Is IT accountancy's greatest failure? By Simon Hurst
A habitual reluctance to get to grips with information technology is one of the accountancy profession's biggest problems, according to Simon Hurst.
"Were accountants responsible for the dotcom bubble and burst?" This worrying allegation emerged from a question two weeks ago at the ICAEW IT Faculty annual lecture.
Continued...
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Horses for courses
I have worked in the IT business for 28 years supplying and supporting business accounts software and associated IT systems.
During all my time working with accounting software I have never tried to offer accounting advice to clients.
I have however, advised them on business practices and methods and how to get the most out of their IT systems.
Many times I have said to a client "I'm sorry you'll need to ask your accountant how to deal with that" but what I don't ever recal experiencing is a client saying to me, "my accountant says I should ask your advice on this".
I firmly beleive that there are horses for courses and we should stick to our own fields of expertise. We are experts in our own professions and should dabble in what we aren't expert in.
So please, would accountants stick to accounting and let us IT "experts" stick to IT.
BUT, let's work together to help each other to help our clients.
If any accountants out there are man enough to agree with me and would like some IT advice for your own practice or for your clients please let me know.
Roger Neale
Business Systems Consultant
You can contact me on 07791 983 567 or 07714 670 789
Dear Emily
No I have not. One of the banes of my life has been amateur IT fiddlers who because they can create incomprehensible spreadsheets that are precise calcualtions of twaddle (see dotcom business models) think they can manage and build complex information management systems that deliver value.
These fools usually describe themselves as "accountants"
Excuse me if you're an exception.
Accountants and IT
Dear Emily
Fair play for sticking to your guns
br's g
I am an accountant
Dear Gareth
Yes, I am an accountant and I have, in my time, designed spreadsheets for clients and colleagues to use. But one thing I learnt the hard way was that if you're building complicated spreadsheets or IT systems, it's vital to check them very thoroughly and then get them tested by a colleague as well.
If the accountants of whom you speak didn't do that, then a black mark to them - but we're not all that bad!
M
Gareth - have you got your tongue in your cheek?
If financial accountants did nothing but balance the books then wouldn't they get bored to tears?
In my current job I get to find out about new technology, learn it and use it - and I love that. It's fun and it makes my job easier and it stops me stagnating.
In my view, the more you know about what technology's out there, the better. If it's useful, you learn to use it, if it's not useful, you leave it and go looking for something else.
M
What are accountants for?
Financial accountants - balancing the books and ensuring complience with the law for the benefit of shareholders. That's it.
They're not there to make decisions about a business, it's not their job.
In my experience most of them are completely incapable (why should they be capable?) of managing IT outside the SME sector ie. Here's how to get the money in and pay the bills, use Sage and leave the rest to me. Perfect.
When they are providing any more sophisticated IT advice then their clients are usually as deluded as they are.
Why would you go to a motor mechanic to get a haircut?
Most businesses fail to distinguish between the abstract - information management and the enabling tools - information technology, hence the unending plethora IT disasters.
I suppose Management Accountants (CIMA) are those best suited to
deriving solutions, their rationale encompassing the various schools of expertise.
Carry on the debate
Well, I was trying to be a bit provocative, and I perhaps should have apologised somewhere in the piece for generalising too much. There are many accountants who do an excellent job with their own IT and helping their clients with IT. The bit in Dennis's comments I'm not sure I quite understand is the bit about the classroom. If I suggested that the required skills be acquired in a classroom then that wasn't my intention. There are many different ways of acquiring the knowledge and the skills, and I was very pleased that the ICAEW's CPD approach fully took this into account. However you get the skills, being sure that you know what you need to know gives the confidence to be more pro-active in helping your clients.
Very happy to hear other views - including those that contradict my own.
Simon
That's where we differ
When I read Simon's piece my immediate thought was about Mary Meeker's 'monetizing eyeballs' nonsense. People believed it yet as an accountant by trade it was glaring lunacy to me. Who stood up and dared contradict the Internet Goddess or that other half wit Henry Blodget, who I see is back out there spouting his particular brand of idiocy?
Professional accountants may be Born Dull, but we're not Born Stupid. The challenge has always been to separate fact from fiction and be prepared to be accountable ie, stand up and say what's errant nonsense. It merely requires a little courage and a cold hard stare at facts. Professionals are very good at the 2nd but appallingly bad at the 1st.
In my opinion, we cannot ignore that but must face it.
As to the argument about 'leave it to IT' - has everyone forgotten what IT is supposed to do? Serve the business, not make the business subservient to its needs.
Who usually has oversight to IT? CFO/FD types.
On these points I suspect Simon and I agree but I do believe a healthy dose of acceptance for responsibility is well overdue.
To your last point - I'd suggest the reality is something else: the folk you meet teach you what THEY know - and if I've got this right about the knowledge gap then that's not nearly enough. But as I said - more elsewhere.
The core of Simon's argument
Dennis,
I don't think there's much for you to gripe with in Simon's argument. While the consensus of accountants at the IT Faculty lecture absolved themselves of any dotcom guilt, Simon's reaction was somewhat different.
To quote: "This is exactly why accountancy, perhaps more than accountants, was responsible. Why weren't accountants more involved in these decisions? We would surely expect accountants to have been stressing the need to temper the wild enthusiasm with a bit of solid business analysis. It's hard to escape the conclusion that accountants either didn't put forward the right arguments, or were not sufficiently influential. Accountants either lacked the confidence to participate forcefully enough in the debate, or were viewed as not knowing enough about IT."
In his defence, I also think there's a role for classroom learning, as well as reading and visiting sites like IT Zone. I have to confess that I am not a working accountant, but I spend most of my waking hours talking to accountants and technologists about their experiences. They have taught me how many technology systems work, and some sensible principles about how to exploit them, manage them and mitigate some of the associated risks.
It's a lot less painful and expensive to go into a situation with your eyes half open than to learn from trial and error experience.
John Stokdyk
Technology editor
AccountingWEB.co.uk
Pardon me?
Simon - I'll take issue on the points elsewhere but 2 questions:
1. Who did the financial due diligence?
2. Who co-signed the cheques?
Failing to take responsibility and deflect the arguments sounds altogether reminiscent of the way the Big Four settles its civil cases: pay up but deny liability.
Suggesting: "What exactly do accountants need to know about IT and ebusiness in order to be able to confidently and competently advise their clients? How could I, as an accountant, assess my competence in this vital area?" is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. There' a world of difference between sitting in classes and getting things done in the real world.
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