5 ms·

One more thing to add to this: scrutinizing transactions isn’t just for catching bad stuff. It’s also a way to spot the good. For my dad, it’s a way to spot u

One more thing to add to this: scrutinizing transactions isn’t just for catching bad stuff. It’s also a way to spot the good. For my dad, it’s a way to spot up-and-coming salespeople who are punching above their weight, for noticing high-dollar sales to repeat customers and making sure that those folks are well cared-for. It also tells him what bikes are selling well and helps him make strategic decisions for buying. For your SaaS, it might be noticing patterns across your customer base and using these patterns to refine your product to cater to a certain facet of customer that seems to like your product, or spotting potential transactional issues before they cause a churn.

ovao 5y ago
To be fair, in this case, the author was tracking his KPIs, and those suggested that all was hunky dory, but what he wasn’t tracking were the actual payments being received against invoices that never converted to an open state. In this case, the invoices were left in a draft state on Stripe’s side. And who could’ve expected that they’d need to occasionally check for draft invoices? It seems like it wasn’t made clear in the docs that invoices aren’t finalized in these circumstances until later.
- kelnos 5y ago
  That feels weird to me. If some dashboard is telling me "nice, your revenue is growing!", but the money actually flowing into the bank account doesn't look right, I'm going to investigate. Immediately. I'm not going to just trust those metrics when the actual real-world measure doesn't match.
- ckdarby 5y ago
  What is weird is how their accounting software didn't raise 5 different alerts when they have AR outside of their due dates. I have a small business and mine raises alerts all over the place when something slips the due date for AR. Is it just me thinking this is actually crazy that they didn't notice even through a quarter closing? One could argue they're a small business but then how does the business not notice multiple months of AR being delayed.
- jallen_dot_dev 5y ago
  This sounds like something good old fashioned double-entry bookkeeping would have caught immediately (hunky dory income from Stripe seemingly falling into a black hole). No need to scrutinize every transaction until you notice the ledger isn't adding up.
  - Chirael 5y ago
    It sounds like a classic example of how accrual bookkeeping can be misleading due to timing issues (the sale has already been booked even though the cash hasn’t been collected). I know it has other advantages vs. cash bookkeeping, but cash is so much easier to understand that I have always chosen it whenever possible (i.e., for a service business).
    - eru 5y ago
      If you have the data, either form of bookkeeping should be 'just' a shift in presentation? (I don't know whether the software used makes this easy?)
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        Yes, a lot of software can toggle between them via a trivial UI toggle
        eru 5y ago
        Thanks! Btw, you could also fit this into the conceptual framework of accrual accounting, if you modelled counterparty risk.
        HWR_14 5y ago
        Could you? I thought accrual methods weren't allowed to think about future probabilities and had to decide on whether to recognize an event or not. I mean, if you had counterparty risk insurance, that would make sense. So I guess if you treated yourself as self insured, you would could create the same accounting treatment?
floodyberry- 5y ago
Poring over individual transactions sounds like a terrible, if not impossible, way to identify aggregate trends
- wildmanx 5y ago
  Most of the time, the brain does this better than any machine. That's why we don't have self-driving cars yet.
  - floodyberry- 5y ago
    Unless you're Kim Peek you're not doing inventory or trends in your head.
- chrissnell 5y ago
  You’re absolutely right and to be clear, my dad also pours over data roll-ups, charts, etc., but he’s never stopped looking at receipts. It’s a habit he’s had since the 70s. Back in the day, he used these electro-mechanical cash registers that had very loud typewriter-like receipt printers. At the end of the day, the manager would run the journal and my dad—-in his office across the store—tell you what kind of a sales day it was simply by listening to the sound of the register doing the end-of-day sequence.
  - cushychicken 5y ago
    There's a persistent meme on HN that it's straightforward to make a business that "runs on autopilot", with no human intervention. I'll admit that such a business is possible, but I'm deeply skeptical of the durability of such a business. I'd much rather bet on a business owner like your dad, who's deeply involved. Sounds like your dad's receipt reading was a great habit to have, and paid dividends far outside of just "making sure things were running OK on a daily basis".
    - chrissnell 5y ago
      LOL, it's true. The idea of the quick exit is also part of the HN culture and I think that would be very foreign to people like my dad. People who build small but profitable, businesses and run them for the long-term are underappreciated in the tech world. I don't know about you but if I was building a SaaS, I'd be looking for the tech equivalent of In-n-Out Burger: something you build and spend most of your time making sure that it does the same thing consistently for years on end, and just enjoy the profits and dependability.
shalmanese 5y ago
> The SaaS GUIs sort of work for the high level stuff but there's way too much information to decode the Business. > You get used to it, though. Your brain does the translating. I don't even see the code. > All I see is up and coming salespeople, valuable customers, strategic products. > You want a drink?

ovao 5y ago

To be fair, in this case, the author was tracking his KPIs, and those suggested that all was hunky dory, but what he wasn’t tracking were the actual payments being received against invoices that never converted to an open state. In this case, the invoices were left in a draft state on Stripe’s side. And who could’ve expected that they’d need to occasionally check for draft invoices? It seems like it wasn’t made clear in the docs that invoices aren’t finalized in these circumstances until later.

kelnos 5y ago
That feels weird to me. If some dashboard is telling me "nice, your revenue is growing!", but the money actually flowing into the bank account doesn't look right, I'm going to investigate. Immediately. I'm not going to just trust those metrics when the actual real-world measure doesn't match.
ckdarby 5y ago
What is weird is how their accounting software didn't raise 5 different alerts when they have AR outside of their due dates. I have a small business and mine raises alerts all over the place when something slips the due date for AR. Is it just me thinking this is actually crazy that they didn't notice even through a quarter closing? One could argue they're a small business but then how does the business not notice multiple months of AR being delayed.
jallen_dot_dev 5y ago
This sounds like something good old fashioned double-entry bookkeeping would have caught immediately (hunky dory income from Stripe seemingly falling into a black hole). No need to scrutinize every transaction until you notice the ledger isn't adding up.
- Chirael 5y ago
  It sounds like a classic example of how accrual bookkeeping can be misleading due to timing issues (the sale has already been booked even though the cash hasn’t been collected). I know it has other advantages vs. cash bookkeeping, but cash is so much easier to understand that I have always chosen it whenever possible (i.e., for a service business).
  - eru 5y ago
    If you have the data, either form of bookkeeping should be 'just' a shift in presentation? (I don't know whether the software used makes this easy?)
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      Yes, a lot of software can toggle between them via a trivial UI toggle
      - eru 5y ago
        Thanks! Btw, you could also fit this into the conceptual framework of accrual accounting, if you modelled counterparty risk.
        HWR_14 5y ago
        Could you? I thought accrual methods weren't allowed to think about future probabilities and had to decide on whether to recognize an event or not. I mean, if you had counterparty risk insurance, that would make sense. So I guess if you treated yourself as self insured, you would could create the same accounting treatment?

floodyberry- 5y ago

Poring over individual transactions sounds like a terrible, if not impossible, way to identify aggregate trends

wildmanx 5y ago
Most of the time, the brain does this better than any machine. That's why we don't have self-driving cars yet.
- floodyberry- 5y ago
  Unless you're Kim Peek you're not doing inventory or trends in your head.
chrissnell 5y ago
You’re absolutely right and to be clear, my dad also pours over data roll-ups, charts, etc., but he’s never stopped looking at receipts. It’s a habit he’s had since the 70s. Back in the day, he used these electro-mechanical cash registers that had very loud typewriter-like receipt printers. At the end of the day, the manager would run the journal and my dad—-in his office across the store—tell you what kind of a sales day it was simply by listening to the sound of the register doing the end-of-day sequence.
- cushychicken 5y ago
  There's a persistent meme on HN that it's straightforward to make a business that "runs on autopilot", with no human intervention. I'll admit that such a business is possible, but I'm deeply skeptical of the durability of such a business. I'd much rather bet on a business owner like your dad, who's deeply involved. Sounds like your dad's receipt reading was a great habit to have, and paid dividends far outside of just "making sure things were running OK on a daily basis".
  - chrissnell 5y ago
    LOL, it's true. The idea of the quick exit is also part of the HN culture and I think that would be very foreign to people like my dad. People who build small but profitable, businesses and run them for the long-term are underappreciated in the tech world. I don't know about you but if I was building a SaaS, I'd be looking for the tech equivalent of In-n-Out Burger: something you build and spend most of your time making sure that it does the same thing consistently for years on end, and just enjoy the profits and dependability.

shalmanese 5y ago

> The SaaS GUIs sort of work for the high level stuff but there's way too much information to decode the Business. > You get used to it, though. Your brain does the translating. I don't even see the code. > All I see is up and coming salespeople, valuable customers, strategic products. > You want a drink?