Company Anatomy: Accounting as the Heart
My first job out of college was in the accounting department of a law firm. The person who interviewed me for that role described the accounting department to me as the heartbeat of the company; “without them, the lights wouldn’t be on and no one would be getting paid.” It didn’t sound that glamorous to me but I was twenty-one and really wanted to land a job at a law firm. Like many, I bought into the idea of accounting as something that was complicated, boring, and something only boring people did.
I learned quickly that the heart analogy of the accounting department was actually a pretty good one. We took in data from all of the different business units and practice groups and then spit out metrics and analyses like a heart pumping blood to the rest of the body’s critical organs. Without our team, none of the essential needs of the business — from sending out invoices, paying bills and payroll, to measuring the overall health of the business — would be operating.
One of the most impactful moments in my career came when Hurricane Sandy hit New York. My office building was located in the evacuation zone in Manhattan and the storm knocked us out at a particularly difficult time. We were in the midst of critical year end preparations, processing payroll, and were in knee-deep in some large contract negotiations. Adding to all of this, we were the main accounting office for eight offices spread out around the globe. I remember speaking to my boss on the first night after the storm and him telling me that we needed to be in the office the next day. The subways were not fully operational and there were restrictions on cars going into Manhattan. The next day I took a bus from my neighborhood in Queens to get to the Queensborough bridge where I walked from there to my office in the financial district, a solid three and a half hour walk.
I was fairly surprised to learn that no one else from the firm had trekked down to our office to work besides myself, my boss, and a few other accounting department staff. In spite of the emergency environment, myself and the rest of the accounting department made sure that our staff got paid on time, the firms bills were also paid on time, and the rest of the company could continue on with normal business. That experience, among others, showed me two things.
1) Accounting departments don’t always get credit for how important they are and,
2) Accounting technology should also represent the level of dedication and innovation that those who use it show.
On point #1, bookkeepers and accountants are often talked about in terms of annoyance because they do work that other professionals either don’t understand, or don’t want to understand. But accounting processes are business critical processes that should be given due value. We’ve seen multiple times now when accounting departments get shoved under the rug or are manipulated — Dewey & LeBeouf, Enron, WorldCom, etc. But often we fail to recognize the impact they make when they do well — like my experience after Hurricane Sandy. I believe the investment you make into your accounting department is highly correlated to the success of your business. Accounting is supposed to increase transparency and create accountability, thus the stewards of this data should be granted the power and resources they need to make this possible.
On my second point, accounting technology is pitifully behind the times. There are a plethora of project management software programs, customer relationship management systems, recruiting trackers, and human resource management programs. There are shockingly few accounting software systems comparatively and each once requires a fairly arduous onboarding process and specialized skillset to be able to use it properly. Most bookkeepers spend an inordinate amount of time deciphering bespoke software to share even the most basic business reports.
Moreover, I’ve talked to a lot of entrepreneurs that are frustrated with their accounting systems because it feels like learning a new language. They don’t want to have to pay a bookkeeping service to get a basic understanding of their key business metrics or to simply make the problem go away. This problem is even greater for businesses that must account for cryptocurrencies.
At VeriLedger we want this to change. We are building a system that puts accounting at the forefront of managing your business in a way that is easy, and dare I even suggest, fun. Our mission is to make companies the masters of their own financial data. There is a lot of room for improvement in current accounting tech and we plan to be at the forefront of this movement. By building a software that is easy to use, fun, and consolidates cash and cryptocurrencies together, we hope to help do our part to usher in a new paradigm of more responsible, transparent, and innovative economies.
