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Same with accounts generation. Almost certainly most operations accounts and tax filings could be fully auto generated from their bookkeeping - if the bookkeep
by neilwilson 6y ago
Same with accounts generation.
Almost certainly most operations accounts and tax filings could be fully auto generated from their bookkeeping - if the bookkeeping was good enough.
You could do that by constraining the bookkeeping and adding some intelligence to the reporting.
So why do bookkeeping firms like Xero stop at basic bookkeeping? Because they sell via accountants - who make a lot of money piping data from one computer system into another to change the format a bit.
Enabling certain people to maintain their mystique is lower hanging fruit than pushing for full automation.
Plus who wants to program accounts systems...
- emerongi 6y agoFor basic bookkeeping, yes, you can generate all the needed reports and tax filings from the books. I'm in Europe and I've had a couple of companies where I had no accountant - I just entered all the transactions in the software and it generated all the necessary filings for me. Payroll is also auto-generated, taxes handled etc. For complex accounting and analysis you still need accountants and business analysts. It's a different type of job in that case though: instead of handling the common cases, you handle the edge cases that the software is unable to deal with.
- jimnotgym 6y ago'Almost certainly most operations accounts and tax filings could be fully auto generated from their bookkeeping - if the bookkeeping was good enough.' I firmly disagree. I am supposed to be reviewing accounts right now....accruals, prepayments, deferred income, the difference between capital and expense, capital allowances, R&D allowances, dividends vs salaries, consolidation of groups. The average bookkeeper is not expected to work at this level. That all requires judgement and experience and expertise. That is why Xero stop at the easy bit
- auggierose 6y agoThat sounds all pretty trivial.
- arkadiytehgraet 6y agoI wonder if you have worked as an accountant? Or at least took some intro courses in the area? Or at a bare minimum took a look at common corporate financial statements? This is such a typical dismissive reaction by a person who has ZERO insights into the domain. If it is so trivial, why don't you do it and disrupt the market? Some very trivial millions are waiting for you to just come and get them, what's holding you back?
- auggierose 6y agoI don't do it because I care more about my time these days than about making millions :-) And why would I want to do something that is so obviously boring?
- arkadiytehgraet 6y agoTrivial stuff takes what, an hour, a week, a month at maximum to do? So you are trading the opportunity to be financially independent for the rest of your life for what, your free time on a span of one month? Yeah, that does sound reasonable.
- auggierose 6y agoGood, then we agree :-)
- erikbye 6y agoOstensibly you’d rather spend your time on HN than making millions.
- auggierose 6y agoDefinitely! There is no doubt about that :-)
- giantDinosaur 6y agoTrivial in the sense of integer multiplication being easy; non-trivial in that it's full of weird & wonderful business rules, many of which are barely written, and strange interactions between different markets and contracts etc. Half of it is just the business & people skills to extract the necessary information. Harder than you'd think, and that's just asking people for stuff!