> They are more about saving their jobs and asses than an efficient process and software.
the less cynical view is that moving from a known process to an unknown one presents costs, and the movement could actually result in a less efficient process.
The inverse of this is always trying to move to the most efficient thing all the time, in which case you're going to spend all your time trying to "upgrade" your process, and losing the time too that coordination. You are supposed to do this for your core compentencies! Always improve the things that need improving! But you know what? Most companies don't have book-keeping as their core competency. Book keeping is a thing a company does just like brushing your teeth is a thing you do. When was the last time you optimised your toothbrushing process?
The role of book-keepers and accountants isn't just about "be efficient at accounting", it's almost more about making sure all of this happens transparently to the rest of the company in an efficient way. If you find some thing that cuts the accounting work in half but you have to inform 20k employees on changes, you've just introduced a lot of work for something that (if you're improving all the time) will change soon anyways!
The lesson is that if you're making software you need to actually make people's jobs easier in the entire context and not just optimize on some technical metric. The reality is most people in these roles are overworked, and this accounting software won't mean you don't need an accountant just like Word doesn't make you not need a lawyer. Until it _does_ mean this of course.... but for the most part you need to actually make something that helps people without generating more work.
I have sometimes worked with accountants, overworked ones too, and agree to the larger point that change in processes are painful and costly. My experience has been that accounting law changes nearly every year. And, I find that instead of doing it right, most of them tend to go for the easier option - add a page. Now, this eventually means the software is heavier and cumbersome to use. So, year-over-year software is just adding to the cost of teaching a new person how to use the software while avoiding the cost of changing a process.
Hence the need to write an optimized software. It seems that not many fields have a concept similar to technical debt.
the less cynical view is that moving from a known process to an unknown one presents costs, and the movement could actually result in a less efficient process.
The inverse of this is always trying to move to the most efficient thing all the time, in which case you're going to spend all your time trying to "upgrade" your process, and losing the time too that coordination. You are supposed to do this for your core compentencies! Always improve the things that need improving! But you know what? Most companies don't have book-keeping as their core competency. Book keeping is a thing a company does just like brushing your teeth is a thing you do. When was the last time you optimised your toothbrushing process?
The role of book-keepers and accountants isn't just about "be efficient at accounting", it's almost more about making sure all of this happens transparently to the rest of the company in an efficient way. If you find some thing that cuts the accounting work in half but you have to inform 20k employees on changes, you've just introduced a lot of work for something that (if you're improving all the time) will change soon anyways!
The lesson is that if you're making software you need to actually make people's jobs easier in the entire context and not just optimize on some technical metric. The reality is most people in these roles are overworked, and this accounting software won't mean you don't need an accountant just like Word doesn't make you not need a lawyer. Until it _does_ mean this of course.... but for the most part you need to actually make something that helps people without generating more work.