Part 1: Welcome to the Accounting Department
Spoiler warning: Fourth Wing and Iron Flame spoilers ahead. If you keep reading and learn something you weren’t ready to know, I don’t want to hear it. You were warned. Accounting has documented the disclosure.
As I sit down to reread Rebecca Yarros’s Empyrean saga, three books so far, I keep making connections to corporate accounting. Apparently, even when I pick up a book about dragons, I can’t entirely leave work behind.
A brutal institution. Impossible deadlines. Powerful people withholding critical information. Survival dependent on a handful of exhausted colleagues.
At some point, this starts feeling familiar.
With appreciation to Rebecca Yarros for creating characters who model corporate accounting remarkably well. We came for the dragons. We stayed because we recognized our department.
Xaden Riorson is the Accounting Standards Codification.
Complicated, intimidating, and unwilling to reveal everything without making you work for it. Violet loves him despite the secrets and frustration. Accountants understand that relationship. We curse the ASC at midnight, swear we’re done, then turn to it for reassurance. No matter how big of an ass it is, we still love it. Nothing says devotion like defending a conclusion with paragraph references.
Tairn is the Chief Accounting Officer.
Steadfast, experienced, and only occasionally emotional, usually when someone suggests reopening a closed period. He protects the team and tells you exactly what he thinks you need to know. Want more? Ask better questions. Preferably before the Audit Committee meeting.
Violet Sorrengail is the newly promoted Controller.
In over her head, bruised, bleeding, and dealing with another broken bone, she keeps going. Our injuries are usually metaphorical, but that first year-end close leaves marks. She becomes more capable, more jaded, and increasingly secretive. By quarter three, she has a private issues tracker and trusts approximately four people. Management calls this executive presence.
Dain Aetos is Finance.
He means well. He also thinks he can read Accounting’s mind. “You’re releasing that accrual this quarter, right?” If touching your forehead could extract final close numbers before day three, he would already have scheduled the meeting. Accounting has started sharing PDFs.
Rhiannon Matthias is the Assistant Controller.
Dependable, resourceful, and quietly keeping everyone alive. She knows which deadline is in danger and when the Controller’s “I’m fine” means “Cancel my afternoon.” When she takes vacation, you discover how much of your control environment is actually one person.
Sawyer Henrick is the Senior Accountant.
He’s been through this before: the audit, the system conversion, the promised promotion. He knows the documented process and the workaround that produces the right answer. He doesn’t need another presentation on resilience. He needs the reporting tool fixed.
Ridoc Gamlyn is the accountant keeping the team sane.
He has a joke for every crisis and a meme ready before the emergency meeting ends. His timing is occasionally questionable. His loyalty isn’t. When the close falls apart at 9 p.m., he makes everyone laugh, then stays to help fix it. HR would prefer not to see the group chat.
Jesinia Neilwart is Technical Accounting.
While everyone else argues, she goes to the source documents. She finds the obscure guidance, challenges the accepted interpretation, and documents what actually happened. You ask for a quick answer. She asks for the contract. Somehow, that surprises people every time.
Jack Barlowe is the manager who’s had a conversation with HR.
He disappears. Morale improves. He returns thanking people and talking about psychological safety. Nine business days later, someone challenges his deadline, and the old Jack returns. HR calls it an ongoing coaching opportunity. The team calls it something else.
Andarna is the new intern.
Enthusiastic, convinced she’s special, and full of ideas about AI. Her first assignment is renaming 146 supporting documents. Her second is chasing receipts. She soon discovers that exceptional potential does not exempt anyone from the shared drive.
Brennan Sorrengail is the former Controller who supposedly escaped.
He left to “reassess priorities.” Then LinkedIn reveals he’s running Accounting at a company with eleven acquisitions and six accounting systems. He messages: “Are you happy where you are?” Apparently, he’s recruiting for another war.
Major Varrish is Internal Audit on a bad day.
He wants proof the control operated, proof the reviewer reviewed it, and evidence of appropriate skepticism. You provide the approval email. He requests a screenshot. The screenshot raises further questions. There will be a finding.
Eventually, the statements are issued. The auditors leave. Your squad gets an evening back.
Then Corporate Development sends an invitation:
“Quick accounting question about a deal we signed yesterday.”
Somewhere, the CAO exhales smoke.
Check back next week for Part 2. The rest of the company has entered the chat, and someone has invited the private equity sponsor.
Ready to lead beyond the ledger?
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