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I've had no end of problems with accountants regardless of their certifications, they operate in a domain with an incoherent body of contradictory and highly su

I've had no end of problems with accountants regardless of their certifications, they operate in a domain with an incoherent body of contradictory and highly subjective rules yet make it out to be a science. My conclusion as a whole is that accountancy as a profession rarely delivers any actual value to their customers, where much of the job is compliance theater at best.

ghaff 9mo ago
One of the main issues I had when I took accounting was that you often couldn't figure out things from first principles because the "right" way was whatever the relevant financial accounting standards board said it was. But following that standard is what companies need to do--and therefore has value--even if it's arguably arbitrary (within some general framework).
- design2203 9mo ago
  I don’t really agree with this. Sure there are standards but there are underlying first principles with some quirks to make things balance.
  - ghaff 9mo ago
    I'm not sure we really disagree. Sure, there are foundational principles but how to handle non-routine transactions aren't necessarily at all obvious.
- Verdex 9mo ago
  Yeah ... that's kind of the point. The money doesn't exist, but the violence people will use if their money is misappropriated is very real. Accounting is loophole patch stacked on loophole patch for thousands and thousands of years. It's not intellectually enriching, but like it has the weight of society going back forever with dire consequences when it fails. That's not nothing even if it's boring from a technological point of view. I think of it sort of like git. Technically, any sort of distributed version control would have served our industry just fine. Git didn't need to win, but things are vastly simplified having basically one version control framework to rule them all.
HPsquared 9mo ago
Accounting is a PvP profession. It's you against the taxman and others who want to issue fines etc.
eviks 9mo ago
This conclusion makes as much sense as saying software delivers no value because you've never personally seen an app without bugs

ghaff 9mo ago

One of the main issues I had when I took accounting was that you often couldn't figure out things from first principles because the "right" way was whatever the relevant financial accounting standards board said it was. But following that standard is what companies need to do--and therefore has value--even if it's arguably arbitrary (within some general framework).

design2203 9mo ago
I don’t really agree with this. Sure there are standards but there are underlying first principles with some quirks to make things balance.
- ghaff 9mo ago
  I'm not sure we really disagree. Sure, there are foundational principles but how to handle non-routine transactions aren't necessarily at all obvious.
Verdex 9mo ago
Yeah ... that's kind of the point. The money doesn't exist, but the violence people will use if their money is misappropriated is very real. Accounting is loophole patch stacked on loophole patch for thousands and thousands of years. It's not intellectually enriching, but like it has the weight of society going back forever with dire consequences when it fails. That's not nothing even if it's boring from a technological point of view. I think of it sort of like git. Technically, any sort of distributed version control would have served our industry just fine. Git didn't need to win, but things are vastly simplified having basically one version control framework to rule them all.

HPsquared 9mo ago

Accounting is a PvP profession. It's you against the taxman and others who want to issue fines etc.

eviks 9mo ago

This conclusion makes as much sense as saying software delivers no value because you've never personally seen an app without bugs