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Accountants to the rescue: harrowing tales from the business front.

Article Excerpt
Certain clients have left indelible marks on Christine Fuller's mind.

"At times there have been clients that have been on the floor crying," says Fuller, a premium director at the Beachwood office of H&R Block Inc., a global tax and financial services company.

Some show up to the office in their pajamas. Others bring their dogs or children. Once, an unruly child pulled the fire alarm; another time, a boy yanked the computer plug while Fuller was working on his mother's taxes. Some bring in large cardboard boxes overflowing with receipts for Fuller to sort. Lucky lottery winners have come to her, too, often bearing shopping bags filled with thousands of losing lottery tickets to offset some of the taxes from the winning ticket.

These somewhat comical occurrences are enough to make any accountant want to pull out her hair.

Often underestimated and unappreciated, accountants do much more than audit businesses or file taxes. They give financial advice, rescue businesses from bankruptcy or help individuals build and maintain their net worth. And they don't just do it from behind a computer screen.

Inside Business asked a few area accountants to relay their most noteworthy tales of challenging clients and how they remedied the situation.

The following stories prove that beneath the green eye-shades lie corporate superheroes who often end up saving the day.

EVERYBODY HAS SOME FRAUD

A 2002 study forecast that 6 percent of revenues would be lost that year to fraud--which generally appears as asset misappropriations, corruption schemes and fraudulent statements--according to the report by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

"Everybody has some fraud," says Tim Mayles, manager at the Sheffield Village office of Barnes Wendling CPAs Inc., a Cleveland accounting firm that primarily serves closely held businesses. "It just depends how much."

Two years ago, Mayles saw a client cheated out of more than $170,000 by his bookkeeper. The Cleveland-based manufacturer noticed that sales had...