I am no an accoiuntant, but it ALWAYS astounds me how a company can file late...
In this day of BIM, WIP, HR, Admin, and Acccounting dashboards, and all sorts of databases that OUGHT make it illegal to be dicking around in multi-person, multi-group, multi-department/multi-division spreadsheets that are often a bitch and 2/3 to synch up on a weekly basis not to mention a quarterly basis, the SEC and IRS should come down HARD AS HELL on companies that miss their Call.
How hard is it to have a morning and evening balance check, with master numbers worked against the daily check-writing database numbers? How hard is it to make database tables that have the requisite on/off switches for forecast vs received receivables and forecast/vs paid payables? So easy, to me. As one who occasionally spends 2 days to almost a week randomly making a business plan of accounting and HR ideas for a notional product, I feel that if I had rudimentary programming skills, and a grade-A accountant and bookkeeper at my side, I could do more with Lotus Approach than the likes of Deltek and others -- at least for companies smaller than 100 to 200 employees. Some companies do not or FLLLLLAT OUT refuse to understand or embrace the concept of bounds-checking for reasonableness. Upper/lower limits for income and expenses and forecasts and the like would prevent companies from suffering unholy hell of a misplaced comma or an extra decimal in the wrong direction. Manually shifting entries from one subsid to the parent office is a waste of time and risks introducing errors that compound vagaries, frustrate well-meaning employees, and often only serve to satisfy management that has no appreciation for databases. If 90% of things are the same per quarter, and turnover is low, then a database capturing numbers, with enforced accurate capture of expenses, expense reports, purchases, write-offs, payrolls, actual vs projected taxes, and more, could literally make it possible for many companies to self-audied at the push of a button. The worst that might then go wrong for some would be pilferage, untested defective inventory, or outright bad purchasing habits, or willful failure to set aside upcoming, due taxes, or willfully paying payroll late.
Gods, some companies are sooooo lame or just asking for a financial ass-probing/audit or outright kicking. Spreadsheets for analyzing, databases for capture and actionables!
Now, I will probablly go and read that report to see whether THEIR problems stemmed from shitty management or just willful old habits dying hard.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
