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Comment by exit | Hacker News Reader

if all relevant business transactions and arrangements are properly logged, what more is there to do than algorithmically digest these records and produce a result?

i'm trying to understand what the necessary human element is in the operation of accounting firms.

i imagine there are strategic aspects, i.e. how to categorize and structure future transactions?

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the first pass is usually an algorithmic digest. the human element is required to recognize a subset of all transactions as requiring further analysis. some transactions require special consideration in either tax or reporting contexts. if every accounting system were a relational database, and every entry had multiple foreign keys to every appropriate classification, we could virtually eliminate CPA's. as it stands each accounting system is bespoke and idiosyncratic. some of them record transactions on sheets of paper.

source: dating a CPA

> if every accounting system were a relational database, and every entry had multiple foreign keys to every appropriate classification, we could virtually eliminate CPA's.

i'd like to hear it confirmed from additional sources but this is what i suspected.

i also imagine those with the necessary skills to formalise these practices are (understandably) not eager to automate themselves out of the value capture loop.

There’s off-chain stuff happening. They use their holdings as collateral on riskier investments, like the commercial paper holdings Tether had. Humans have to untangle these, and sometimes that untangling reveals disaster.

> There’s off-chain stuff happening.

sure, i'm asking about businesses in general and that's why i specified "properly logged"

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