ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK: Software sidelined in cooking the books
The problem is that machines only do what they are told
As the fallout from the Steinhoff accounting scandal grows, one of the most commonly asked questions about its shadowy external company structures is: "How did they get away with it for so long?" Many people assume that accounting software and the enterprise resource planning (ERP) software systems that run most large companies make it impossible to cook or even mildly broil the books. The problem is that machines only do what they are told. If a rule can be ignored because one has the right level of seniority or access to the system, then the rule is mere salad dressing, rather than the recipe. "You can draw a line, but that doesn't help if you draw it in pencil," is the marvellous way the issue is summed up by Dan van Eck, director of strategy at EpicERP, the South African partner of international ERP developer Epicor. "When people realise how much control and visibility ERP creates inside the company, and that they can't get away with what they did before, they often back-pedal o...
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