Make a Real Month of Money Add Up
Maps to: Accountant · Auditor · Bookkeeper · Tax Preparer · Financial Analyst · Management Consultant
Somebody near you keeps money for something real: a club, a team, a fundraiser, a small side business. Their own record of a month and the bank's record of the same month almost never say the same number. On this card you match one real month line by line, find where the two disagree, decide which gaps are worth chasing, and hand the person whose money it is one page that says what is really there.
You're done when: One page, in the hands of the person whose money it is: both totals, every gap you chased and what it turned out to be, what you decided about the gaps you never found, and a first line that says whether the money adds up. Not 'I checked it,' but 'I matched every line, I chased the gaps that mattered, and here is what I still cannot explain.'
How this shows up on a resume or college app
I checked one month of whose money by matching every line of their own record against the bank's. The two totals were amount apart. I set a size below which gaps were written down and left, traced the larger ones to what they turned out to be, and could not explain amount. I decided to what I did about it, wrote a one-page summary with the answer on the first line and the unexplained gap stated plainly, and gave it to the person, who told me they would have looked first at what they said. I learned that a total nobody has checked is a total nobody actually knows.
When you finish you have the thing itself, plus a Common App activity description Sidequest drafts from what you actually built.
Not sure yet? Play 5 minutes as an accountant first and see how the work feels.
See what this career pays and what it takes to get in.
The plan
- 1
Step 1
Pick whose money, and write down what should be there
Pick one real month of somebody's money that you are allowed to see. Write down both totals, theirs and the bank's, and your first guess at whether they match, before you match a single line. By the end of this hour you have one page started, and everything after this gets written onto it.
- 2
Steps 2-3
Tick every payment that is on both lists
Put the two lists side by side and check them one payment at a time. A payment that is on both lists gets a tick. A payment that is only on one list goes on a list of its own.
- 3
Step 4
Chase the payments that do not match
A payment that is on one list and not the other is a gap. Decide how big a gap has to be before you chase it, then chase those. Some you can answer from the paperwork. Some only the person who keeps the money can answer.
- 4
Step 5
Write the page, and hand it to the person whose money it is
Decide what happens to the gaps you never found. Then write the page, put the answer on the first line, and hand it to the person whose money it is.