accountancy – Page 2 – Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord

Some quick notes on Audit / service development

An invitation for co-development or I go it alone…
[This also being a copyright / idea claim]

Undecided what name will stick; either
Ethics Test Services, or
Autonomous Judgement/Decision Analysis Services;
Because it is about checking the morality baked into, or emerging from, algorithmic decisions and/or decisions and conclusions from autonomous and self-learning systems;
Contra “Computer says No”, obviously.
If you’d want to learn what that refers to; see here;
[Intermission] Whereas some in European politics (sic) discuss to impose a limit where autonomous systems without one human in the loop anywhere would have to have an ‘explanatory’ function that can display in layman’s terms how it arrived at some decision, and that being contestable. But the questions are: What if the ‘system’ were hosted outside the EU (and just like inflation, Gresham will obviously apply), and what if (maybe ‘when’; we’re talking politicians here) such a very first step towards transparency may still not make it, and what if as a cheap escape trick the human would and could only click ‘OK’ — could (s)he be culpable?
Elements would be:
- Process correctness,
- Data correctness,
- Exceptions handling; essential and necessary.
This, in Standard Form and with an overall human (me; run to the hills) judgement both over process/systems quality and over moral/ethical admissability;
Will have to extend the notions of ethics, morality et al. here; e.g., how humans make decisions in the first place with all their errors of all kinds, what to do when systems/humans don’t follow morality and/or the decisions from the systems.

So, everyone (dabbling in this space from now on,) will pay me serious license fees for using the above ideas in commercial services… [note: I’m serious]
And/or all help is welcomed.

To add:

[Would deliver above services to this address for expense reimbursement only …]

Plusquote: LogiC PA

Be ware, dear people. Recently, an accountant, of the CPA type, came with the following quote:

The partner model isn’t part of the problem with our industry sector, because look at banks; they left the partner model ages ago and still got into trouble recently.”

To think that such ‘logic’ considers themselves competent to even come within miles’ range of anything to do with money, let alone approving designed-for-hypercomplexity (with the hubris element in hyper) bookkeeping — as unfathomable complex as the finance sector had concocted by the quants, theoretical physicists that were experts in completely-outside-of-human-reality math … but hey, they hadn’t a partner model to shield them from reality …

Typical of the thing that brought POTUS-elect into Office. And the proper response here of course is to laugh in their face for their stupidity; so many (all?) religions and not-religions have the eternity of afterlife where the above will be punished to no end. Lost their soul, can’t be helped.

Oh well:

[Re-using an old one, and recalling a Clan song; from Porto’s Casa de Musica of course]

Plusquote: Qua Quantification

Qua quantification, maximal isn’t the optimal that minimal is.

If quantification were good, or worth pursuing even anything more than a bit or minimally, Yoda would talk about hidden Markow chains not The Force.
Not all that can be counted, counts, and not all that counts, can be counted. Where ‘not all’ is to be read different than latter-day simpletonian, but as antediluvian ‘none’. Capice ..?

Many more arguments might go here. Suffice to say that ‘evidence-based’ science is a scam. Only those that are too stupid (let’s put it like it is) to ‘get’ the value of philosophy (and ethics etc.etc. as part of it), may not understand it. But as the vast masses don’t have a clue how their car works — chemical reactions within the pistons, anyone? how ’bout the programming of the cabling that controls it all? — but still use it, NO you not understanding does NOT mean it’s nonsense, in your case to the contrary.

To return to the positive of the Plusquote…: All may have a say in matters of society and the ‘control’ (quod non) of its infrastructure including all ‘critical’ sectors like energy, security and finance…

Oh that may be too much of a stretch but still…:

[OK, … quantify this … NO not even the qualifier Amsterdam is correct, it’s Dordrecht and even that doesn’t capture the picture…]

Risk Chagrins

It’s just a matter of Karma…

As long as ‘risk’ ‘managers’ deal with negativity (admit it; focusing on the negative is even written into quite a number of definitions involved ..!), they’ll become the sourpusses they want to see all around (remember, the “passing back risk management to the ‘first’ line” ..?), and according to which they’ll behave ever more, finding evidence everywhere they’re on the ‘right’ track.
Quod non, but conspiracy theorists as they are, they will not listen …

Oh, and this:

[Your ‘risk’ ‘heat map’, accurate picture]

Plusquote: Materiality

Discussions about materiality are not material.

This, after realizing that all too often, the discussions about materiality were/are either by Eager Beavers (not having grown above box checking zealots), or by outsiders qua experience and expertise, e.g., lawyers (q.q.) and ‘governance’ bubbletypes.
Whereas, when ‘materiality’ (or its twin-at-a-right-angle, ‘significance’) its pass-or-fail boundary is discussed, not the precise measure (and hence, rigorous definition) counts, but the very fact that there is a discussion in the first place. That is material, that points at an issue. Wise minds (q.q. probably not directly involved ..!) understand this point and will not want to join the discussion, leaving the latter to the nonderstandables.

Think about it — when the discussion arises for whatever reason, that mere fact already is a signal, which can simply be reported as such, together with all its glorious detail. Must. For it is ~~material~~ ~~significant~~ oh whatever…

Leaving you for the weekend with:

[“It’s only a model” it aint ..! in Rotterdam — oh wait that’s a scaled re-build…]

Big Data as a sin

Not just any sin, the Original one. Eating from the ultimate source of Knowledge that Big, Totalitarian, All-Thinkable Data is, in the ideal (quod non).
We WEIRDS (White, Educated, Industrialised, Rich Democratic people), a.k.a. Westeners, know what that leads to. Forever we will toil on spurious correlations…

Untrained accountants

Somewhere in Rise of the Robots (approximately p.253, 2nd line from the top), ever infamous [but very, very right] Carr is ideaquoted about pilots not getting enough experience with flying and (well, mostly: continue to keep on …) flying in adverse conditions and hence are paradoxically (much) less capable to handle the few exceptional situations for which they are kept aboard on ever more fully automated flights. [Except from the passengers’ comfort, but if only they knew the previous…] The Shallows, indeed…

Now, how would this compare to accountancy …? Ever encountered an assistant auditor that would recognize, let alone be able to do himself, double-entry bookkeeping ..? Which is of course already quite fully automated or will be in the very near future. All of accountancy/audit (in many worlds except a few slackers, this can and will be used mixedly though the latter is so much more ..!) that is stacked on top of such simple things, like checking on the bookkeeping let alone at the other end of the spectrum concluding that ‘the books’ represent a true and fair view (to the dime) of business performance (sic; more that just having debit=credit; author knows of a bank where this proved literally Impossible to do, with all the latest overfully automated bookkeeping information systems with a margin of € 1B e-ve-ry month, wiping the slate clean with a one-sided journal entry…!!), will come into question qua ability — in particular where the once usual decades of training was needed to establish sufficient experience to be able to, with an error margin always still!, declare the True and Fair parts, and now, such experience can be had less and less, with the disruption starting from the bottom with audit automation turning into big data (process) analyses supported by IT audits and what have we.

There simply aren’t the entry-level experience gainers jobs anymore; any complete-greenhorn (and uni grads are that, more and more it seems; just ask them to write a simple business report…) will have to jump to an immediate medior-level performance level. So what does one end up with? Mostly n00bs posing as l33ts. Posing, as content-wise performance is … well …

Oh well, it’ll get worse, much worse before it gets better. And:

[Graciously having opened my back garden to the public (but this is Het Loo of course)]

Mock transparency in accounting

Errrm, this on increasing transparency. By using Mock’s Scale (as here, in Dutch but you’ll get/GTranslate it) on e.g., materiality levels in financial auditing and publishing them in annual figures even if only in the accountant’s statement (in full for every line item listed…). Much beyond mere ‘reasonable assurance on true and fair views’ that aren’t anything of any of those kinds.

Then, we’ll know much better where the trouble spots are. Yes, some analysts may be of a quality that they already know. But wouldn’t it be nice to let the wisdom of the crowds work on the figures’ margins as well, to detect (e.g., per big data analysis or via some OK-rating-like instrument) anomalies.
And, maybe expanded to some form of XBRL tag per communicated line item. Add a dose of fuzzy logic arithmetic and hey presto there’s your (Not)InControl-statement …?

Fit for a grad thesis, I guess.

Oh well:

[Rennie Mackintoshian approachability but this in Dunedin]

Accountancy: agency or is it a Repeated Sequential Life Core War Game ..?

These thing just swirled into my mind:
The accountancy industry pictures itself as some instantiation of agency theory’s model(s). Which may be right, but then, the eager beaver ideal is achieved hardly anywhere anytime. The praxis is one of a model so deeply devolved that we have much more of a farce at hand.
Alternatively, the idea(l) of the repeated game, in sequential form with some Life notes on the palate and definite tones of Core War, turned up. Yes, it takes some crafting to plug all participants into it, and to my surprise not too much definitive info could be found on the ‘net (apart from, e.g., this sort of work) or am I missing something. Maybe it’s the difficulty of the crafting that I missed by which I might also overstate.
Oh and did I mention that usually, game theory is explained from the start of a two-player simultaneous game whereas in our application, we have three to numerous players (stakeholders/-groups) and sequentialism to at least some degree. Plus the Life aspects of travel through time and the environment, within the limits and counterforces set by the Core size/format. And yes, three-plus players … an obvious Three-Body Problem, right ..?

Why all this game-name dropping ..? Because reasons.
Reason being: There might be much better understanding of the role and value of ‘the’ accountant in daily practice (though the significance may very well be much less than presented today), and a number of methodological issues in the field would be settled much easier.

But then, if only someone would pay me to investigate… [And pay my time’s worth — now there’s many less that can even afford me ;-] but oh well, there’s still:
DSCN1270
[To impress. Girona yet again]

Ketenregie en legerkorpsvakgrenzen

Tsja en dan denk je terug aan de afgelopen decennia waarin het maar niet lukte om in semi-(quasi-? sub-? nep-?) overheidsland ketenregie op poten te zetten. Nee, nee, nee, er ‘werkt’ misschien hier en daar iets, maar dat komt niet verder dan een operationeel niveau van geen-nucleair-conflict met op tactisch en strategisch niveau een totalitaire koude oorlog.
En ja, in de private sector (op zich al bedroevend, dat er een aparte term bestaat voor wat toch 90+% van de economie zou moeten beslaan maar niet verder komt dan een procent of 30, hóógstens) is er wel iets tot stand gebracht, maar dan met geweld en keiharde afstraffing door failliet bij minder-dan-maximale totale opoffering aan de klant.

Ah, de klant. Van de keten, aan het eind van het productieverhaal.

En oh, er zijn wel modellen. Degenen die nog een kans hebben inzicht te hebben (opgedaan), pakken namelijk hun VS 2-1351 erbij. En lezen vooraf nog even hun IK2-25 ;-] en dan hoofdstuk 8 uit voornoemde. Maar dat terzijde, want de essentie is dat het de lessen terugbrengt inzake de kwetsbaarheid voor aanvallen vanuit het Oosten die zich, van die zijde de intelligentie erkennende die zich zal richten op exploitatie van de zwakke plekken aan onze kant, zal richten op de legerkorpsvakgrenzen.
Omdat daar de coördinatie zwakker zal zijn over de vakgrenzen heen, en de ‘eigen’ suboptimalisatie binnen de vakken tot verminderde aandacht voor de grenzen leidt.

En … dat klinkt bekend ja. En inderdaad, daarin ligt het knelpunt bij regie en toezicht over de hele, van achter, te doen hebbende met een tegenstander (sic) over de hele, tegenover. Die zo is naar interpretatie van de eigen doelen, nog niet in staat is tot tactische nucleaire actie (via de politiek) maar wel de eigen belangen onvoldoende tegemoetgekomen ziet.
En dan? Dan dus de oplossingen uit de door de eeuwen heen ontwikkelde praktijk ter hand genomen. Inzake dwang van hogerhand tot maximale coördinatie tussen de keteneenheden en opoffering van de eigen borstklopperij ten faveure van de totale prestatie, op straffe van degradatie. Zou dat niet boeiend zijn; de holste vaten vanuit de leiding verplicht voor de rest van de carrière in het call center tewerkstellen ..?

Ach, als, áls nou eens de Mexican armies van bureaucraatjes aan de FLOT zouden worden gedumpt… Page en Popla zouden de omzet fors zien stijgen. En het bewust worden van de eigenlijke opdracht zou na catharsis en vervanging door Echte leiders tot zo veel betere overheidsprestaties leiden…

Dromen mag, toch ..? En:

[Geschikt voor de ‘leidinggevenden’; Stockholm]