> > That’s not how auditing works. The point of GAAP...

> Hate to break it to you, but there’s other countries and other regimens out there.

Which country are you from that it doesn't have Generally Accepted Accounting Principles? Are you saying that in your country every company can make up what they want and the authorities are OK with that?

congrats, you just had discovered the dark web, where things are done in non-GAAP way. surprisingly enough, there are lot of "business transactions" going on out there than all these innocent corporations combined.

What does the dark web have to do anything? Should we bring up school kids mowing lawns? We're talking about serious companies managing millions in cash flow with investors or loans providing them a swift kick of responsibility.

we were talking about "small to medium" companies but sure

Of course USGAAP is not the only financial reporting standard (I posted a parent comment and I work in the UK on IFRS which is used in almost every other country) but US audit standards are quite close, and converging, to International Standards on Auditing from the IAASB used internationally.

Doesn't take a lot of imagination to replace GAAP with IFRS or your acronym of choice.