Chapter 1 - Collecting the figures
Before understanding, one must gather
Before talking about analysis,
before talking about consistency,
before even discussing numbers,
one must first succeed in gathering them.
This moment is rarely visible.
It is rarely valued.
And yet, everything starts there.
Data that exists… but not in the same place
The numbers exist.
They are produced.
They are recorded.
They respond to real constraints.
But they live in different systems.
Accounting.
Payroll.
Sales.
Banks.
Sometimes files sent by email.
Each source is legitimate.
Each source does exactly what it is asked to do.
But none has been designed to be read with the others.
What accounting does not cover
Even at the heart of finance,
accounting data does not cover everything.
A FEC, for example.
It is compliant.
It is exhaustive.
It fulfills its regulatory role.
But on the P&L,
there is neither customer nor supplier.
The data is correct.
But it is blind to certain readings.
When the detail becomes a problem
Sometimes, the detail exists.
But one chooses not to pass it through.
Payroll is a classic example.
The detail is too voluminous.
The confidentiality stakes are real.
One does not wish to expose salaries in accounting.
Result:
the payroll is aggregated in accounting,
the detail is tracked elsewhere,
often in a separate file.
The data exists.
But it is deliberately fragmented.
Aggregate to hold on… and recreate elsewhere
The same mechanism appears in sales.
When volumes increase,
writings are aggregated in accounting.
It is rational.
It is necessary.
But this aggregation makes the detail disappear:
by client,
by product,
by channel.
To analyze sales,
one then needs another source.
Another export.
Another file.
Another system.
Accounting holds.
But analysis is displaced.
When formats become a topic in their own right
The collection does not only clash with sources.
It clashes with formats.
Growth through acquisition.
Legacy of different accounting systems.
Outsourcing of accounting internationally.
Every country.
Every firm.
Every software.
And with them:
files with or without headers,
empty lines before the data,
fields that do not repeat,
column names specific to each system,
structures in rows here, in columns elsewhere.
Nothing is wrong.
Nothing is standard.
But everything is different.
A data produced to be closed, not to be reused
As one moves forward,
a feeling settles.
Accounting tools do not seem designed
for the data to be truly reused afterward.
Exports exist.
But as if they were intended for one-off analyses.
Exceptional.
As if, after accounting,
there was nothing.
This feeling often resonates with field exchanges.
Profiles deeply rooted in accounting
sometimes have difficulty imagining
that accounting data could serve for something else
than what it was produced for.
It is not a refusal.
It is a difference in perspective.
Collection as the first point of fragility
At this stage, nothing is yet analyzed.
Nothing is yet standardized.
Nothing is yet interpreted.
But the system is already fragile.
It depends:
on manual exports,
on heterogeneous formats,
on multiple sources,
on implicit decisions about what passes… and what does not.
The data exists.
But it is not yet a whole.
When gathering becomes a job in itself
Collection is not a technical step.
It is the moment one discovers
that the numbers have never been thought
to live together.
Each source optimizes its own objective.
And that is perfectly legitimate.
But before any financial reading,
before any consistency,
before any analysis,
one must first succeed in establishing
a common perimeter.
This is where the system begins.