our auditors and our coffee

Debit to the window, credit to the door, journalise everything else, it use to be so simple, O=A+L.

The building is filling up with auditors, as we approach year end, they are visibly justifying their fees. It now takes up to 12 months before our financials statements are signed off, what happened? When did it all get so very complicated?

Lawyers and Accountants are the only two types of professionals who you will see on the directors lists of most company letterheads. These professions have this ability to get in there, even if they don't have the required skill sets they worm there way into the space. It all stems from a very efficient graduate training scheme, where they take on batches of graduates, pay them a minimum wage and then release them like spores into host industries. Of course, their predecessors pull them in, employing who they know and so the cycle continues unabated.

One of the outcomes is increasing complexity in almost every facet of business, because they need to create "rules" that are designed around their core competencies - accountants count the "dead men" while lawyers "create and handle any disputes on the battlefield."

My background is construction management and in my final year of university we had one of the old wise men present a new course called 'Construction Law.' He said that in his days (which were not that long ago) there was no such thing, contracts were written on a piece of paper which stated that one party would construct the building by such a date for such an amount of money and that the other party would pay 'x' by way of compensation, they shook hands (old skool) and this piece of paper was then tucked away in a file in the bottom draw.

When we started the course he said that, he knew of three textbooks which had been written on the subject but that many more would 'soon' follow because companies were now organising their business' to include a legal team who would handle (and create) their disputes.

In his time they never had lawyers (or accountants) to complicate matters, they knew what was required and they got on with it. Of course things evolve but this evolution isn't as glamorous or effective as people suggest. And as proof, today we've got a group of at least 20 people here and they are going to be here for the next four months at least - doing what? Checking up on things, I guess we do like our auditors and I think that they like being here, it must be the free coffee.