The Rural Voice, 1980-03, Page 15William McEachern, Tax consultant
with his views —
Computers cause problems
As a former Revenue Canada Tax Auditor and now
involved in my own bookkeeping and tax consulting ser-
vice, I have been asked to comment on the reasons that I
reject computers for my own services.
Many people have been completely frustrated when they
try to have a bill corrected that they had previously paid
or to get a refund for returned articles. People blame
computer errors, when the real problem is tracking errors
in computer print outs.
Any person can make an error, but when a computer
malfunctions the errors can become a nightmare. In this
category your vending machines are less satisfactory than
the store clerk. I always had bad luck with vending
machines and this may have made me have second
thoughts when computers are involved.
(It is usually a larger firm or organization that offers
computerized bookkeeping services and the comments
would not be valid for the small operator.)
Points that I find undesirable are
1. Loss of Identity
2. Minimum of personal services
3. Error Corrections
4. Change of Personnel
5. Eepth of Review
And my comments are as follows
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Guest Column
On phoning computerized services -The first question is
"what is your number?". Your name means little to the
party answering the phone and if you do not have your
number you mean extra work for them.
Lack of personal service: It would be unusual for a
farmer to meet the Owner/Operator of a computer service.
Normally you meet a person who is a data collector with
only limited interest in you or your operation.
Correcting Errors: I secured a few clients who were
involved with a computerized service as they waited
several weeks for corrections and they required the infor-
mation on current income for bank financing. The long
delay could have been very costly to them.
Change of personnel: Some operations are such that you
may not meet the same data collector twice in your period
of farm operations. It would be a more satisfactory ar-
rangement if the same data collector visited regularly and
became well acquainted with the operations as conducted.
Over the years I have seen large income omissions that
would have been avoided if the data collector had been
familiar with the farm operations.
Lack of Depth: As long as debits and credits balance,
the statements are satisfactory in many computer oper-
ations. To be completely satisfactory detailed analysis of
living expenses should be part of the computer input.
Many farmers find it necessary to cash a produce the que
during an evening in town. If the cheque stub is lost
then the computer has no imput, but the tax department
auditors have a habit of looking at detailed drawings, and
lack of drawings for a period during the year arouses
their suspicions.
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THE RURAL VOICE/MARCH 1980 PG. 13