As you well know, a fabelised version of a true story can be made to give any impression that the person writing it wishes to give. The following alternative can be presented:
A small but growing group of people ran a co-operative structured business in a frontier territory. A professional accountant from a well-established land came to the frontier territory, having [url=http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue ... l:1h4x6hjn]heard[/url:1h4x6hjn] that business was picking up, but that there as a lack of proper accountancy.
The accountant stumbled upon the co-operative, the only one of its kind in a land so far dominated by individual traders, and spoke to some of the people in it.
"I'm an accountant" he said. "I see that you don't really have a system for keeping your accounts".
The Head of Administration said, "You're right, we don't. The Administration department does it at the moment, but we're hardly professionals. In fact, we had a big problem a few months ago when we spent [i:1h4x6hjn]weeks[/i:1h4x6hjn] just trying to work out what our net worth was, and some people say we didn't even get that right".
"I see" said the accountant. "Why don't I design for you a professional accountancy system, based on the accountancy systems that I know back in my homeland, with a new Accounts Department that'll take over most of the accounting work of the Administration Department, except for auditing, and build up some proper accountancy practice there? I won't even charge you for it - all I want is to get to be an accountant in this co-operative, working with the accountancy system that I designed".
"Ahh, an excellent idea!" said the Head of Administration. "Why don't you put it in writing for the Board"?
So, the accountant put it in writing for the Board. There was much discussion. One of the Board members said,
"But this will take far too many people! We're in the process of opening a second shop, and I'd far rather that we put all our resources into doing that".
"No problem," said the accountant, "I'll do all the work, and I'm no good at shop-fitting anyway. All I'll need is perhaps one clerk to help me out, and he/she could just be part-time".
"This accountancy system is too much like the one from your home country, and not enough like the one from mine" said another Board member, who used to teach finance back in his home country. "We should do it [i:1h4x6hjn]this[/i:1h4x6hjn] way instead".
"No, no," said the accountant, "there are good reasons for believing that way to produce inaccurate results", and then went onto explain the reasons. Much discussion ensued, and, eventually, a new kind of accountancy system was developed quite distinct from that which prevails in either's home country. The Board eventually approved the rules, and it, and the Administration department, appointed the accountant as an official accountant of the co-operative.
The accountant started setting about putting in place the procedure for drawing up the accounts. The new Accounts Administrator (whom one of the Board members had insisted be appointed to oversee the work of the accountant, and who happened to know one of the members of the Board from back home) said that there should be three accountants, not one.
"I thought people were concerned that we'd need too many accountants" the accountant said, "but, no matter, I'll set about recruiting two more", so the accountant wrote up an application form, which contained some practical accountancy tests, given that there was no recognised accountancy qualification in the frontier town.
"Hang on a minute", said the Accounts Administrator, "that test is far too difficult. Why don't you just ask them one or two questions about why they want to be accountants instead?"
"Don't be silly," said the accountant, "that won't tell us whether these people would make good accountants or not. Just imagine if one of them got the accounts wrong - we'd all be in trouble".
"But this is a [i:1h4x6hjn]frontier[/i:1h4x6hjn] land", the Administrator insisted, "we want people here to do things that they didn't do back home. And who said an accountant had to be good at adding up or know anything about double-entry bookkeeping, anyway?"
Realising that the Administrator was not talking sense, the accountant did not change his test. Indeed, the accountant had, in the meantime, got lots of other accountants from all over the place coming and joining the co-operative, and had even managed to get the co-operative mentioned on a news programme back home as the first in the frontier land to use professional accountancy techniques. Two of the new accountants who had come to the co-operative by the first accountant's encouragement duly passed the test, but still needed approval from the Board before being appointed.
Meanwhile, some other people had started complaining that the accountancy system was too much like the one in the accountant's home country, and not enough like the one in theirs.
"But we already decided that," the accountant pointed out, "and invented a whole new system based on both the two systems combined. The Board approved it. We discussed it for ages. Can't you just let us get on with doing some accounts now? You'll see that the system works just fine".
"No, no", the people insisted, "this system is so bad we must change it now. And look at how you've put it into operation - all that paperwork! We never used to have to do all that paperwork before".
"We do the paperwork now so that we can keep a track of things or else we'll get in a terrible muddle later," pointed out the accountant. "Remember what happened when you tried to calculate your net worth last time? You had to work everything out from scratch. This way is much easier in the long-run. That's how it's always done back where I come from, and where you come from, too, come to think of it."
"But this is a [i:1h4x6hjn]frontier[/i:1h4x6hjn]," they replied; "we need to do things differently here. Who said we can't have a system that doesn't need paperwork now and doesn't create a problem later? Why can't we have our cake and eat it?"
And so the Board convened and replaced the accountancy manual that the accountant had drafted with a piece of paper saying "We'll do all the work later. We [i:1h4x6hjn]can[/i:1h4x6hjn] have our cake and eat it".
The accountant said, "Are you insane? This is a recipe for disaster. You'll never get accurate accounts like this, especially if people all work on their own, different accounting systems from their own home countries".
"Are you threatening to make the accounts a disaster if we don't use your rules?" the Board retorted. "You'll use our rules, and like them, so there".
A few people then pointed out that, actually, the new rules didn't even require people to keep a record of what they'd sold, or what the price of anything was. The Board said, "Well, we can just add those bits to the piece of paper", but never got around to doing that.
At the same time, one of the staff queried his wages, and asked the Administration Department, who had always handled wage queries in the past, to look into it for him.
The accountant said, "Ahh, but, actually, that's for the Accounts Department now. Remember, the Accounts Department does all accounting now, apart from auditing. See? It's in the rules."
The Deputy Head of Administration said, "What!? You mean you the [i:1h4x6hjn]Accounts[/i:1h4x6hjn] department does [i:1h4x6hjn]wage queries[/i:1h4x6hjn] now? But the Administration department has [i:1h4x6hjn]always[/i:1h4x6hjn] done that. Look - it says here in the staff guide that that's what the administration department does. And look: the rules say that the Administration department is responsible for payroll!"
"Payroll isn't the same as wage queries", pointed out the accountant, and anyway the new rules make it clear that it's the Accounts Department. The Accounts Administrator agreed.
"But this is preposterous!" spluttered the Deputy Head of Administration. "[i:1h4x6hjn]I[/i:1h4x6hjn] never realised that wage queries would fall under the Accountancy Department. They should have told me that in advance".
"But I did ", said the accountant, pointing out where he had made that clear in the past.
"But you didn't make it clear [i:1h4x6hjn]enough[/i:1h4x6hjn]", said the Deputy Head of Administration.
"Right, I've had enough of this: I'm going to ask the Board to change the rules again, and have the Administration Department check all the Accountancy Department's accounts, and correct any errors in them before submitting them".
"But that's silly," said the accountant: "that puts us back where we started, only, now, instead of one set of people doing the accounts, you've got two".
"I don't care," said the Deputy Head of Administration, "I don't think you're a very good accountant anyway. Look at all those forms you'd have us fill in! And look at how difficult you made it for other people to be accountants!"
And so the Board passed the new rules. And, the next week, the Board said, "Actually, we're fed up of this whole accountancy thing. People keep saying they don't like it. I know we haven't actually given it the chance to produce any accounts yet, but [i:1h4x6hjn]obviously[/i:1h4x6hjn] it's not what we thought it was going to be, so we'll have to change it. We'll create a new Accounts and Administration Department. Accountants can help out, but, really, it's all run by administrators". And so they did. The accountants, meanwhile, seeing the unfolding absurdity, all left (bar one who never really liked writing things down in advance anyway, and would much rather have to work it all out at the end, even if it made the results inaccurate), and formed a lobby group to persuade the government of the frontier land to require proper auditing.
The co-operative, meanwhile, carried on as normal for a while, until its next set of accounts were due. And then realised that it had no idea what anything was worth, or what they were going to charge for anything, and that, actually, they were missing a great deal of money (they had no idea where it had gone; they suspected that someone might have stolen it, but they couldn't be sure because nobody had kept records of anything) and would not be able to go on for much longer unless they made big cutbacks. So, reluctantly, they sold their second shop, laid off a lot of staff, and went back to selling a few odds and ends from their run-down shop. And, as the bailiffs moved in, one of the members of the Board could be heard to mutter, "I can't work out where we've gone wrong, but I'm sure that it's all that accountant's fault".