The tick mark

July 1 is Chartered Accountants Day.

One thing that comes to my mind immediately is the day on which I was introduced to the magic symbol in CA world - the green colour audit tick!

One important karma of an articled clerk is to put a green audit tick mark in all his vouching documents. During the first year of articles, it will be of immense pleasure when you verify the vouchers by affixing a green tick mark and signing them! On the first day of my articles, I got an assignment of a concurrent audit of one of the branches of Bank of India. Very enthusiastically, my mother presented a red colour pen to me when I started to office... but it happened to be a situation where I had made a blunder of not bringing a green pen!! I still remember the expression in the face of fellow-articles Chitra, she gave an exclamatory remark similar to having seen a murder - "what! You did not bring a Green Pen?????". I was taken aback, to be very frank - I was just a small boy, just out of school (did my Foundation course) and was not ready to face that remark on the very first day of my 'office' work! I made a point to buy a Reynolds Bold green ink ball-point pen the next day.

Still, I remember the incident vividly! Totally hilarious!!

After one-and-a-half year term of concurrent audit, one of the clerks of the Bank, Bhooma Srinivasan, commented that she will try to arrange for a pension for me!!! :)

More on audit experiences in upcoming posts!