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That is an absurd cadence. It is extremely expensive to do this reporting; an an enormous amount of useless activity is slaved to providing it in companies that

That is an absurd cadence. It is extremely expensive to do this reporting; an an enormous amount of useless activity is slaved to providing it in companies that need to. This is literally a call for more bureaucracy theater. The obvious net effect is that companies would structure themselves to no longer have the reporting requirement, as the cost of reporting exceeds the benefits. That would not benefit society at large.

mixdup 8mo ago
The reason quarters take so long to close is because the numbers are being fiddled with. There's no reason someone shouldn't be able to close a quarter and report the numbers with the automation we have today in technology, meaning without some magic AI/LLM, other than people are constantly trying to reclassify expenses or income in a way that saves the quarter Why, after 30-40 years of modern computing in accounting does it still take a month to close the books? I worked at a public company that was $100m revenue yearly and it took a whole month to close the books. Absolute insanity. Even AT&T or Verizon or GM should be able to report at least weekly.
- jandrewrogers 8mo ago
  This is a naive view of what reporting entails and the difficulty of coalescing a report that meets the requirements of the audience the report is for. It isn't a numbers dump from a database, it requires substantial interpretation of things that the database does not and cannot contain. It isn't fiddling with the numbers, it is that the numbers can't contain things relevant to their representation for external parties as a legal matter. When I have been in positions where reporting was a necessary part of my job, reporting related activity probably consumed 1/3 of my time. Even in highly optimized contexts, it consumes a stupid amount of time and the impact on the consumers of those reports is often quite low. It is almost a total waste of time. There should be some reporting but the current cadence and requirements is way too high for many large companies. Reporting doesn't have infinite ROI.
  - Dylan16807 8mo ago
    Why can't that interpretation be done earlier in the process and then put into the database? Isn't it the same amount of transactions to be interpreted no matter what the reporting period is?
    - jandrewrogers 8mo ago
      Do you understand that as a legal matter these must be good faith representations of the current state to the best of your knowledge? You can’t serve up intentionally stale information without inviting legal repercussions. The preparation process takes weeks. This is a very serious legal matter. These are being revised and updated right up until the point they are released to provide the most accurate reporting possible. You gravely underestimate the legal seriousness of these reports.
      - Dylan16807 8mo ago
        The category changes over time? So let's try to think of solutions instead of giving up. A law that requires daily disclosure can change how the reporting works so you don't need to update those category decisions 200 times.
      - davorak 8mo ago
        > You can’t serve up intentionally stale information without inviting legal repercussions. > These are being revised and updated right up until the point they are released to provide the most accurate reporting possible. > You gravely underestimate the legal seriousness of these reports. All of these seem look like an argument for additional automation.
        Esophagus4 7mo ago
        It is not a technology problem.
        davorak 7mo ago
- FireBeyond 8mo ago
  My fiancee is the accounting manager at a university. Why? Because people don't submit expenses on time, invoices are delayed or some still done manually, and all manner of things. Even for them it can take a couple of weeks. While there may be some "hijinks" (in their case, institutional advancement likes to steadily rearrange endowments or donations to take advantage of offers to match donations, etc., but that's not really a delay, as accounting basically says things like "No, that gift has already been spent"). Even with things like Concur or Expensify, expenses aren't classified on time, submitted for reimbursement, etc.
gzread 8mo ago
That was the point - it's absurd as a manual process, and forces automation.
joquarky 8mo ago
> an an enormous amount of useless activity is slaved to providing it in companies that need to Curious why the word "slaved" was used here instead of the much more nominal "employed".
strogonoff 8mo ago
[dead]
array_key_first 7mo ago
The argument is that the reason quarterly earnings take so long to report is that they're done quarterly. If there were done daily, they would take no time at all, and would be close to free.
fnordpiglet 7mo ago
It’s only expensive because it happens so episodically that it doesn’t require automation. Automation leads to scale leads to reduction in cost. The analysis humans do on top of it can be done through a periodic filing, but the totality of disclosures can be done continuously other than the periodic human opinion fluff. The notes and details can be filed as they are relevant without undue burden. (I.e., a large onetime expense can be explained as it happens - I assure you it is being explained internally at that time in more detail). I was at a large Wall Street firm which closed its books daily and has done for decades. They disclose daily to the fed and others. It was work for sure but the benefits of constantly knowing your business far out weighed the cost. So I don’t buy that it turns into more theater, you can’t do theater at a continuous pace. Theatre takes time, and the level of theatre increases as the pace of disclosure decreases.

mixdup 8mo ago

The reason quarters take so long to close is because the numbers are being fiddled with. There's no reason someone shouldn't be able to close a quarter and report the numbers with the automation we have today in technology, meaning without some magic AI/LLM, other than people are constantly trying to reclassify expenses or income in a way that saves the quarter Why, after 30-40 years of modern computing in accounting does it still take a month to close the books? I worked at a public company that was $100m revenue yearly and it took a whole month to close the books. Absolute insanity. Even AT&T or Verizon or GM should be able to report at least weekly.

jandrewrogers 8mo ago
This is a naive view of what reporting entails and the difficulty of coalescing a report that meets the requirements of the audience the report is for. It isn't a numbers dump from a database, it requires substantial interpretation of things that the database does not and cannot contain. It isn't fiddling with the numbers, it is that the numbers can't contain things relevant to their representation for external parties as a legal matter. When I have been in positions where reporting was a necessary part of my job, reporting related activity probably consumed 1/3 of my time. Even in highly optimized contexts, it consumes a stupid amount of time and the impact on the consumers of those reports is often quite low. It is almost a total waste of time. There should be some reporting but the current cadence and requirements is way too high for many large companies. Reporting doesn't have infinite ROI.
- Dylan16807 8mo ago
  Why can't that interpretation be done earlier in the process and then put into the database? Isn't it the same amount of transactions to be interpreted no matter what the reporting period is?
  - jandrewrogers 8mo ago
    Do you understand that as a legal matter these must be good faith representations of the current state to the best of your knowledge? You can’t serve up intentionally stale information without inviting legal repercussions. The preparation process takes weeks. This is a very serious legal matter. These are being revised and updated right up until the point they are released to provide the most accurate reporting possible. You gravely underestimate the legal seriousness of these reports.
    - Dylan16807 8mo ago
      The category changes over time? So let's try to think of solutions instead of giving up. A law that requires daily disclosure can change how the reporting works so you don't need to update those category decisions 200 times.
    - davorak 8mo ago
      > You can’t serve up intentionally stale information without inviting legal repercussions. > These are being revised and updated right up until the point they are released to provide the most accurate reporting possible. > You gravely underestimate the legal seriousness of these reports. All of these seem look like an argument for additional automation.
      - Esophagus4 7mo ago
        It is not a technology problem.
        davorak 7mo ago
FireBeyond 8mo ago
My fiancee is the accounting manager at a university. Why? Because people don't submit expenses on time, invoices are delayed or some still done manually, and all manner of things. Even for them it can take a couple of weeks. While there may be some "hijinks" (in their case, institutional advancement likes to steadily rearrange endowments or donations to take advantage of offers to match donations, etc., but that's not really a delay, as accounting basically says things like "No, that gift has already been spent"). Even with things like Concur or Expensify, expenses aren't classified on time, submitted for reimbursement, etc.

gzread 8mo ago

That was the point - it's absurd as a manual process, and forces automation.

joquarky 8mo ago

> an an enormous amount of useless activity is slaved to providing it in companies that need to Curious why the word "slaved" was used here instead of the much more nominal "employed".

strogonoff 8mo ago

[dead]

array_key_first 7mo ago

The argument is that the reason quarterly earnings take so long to report is that they're done quarterly. If there were done daily, they would take no time at all, and would be close to free.

fnordpiglet 7mo ago

It’s only expensive because it happens so episodically that it doesn’t require automation. Automation leads to scale leads to reduction in cost. The analysis humans do on top of it can be done through a periodic filing, but the totality of disclosures can be done continuously other than the periodic human opinion fluff. The notes and details can be filed as they are relevant without undue burden. (I.e., a large onetime expense can be explained as it happens - I assure you it is being explained internally at that time in more detail). I was at a large Wall Street firm which closed its books daily and has done for decades. They disclose daily to the fed and others. It was work for sure but the benefits of constantly knowing your business far out weighed the cost. So I don’t buy that it turns into more theater, you can’t do theater at a continuous pace. Theatre takes time, and the level of theatre increases as the pace of disclosure decreases.