Mr. Campbell: We have our financial meeting next week with the CFO.
Mr. Chambers: Right, he wants to see the books.  Are they ready?
Mr. Campbell: Yes, they are ready.  I want the the bean counters to take another look at them.
Mr. Chambers: Good idea.  The CFO is very picky.  We need to dot all the i's and cross all the t's.
Mr. Campbell: Definitely, you and I will check it again once accounting is done with it.

Dot your i's and cross your t's.  Learn how to use this expression in the workplace and where the idiom came from.  The history of this expression comes from a Navy term, cross the t's.  This was a submarine move used to destroy your enemy.  The idea was to be at a "T" formation to them so all your weapons could fire on your enemy at the same time.  You want your submarine to be the top part of the "T."  The enemy would only be able to use it's forward weapons on you.  You would easily defeat them.  You can read the whole history of the expression here.

Now days, the expression means to finish everything completely.  You want to be very thorough with no mistakes.  When you write a letter, or email, or article you always have the letters "i" and "t."  Sometimes when we write we forget to put the dot above the "i"or cross the "t."  We should always go back and read what we wrote and make the corrections.

So, this expression means to go back and fix any mistakes.  The goal is perfection.  This expression is not only used in writing tasks.  It has changed to be used for any job.

In the example above, the Chief Financial Officer is coming to the store to view the financial books.  Mr. Campbell and Mr. Chambers think that he is very picky, he likes perfection.  So they want to be sure that there are no mistakes and everything is complete.

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