Accountology vs Accounting. The rules of computer accounting and the consequences of non-compliance

I have been doing accounting methodology for a long time - almost twenty years. It began with attempts to overcome the mistakes of the accounting methodology, which with its incongruity made my eyes ache, and ended with the creation of a discipline called accounting science, including, as one of the sections, the theory of computer accounting.



Allow, within the framework of a training course on account management, to propose several rules of computer accounting, and lest they look too elementary, give examples of their insidious violations in accounting practice. On Habré, there are a lot of specialists who have managed to automate accounting, I hope, the “wonders” of accounting methodology will seem interesting to them. Should people be aware of how outdated methodology they automate?



Rule A. Homogeneous entities are registered as objects.

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You can take into account things, or natural phenomena, or abstract concepts - anything, but it is absolutely impossible to take into account heterogeneous entities together, in the form of homogeneous objects of accounting in one information system.



Why? Because accounting is a model of the real world in which things, phenomena and abstract concepts are concepts of different semantic levels that no one would ever think of comparing. Is it possible to compare a cow with a yield, although the latter has a direct relationship to the cow? Cow and milk yield may well be reflected in the same information system, but in different ways - for this, there is an accounting methodology, by the way.



How universally valid accounting methodology does this rule follow? Let's get a look.



The primary task of accounting is to keep track of things used in business. However, together with things as objects equal in rights to them, many objects are reflected in the accounts, which cannot be attributed to things. For example, intangible assets. Under intangible assets in accounting understand software and databases, as well as copyrights to works of art, legal rights to inventions, as well as trademarks. I absolutely do not mind taking into account all of these entities (very diverse, even within the list of intangible assets, I note), but you can't take into account the thing, information and legal right in the same row! And accounting takes into account.



If you think that only intangible assets are registered as homogeneous with things, you are mistaken. Such objects clouds. The double entry, on which modern (ha-ha!) Accounting is based, involves the registration of the so-called equity capital, which is a calculated value, that is, an abstract arithmetic concept.



Equity capital is not at all an aggregate of things that are useful in the household (the first, the economic meaning of the term “capital”), but something completely different. Imagine that you have two material objects, say X and Y. It is well known that X is Y = Z. In this situation, Z is a calculated value that does not need to be registered in the information system as an object, because it can at any moment be calculated. There is no Z in reality, it is an abstraction! But double bookkeeping, imagine, registers a whole group of objects attributable to equity, and without this registration simply ceases to exist. In other words, registration of non-existent objects is a way of existence of double-entry bookkeeping.



There are other entities registered along with material objects. Accounting for cows and milk production as equal objects is a common occurrence in accounting, you will see for yourself.



Rule B. The object should be identified: the real object should be distinguishable from similar objects of reality, and its prototype in the information system should have a unique identifier.



It cannot be said that accounting does not seek to identify both real and information objects, it does, only it does not always succeed. The reasons lie in the field in the methodology.



I will give an example, well known to accountants, but perhaps falling out of sight of automators.



Domestic accounting uses the so-called retirement valuation methods: FIFO and average cost, there used to be LIFO (now actually canceled), foreign accounting uses methods of HIFO and LOFO, and some others, it seems. What kind of garbage and, most importantly, why it is needed, if the objects are evaluated at admission: as a rule, at the actual or regulatory cost? Why did you need a mark on disposal?



Here, several errors in the accounting methodology are superimposed on one another, but ultimately everything is determined by the inability to identify the real object. In practice, the situation is as follows.



The warehouse receives a part that the storekeeper folds to identical parts. The details are really identical, with the only difference being that they were purchased for different prices, at which they are taken into account in the accounting department (what is called: take into account the actual cost). For the storekeeper, the parts are identical, but for the accountant there is none, because they have different values. Here the part is transferred to the production or the buyer, and the accountant faces the problem of which part was dropped, because the parts are not identified in the warehouse: the storekeeper released the required part of the document, but with what cost? The answer directly affects the financial result: a profit or loss recorded in the accounting data.



To solve this specific problem, there are FIFO and other methods of assessment on disposal. Legislation, as it were, prescribes an accountant: yes, to hell with it, with a real detail, you proceed from the assumption that you’ve left ... supposedly followed by an indication of the object that should be considered retired, or the way of evaluating the retired object.



Here, the accounting methodology does not copy the reality, to reflect which seems to be intended, but rather regulates the discrepancy between reality and the information system. We can say that the regulation is forced, and one may lament the lack of identification of objects of the real world. To solve such an identification problem for an automaton is surprising, of course, but he must understand that the solution lies not only in writing the ideal program code, but also in organizing the general goods turnover, and in general - into what an ambiguous matter.



Rule B The object is identified by an identifier and is characterized by signs.



It seems that it can be easier? An object is identified by an identifier, which in itself means nothing, but only allows one to be distinguished from another. To account for the entire diversity of the object, there are signs - the actual characteristics of the object.



It is possible that the identification is determined by one or several signs that define a unique object, but in accounting the case is not the same: the objects of economic activity that it takes into account may have identical signs, and therefore require an identifier. Which in no way provides the accounting methodology, but uses the category of quantity: it turns out that unique objects are determined by unique features, however, they can exist in the number of many instances, or in the form of a variable population, estimated in natural meters (mass, volume, etc. ). The object does not exist as an object “by itself”, but in the form of a constantly increasing, sometimes decreasing unit (although this does not apply to all things taken into account, but to the majority - those that are called objects of labor in the economy).



To some, this does not seem to be a disaster, but it should not be so, and it would not be if an identifier was assigned to each of the objects to be counted. If this does not matter, then at least oddity.



However, failure to comply with rule B also leads to more serious consequences, for example, to the Chart of Accounts - the main accounting document. The chart of accounts is a list of features that characterize objects, and the list is hierarchical, although there are no specific grounds for applying a hierarchy.



The fact that an object can be characterized and, as a rule, characterized by many signs, means the actual equality of signs among themselves and applied to individual objects. Roughly speaking, if objects are characterized by color, then each object is characterized by one or another color (or its absence is colorless), and the color is equal in rights with other signs used, for example, with taste. However, the chart of accounts comes from the hierarchy of features. This is theoretically possible, but it is rational only if the signs are not repeated on different branches of the hierarchy, which cannot be attributed to accounting. The result is the methodological errors of the kind, that according to one feature - those that are present in the singled tree in the singular - it is easy to make a sample, and for the rest of the features scattered on the branches of the hierarchy in the set, it becomes difficult to sample. walking up and down the hierarchy, and not jumping from one branch to another like a flying squirrel. In any case, I think so.



The hierarchical system of signs is a special case of a flat system, which, in an amicable way, should be applied in accounting. Tell me, what is the most natural way for the Chart of Accounts: to calculate account balances (that is, at the top level of the hierarchy) or balances on the so-called analytical characteristics, provided that they have described several accounts (for example, for all things of the 1st grade, regardless of What are these things and what accounts are taken into account)? Accounting software is trained to cope with complex samples, but here we are not talking about software, but about accounting methodology. If the signs were equal, it would be absolutely indifferent to which of the required signs to generate the reported indicators.



Rule G. Symptoms can not contradict each other.



More than hierarchical, the Chart of Accounts is unsatisfactory in semantics, although automators try not to go into these details.



It is well known (although not generally accepted) that any information system cannot exist on its own, but must contain something that goes beyond its own limits. In the accounting information system, as in many others, this beyond is the thesaurus used in the system. Signs that characterize objects and that make up the content of an information system, only terms with certain meanings that the user of the system perceives as is, on the basis of his mind and experience. In the system itself, the semantics are not defined: it can be partially defined (for example, an enterprise can be characterized not only by name-identifier, but also by registration codes, bank details, etc.), but never completely. This means that an accounting information system, designed from the point of view of the internal structure ideally, without the slightest mistakes and contradictions, but absolutely non-operational due to the fact that it contains external semantics errors, is representable. Well, it is clear, if the signs that characterize accounting objects - all these accounting classifications - are made up of nothing, nothing good will work by definition!



I approve with skill: accounting classifications are exactly so composed. For example, according to the Chart of Accounts, the “Materials” account contains a sub-account “Raw Materials”. In other words, "Raw materials" constitute a subset of "Materials", and not at all the other way around - is it really not surprising anyone? There are not even a few of these errors in the verbal accounting formulations, and not even dozens, but hundreds: for each of the approximately seventy accounting records indicated in the Chart of Accounts, there are several similar philological mistakes that makes the accounting system of little meaning. I believe that if you ever tried to "enter" not into automated, but into "accounting" accounting, then you quickly became convinced of this.



Automate or do not automate a system that is defective at the level of external semantics; it is impossible to create something normally functioning anyway.



Rule D. The relationship between the registered source samples is displayed as the relationship between the relevant accounting objects.



The initial samples refer to the objects of the surrounding reality, which serve as prototypes for the objects of the information system - the objects of accounting.



This rule sounds incomprehensible at first, and after the example is given, it is silly. An example is this: if two red apples are registered in the information system — or one red apple — and the second green one is not important — then there is no need to register anything else to determine the relationship between registered apples by this attribute. Comparing the values ​​itself will show either a match (apples of the same color) or a mismatch (apples of different colors).



The example is exaggerated - non-execution of this rule in practice is more complicated.



Take the sale (goods for money). The named objects - goods and money - are connected by an exchange relation, which, in accordance with the accepted accounting methodology, should be fixed in the accounting record: debit (income) Money, credit (expense) of the Goods. In this case, the money is characterized by the fact that it was received for the product, and the product is characterized by the fact that it was out of the money. There is no need to make any other manipulations with objects ... it would seem. And no! In practice, a certain strange object called Realization is wedged between money and goods, as a result of which not one accounting record, but two is obtained: Money debit, Realization credit; Realization and debit, Goods credit. Sometimes this artificial phenomenon is attributed to the different costs of the objects interconnected within the framework of the operation, allegedly the amount of the profit gained must be attributed to the financial result, for which the Realization account serves. This is nonsense: profit can be attributed to the financial result without imaginary objects. Implementation is not needed.



You see, yes: one cow is counted in the amount of 1 piece, 15 liters of milk is taken into account (which is logical, after all, both the cow and milk are the things present in reality), and with them, literally in the same stall with the cow - milk yield 105 liters per week?



Well what to say to this? The accounting methodology is so neglected that mistakes force one another and layered one on top of the other, so that in the end it becomes difficult to determine exactly which rules are violated. Of course, since the age of accounting is at least five hundred years, and most likely twice as long!



Rule E. The relationship between the original sample to be registered and the unregistered sample is displayed as a sign of the registered sample.



If both objects are registered, as provided by the previous rule, there is no problem. However, far from all things of the surrounding reality are recorded in accounting. What if in the information system it is necessary to display the relation of the object being registered to an unregistered one?



Suppose there is a kilogram standard and there is another thing that weighs 3 kilograms, which is determined by a comparative weighing of the thing and the standard. If we register in the information system a weighing operation, then between the two objects - the thing and the standard - an appropriate relationship will arise: to characterize the thing is somehow not needed anymore. But if the standard in the system is not registered, then it will be possible to set the weight of the thing only as a sign. "3 kg" - a sign of things and nothing else. At the same time, there is no need to register comparative weighing, which, however, is still impossible due to the fact that in this case the standard is not registered in the information system.



Now practice.



In accounting there is a need to take into account the object at the second cost. The object is estimated at 100 rubles. But you need it - well, you need it, you understand?! - consider it back in 110 rubles. It seemed, what is easier? Introduce an additional feature into the system, and the whole is not long ... However, the accounting methodology does not allow for this - for what reasons, it does not matter, we will not dwell on it. It is necessary to get out of the situation in an irregular way, namely, by registering another object, which does not mean anything that exists in reality, but is a so-called cost difference. In the above example, the object, the so-called regulatory, will be estimated at 10 rubles. As a result, two objects will be registered: one worth 100 rubles, and the second worth 10 rubles. How does this allow to evaluate the first object at 110 rubles, as required by the condition of the problem? Elementary: the sum of 100 and 10 rubles. will give the desired 110 rubles. - that is, to evaluate the object at the second cost (the characteristics of the object by the new feature) a new object is registered.Thereby, two objects of the information system begin to correspond to one real thing: the main object plus an additional one, in the form of the cost difference for the main object. At the same time, the resulting regulatory is by no means a part of the thing, but its attribute registered as an independent object. Sign registered as an object!



I say, there is no limit to accounting miracles.



The account management formulated by me is not limited to the named rules, it is much wider (some materials were published on Habré - for example, here ). , , . , , . , – , , .