Extreme accounting

• Tim Fouracre
• Monday, 30 March 2009
• 7 comments
• Case Studies

In my previous existence as a teacher, the school I taught in used to organise a careers event over a two day period. Members of various professions would talk for up to 90 minutes to the older students and offer an informative insight into their working lives.

A teacher would be allocated to each session to ride shotgun, make sure someone proposed a vote of thanks, and sometimes wonder if they were in the right job.

On one occasion it was my lot to sit in on an accountant, who began his presentation by saying “Most people think accountants are very boring people, but I am here to assure you otherwise……”

What followed over the next 90 minutes is probably best left to a diplomatic silence but suffice to say there was not a noticeable drift from the attendance at the Royal Navy to Accountancy in the next session. It may be because the Royal Navy always had the good sense to send a couple of very attractive wrens to the all boys school that I taught at, I don’t know……..

I now understand myself just how important accountancy is, not in a bean counting sort of way, but as a tool to help entrepreneurs take decisions that will affect their company and the direction it will take. In this field, knowledge truly is power. To have access to vital balance sheet and cash flow information online – ie anywhere, anytime is no longer a pipe dream it is a reality with packages such as Clear Books.

This software has certainly changed my life of late and it got me to thinking how to spread the gospel. What occurred to me was that accountants are by their nature not known as risk takers and a good thing too, entrepreneurs on the other hand are almost by definition risk takers.

I then remembered seeing a TV programme some time ago about extreme Ironing and I thought extreme accounting!  I can’t quite see it making London 2012 but it may be a way for some more adventurous accountants to prove that Accounts really aren’t dull, or it may be that some entrepreneurs could show their accountants that Sage is not the only herb, whilst freeing up their lives, having a truly awesome grip on their business and competing in more senses than one.

So all you would need is a laptop or web enabled device, a location and a connection, perhaps some ground rules need to be applied, Eg requirement for matching time stamp on photo and accounting transaction  … I throw this open to anyone who wishes to contribute and have added an opening shot (taken this weekend in Avoriaz, France) to get the ball rolling.

Given that one of early starters in the online accounting world ‘Xero’ is run by a bunch of Kiwis I am almost surprised that they haven’t already come up with the idea.

Edit: Look’s like they already have! See the comments below….

Showing 7 Comments

1. 
   Rod Drury

   You mean like this:

   http://www.xero.com/whosusingxero/markinglis.htm

   And

   http://blog.xero.com/2008/08/where-do-you-do-your-accounting/

   Game on

   Rod

   3 years ago
2. 
   Tim

   Mark Inglis isn’t sporting an Internet enabled device with Xero on his screen so it doesn’t count

   3 years ago
3. 
   Ed Gain

   Extreme sheep herding, anyone? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FX9rviEhw

   3 years ago
4. 
   Joe

   I suspect a bit of photoshop intervention with a couple of those sheep.

   Either that or the sheep dogs are ace ping pong players

   3 years ago
5. 
   Dennis Howlett

   A quick bit of Googling would have shown that this has already been done: http://www.extreme-accounting.com/ – nice idea though

   3 years ago
6. 
   Tim

   Dennis, it looks like you have stumbled across one of the many extreme accounting spin offs.

   Think rugby league v rugby union or even ‘it’ v ‘tag’.

   Whereas we are looking for extreme (or even interesting) pictures of people doing their web based accounting it looks as though http://www.extreme-accounting.com/ is only after accountants doing extreme things.
   

   3 years ago
7. 
   Joe

   Now if those accountants were to all sign up to clearboooks, they could be working whilst doing extreme things and justify the phrase “extreme accounting”

   3 years ago