there for ever."

Pouf! There is a flash of light, a puff of smoke and he is gone.

The genie turns to the senior partner. "And what do you want?"

"I want those two back in the office straight after lunch."

An accountant goes into a pet shop to buy a parrot. The shop owner shows him three identical parrots on a perch and says, "The parrot on the left costs $500."

"Why does that parrot cost so much?" asks the accountant.

"Well," replies the owner, "it knows how to do complex audits."

"How much does the middle parrot cost?" asks the accountant.

"That one costs $1,000 because it can do everything the first one can do plus it knows how to prepare financial forecasts".

The startled accountant asks about the third parrot, to be told it costs $4,000. Needless to say, this begs the question, "What can it do?"

To which the owner replies "To be honest, I've never seen him do a darn thing, but the other two call him Senior Partner."

A man walking along a country road comes across a farmer droving a huge mob of sheep. He stops and chats for a while and then says, "Tell you what, I'll bet you $100 against one of your sheep that I can tell you the exact number in that flock."

The farmer thinks for a moment, it is a big mob and he can't see how anyone could guess correctly so he says, "OK. You're on."

"Nine hundred and thirty two," says the man.

The farmer takes off his hat and scratches his head. "I don't know how you did it but that's exactly right. A bet's a bet. Take any sheep."

The man picks up an animal and is about to walk off when the farmer says, "Hang on. Bet you double or nothing that I can guess your occupation."

The man thinks, "How would he know, he's never met me before" and says "Righto. You're on".

The farmer says, "You're an auditor with a Big Four firm."

The man whistles. "How the heck did you know that?"

"Well," says the farmer, "put my dog down and I'll tell you."

A business man was interviewing applicants for the position of divisional manager. He devised a simple test to select the most suitable person for the job. He asked each applicant the question, "What is two and two?"

The first interviewee was a journalist. His answer was "Twenty-two."

The second was a social worker. She said, "I don't know the answer but I'm glad we had time to discuss this important question."

The third applicant was an engineer. He pulled out a slide rule and showed the answer to be between 3.999 and 4.001.

The next person was a lawyer. He stated that in the case of Jenkins v Commr of Stamp Duties (Qld), two and two was proven to be four.

The last applicant was an accountant. The business man asked him, "How much is two and two?"

The accountant got up from his chair, went over to the door and closed it then came back and sat down. He leaned across the desk and said in a low voice, "How much do you want it to be?"

He got the job.

Mr Evans was the Chief Accountant of a large manufacturing concern.
Every day, on arriving at work, he would unlock the top drawer of his desk, peer at something inside, then close and lock the drawer. He had done this for 25 years. The entire staff was intrigued but no-one was game to ask him what was in the drawer. Finally the time came for Mr Evans to retire. There was a farewell party with speeches and a presentation. As soon as Mr Evans had left the building some of the staff rushed into his office, unlocked the top drawer and peered in. Taped to the bottom of the drawer was a sheet of paper. It read, "The debit side is the one nearest the window."

An auditor was examining the balance sheet of a mining company that had just bought a sheep station in the Pilbara area of Western Australia. The reason for the purchase was partly for the thousands of acres that the station covered and partly for the thousands of sheep that ranged over those thousands of acres. The auditor, being very diligent, noted that the value of the sheep formed a significant asset and, like all good auditors, knew that he would have to verify that asset. He chartered an aircraft and flew up to the station. The manager was at the airstrip to meet him.

"Hello," he said. "I'm the auditor. I've come to count the sheep."

An auditor is checking the books of an airline. He is puzzled by the excess use of fuel on a Melbourne to Canberra flight. He rings up the pilot and asks for an explanation.

"It was late at night," says the pilot, "Canberra was covered in fog and I lost my bearings."

"I'm sorry," says the auditor, "but you'll have to bear the cost yourself."

"The cost of what?" asks the pilot.

"Of the bearings you lost."

The managing partner in an accounting firm is very annoyed with one of his junior partners and has called him in to chastise him.

"How could you possibly advise the client in the way you did? That was completely unethical. We are always conscious of Ethics in this firm.
You do know what Ethics is don't you?"

The young partner is offended. "Of course I know what Ethics is. It's a county in southern England."