Rounding is a headache.  Okay, I know that many of you larger company CFOs don't have to worry about rounding anymore.  You leave it to the Corporate Controller who has to have this headache (or many it is their senior accountant).

For those of us who enjoy working with emerging companies we still have to worry about whether or not the assets match the other side of the balance sheet since those wonderful pennies don't always seem to match on both sides once you round them up.

I'm one of those who believes that any financial statement should have the caveat note "numbers may not equal due to rounding" and leave it at that.  Why are we forced to spend a ridiculous amount of time forcing some part of the balance sheet, cash flow, or income statement into a number just so it adds up on paper??  Couldn't we be spending our time on something much more beneficial???

David A. Fogel, CPA                                                                                                                                                                                           Coordinating Committee for the MIT Sloan CFO Summit

Principal, Swifton CFOs
Email: dfogel@swiftoncfos.com Twitter: @swifton