|
|
|
|
|
Small businesses have started to look at software packages and have been dismayed at their apparent complexity
Mark Sheahan the Inventor in Residence at the British Library Business & IP Centre writes in Engineering & Technology September 2007
I made a mistake of starting in the UK. It has become the nation of accountants who don't want to take risks. I should have started in Japan first
One of the first tips he gives to aspiring inventors is
Don't start in the UK !
Richard Corbett writing in PC Plus (issue 235 October 2005 page 19) says
I hate finance, I'm entitled; I'm a writer. By Law, I'm allowed to be careless, unkempt, impolite and arrogant...When it comes to workimg out figures, my fingers are all thumbs. and I'm not even sure how many I have...You would not believe the frustration of trying to find something (sof03-Jan-2011rom Quicken to the personel overkill of QuickBooks has knocked the market for six.....Of the others, most are immediately discounted as being slightly less useful than a piece of paper, with others seemingly waiting perpetually for the next big version
He goes on
Of course, finding a program was only the first step....I gave up several times in favour of being very depressed and considering trying a bit of paper instead
One computer journalist (PC Plus issue 210 page 241) wrote under the heading - Cash Crisis:
Half and hour with an accounting package is all it takes to convince me of the attraction of lion taming. Still there is no getting away from the fact that my accountant, bank manager, the Inland Revenue, Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise Department and various other agents of darkness all expect m03-Jan-2011s and expenditure relating to travel, paper, ink, quills, blotters, digestive biscuits and similar necessities of business life
That particular writer was willing (and able) to spend £360 on a software package that he went on to say
While (the product) is a good deal better than (the other product), I would not go so far as to suggest that it’s a pleasure to use
That person’s main concern was with the work necessary to make the various types of entries, he continues;
I wish it would let me do everything in one place
Time had been spent looking at software options and the end result was a ‘suck it and see’ compromise
Matthew Parris in The Times (14 August 2004 page 26) wrote an article headlined – There is an alternative to rule by the bean-counters
He starts off by pointing out that even in areas of the most sophisticated technology there are many things that ‘nobody knows’ but in everyday life we generally use weighted logic (common sense) to arrive at a satisfactory compromise as in the case of being sure to take a waterproof as well as the sun cream on vacation even though the weather forecast says ‘sunny times ahead’. He then asks whether the business culture is losing its grip on common sense. He quotes from J K Galbraith, the world renowned Canadian economist
The financial world sustains a large, active, well rewarded community, based on compelled but seemingly sophisticated ignorance [who]…do not know and normally do not know that they do not know
Matthew then goes on
I observe this [lack of knowledge] to be a failing particularly prevalent among accountants. Theirs is a career at whose centre are pieces of paper or (these days) screens. On the screens are columns and boxes. Against the columns, or in the boxes, figures have to be placed. Mathematics is then performed upon the figures; and “bottom lines” are derived
Heart sinking for an accountant are two kinds of default: a blank box or figures that do not add up…..A spreadsheet in which no entry is left blank and everything adds up is much to be preferred to something with white spaces all over it and no bottom line
Thus is presented a document that gives every appearance of good information and sound numbers. Of course even this will be tested against reality: bankruptcy is also part of an accountant’s experience
In the article Matthew talks about the way in which engineers have to take responsibility for their mistakes, they too use spreadsheets but cannot leave out data nor can they guess at the entries they make. Yet, in Britain, our Boardrooms are pretty much controlled by accountants who will not be able to accept the need for investment without their spreadsheets first showing dramatic, short term returns. Back in the ‘good old days’ new technology was taken up by people prepared to pioneer the unknown without necessarily considering the economics. Examples such as domestic electricity, the telephone, cars and airplanes can be cited as cases where the existing options, gas and coal, telegraph, horses and ocean liners were far superior, economically, at the time
Comments and suggestions for improving this site are appreciated and should be addressed to administration
Last Update 08-Jan-2012
Date first published 08-Nov-2005