Tuesday, August 07, 2012

My Brilliant Wife, CPA


The other night I was giving Rachel some highlights from my day. At one point I mentioned something like: "I found money that we can include in our company’s annual budget! It’s related to capitalized interest income. It’s very arcane and difficult to explain but I can try. Are you familiar with it?”

Rachel: “Well no, not really. I’ve never worked with it… But… I know that it’s the interest you would charge for your capital projects by multiplying the accrued spend by either the company’s LT debt rate or an appropriate third-party benchmark interest rate. And that as the interest income is accrued at the corporate entity, it is offset by a balance sheet entry at the BU level. And that once the project is placed into service it would depreciate along with the underlying asset over its useful life.”

Rob: [moment of silence, mouth slightly ajar] “Are you freaking kidding me!? You’ve never touched capitalized interest in all of your years of accountancy, and yet you still manage to give the best, clearest and most comprehensive explanation of anyone I’ve come across? You truly are a brilliant corporate CPA.”

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