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Sharealedger.org: My Report to Dr. Bill McCarthy on REA Progress

By |April 20, 2020|Categories: Vlog, Vlog Special Edition|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Last week I was invited to be a guest lecturer [...]

Blog Series

Click here for a list of series.  These posts were produced as a series.  Drill into that topic more deeply.

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Previous Posts

BSV Blockchain Scale and Performance

May 25, 2022|0 Comments

I have recently become more deeply involved in the BSV Blockchain, joining the Technical Standards Committee and involved in assisting Tokenized.com in their product development.  I was invited to join their Global Conference in [...]

I am a Mainframer

June 18, 2021|0 Comments

In January 2021 I talked with Steven Dickens about what it means to work on the mainframe, making me a mainframer.  You can listen to the podcast here: Steven Dickens: Hello and welcome. My [...]

Data Quality Questions

March 31, 2021|0 Comments

Dillon Pappenfuss of Financial Executives International, asked me a set of question on Data Quality. In the videos below, I give my answers to his questions. The video answers to all of Dillion's questions are [...]

Project Management Basics

February 19, 2021|0 Comments

Today's Conversation with Kip covers my simple view of project management. It can be viewed as the simple lists of; What, or a Scope DiagramWho, an Org ChartWhen, a Timeline and How Much, a BudgetWhat [...]

Powerful Railroad and Processing Engines

September 1, 2020|0 Comments

This week's episode likens our powerful financial systems to the powerful locomotives of the early 20th Century. Powerful Railroad Engines In my semi-biographical textbook "Balancing Act: A Practical Approach to Business Event Based Insights" I [...]

Outlandish Prediction: Demise of the G/L

August 25, 2020|0 Comments

This week's video makes an outlandish prediction: that in the future companies will not have general ledgers, but instead use the increased compute capacities available from today's ubiquitous computers to maintain much more granular ledgers, [...]

z/OS on Vagrant: A Personal Mainframe

July 28, 2020|0 Comments

Building on other POC projects, including the short Raspberry Pi experimentation, and the longer Universal Ledger Infrastructure project, I have recently experimented with a personal mainframe system. These systems are not new developments, having been [...]

Intro to the Bookkeeping Series

May 12, 2020|1 Comment

This week I'm releasing publicly a series of videos on basic bookkeeping and accounting, which will cover the balance sheet, income statement, and accounting cycle. The accompanying textbook is available here for download: Balancing Act: [...]

Finance Inventory: Master Files

May 4, 2020|0 Comments

This week's episodes builds on an idea from Episode 98 Balances are the Inventory of Finance. Where are these balances maintained? Many are maintained in things called ledgers. But they are also at times simply [...]

Be a Learner

March 30, 2020|0 Comments

In this episode, Eric shares one of his favorite quotes, by Eric Hoffer: "In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no [...]

Scala on z

March 26, 2020|1 Comment

In this episode of Coding with Kip, I demonstrate the results of a proof of concept work effort the summer of 2018, showing that using Scala on z/OS is possible. The video shows the following [...]

Who’s Invited to Innovate?

February 24, 2020|2 Comments

This week let's discuss the innovation process. I've found that meetings, particularly face-to-face meetings, can be very helpful in finding ways to solve difficult problems through innovation. A face-to-face meeting helps to focus the participants [...]

Project Plan Basics

February 18, 2020|0 Comments

This week I discuss the basic points needed in any project management process, including what, who, how, when and why. The What All projects I think begin with a description of What the project is [...]

Our Need for New Financial Systems

February 3, 2020|2 Comments

This week's conversation likens James Madison's work prior to the US Constitutional Convention to some of my work on financial systems. In 1786 Mr. Madison spent perhaps four months preparing for the US Constitutional Convention [...]

Value of Consumer Financial Data

January 27, 2020|0 Comments

This week's Conversation with Kip discusses the value of financial data, compared to clickstream data value. Many very large businesses have found tremendous success in using clickstream and similar data, selling insights to businesses based [...]

An Approach to Legacy System Analysis

January 10, 2020|1 Comment

Understanding tabulating system principles can be very powerful in analyzing legacy systems, even though card readers have not been used extensively for perhaps 40 years or more. In this post I'll describe an approach I [...]

What My Children Think I Do for Work

January 6, 2020|0 Comments

January 2nd 2020 marks my 30 year anniversary for my job. I began work with Price Waterhouse, which became PricewaterhouseCoopers; IBM purchased the consulting division in October 2002. So I have 30 continuous years of [...]

Feelings about Business Travel

December 30, 2019|0 Comments

This week's episode discusses my feelings about business travel, and what business travel is really like. In a presentation eighteen months ago, I talked to some high school students about business travel. You can hear [...]

Computing Trends and Financial Systems

December 23, 2019|1 Comment

This week's episode of Conversation with Kip discusses historical trends in computing and the impact (or lack thereof) on major financial systems, including cloud, mobile, internet, and ERP. The latest major change in business systems [...]

Blockchain, Trust and Efficiency

December 9, 2019|0 Comments

Currencies are interlinked with trust, and always have been. Trusted relationships are the most efficient relationships, and provide the best basis for prediction. When we have trust, we have predictability. Currency really is all about [...]

Specific Inventory, Time and Balances

December 3, 2019|0 Comments

Some ledgers track specific inventory, specific items. This is particularly true for high value assets, like the leasing business. In these instances, ledgers are used to track these specific assets. Much of the world of [...]

Allocation Processing Steps

October 29, 2019|2 Comments

This week's episode shows the general steps of an allocation processes, from transactions to balances and back down to transactions. This graphic gives a sense of how the data flows for an allocation process. [...]

Allocation and Activities

October 21, 2019|2 Comments

This week's episode of Conversations with Kip continues the allocation series, discussing activity based costing, and how activities can be the drivers for allocating costs to other metrics. Activities in allocation processes, are drivers of [...]

Introduction to the Allocation Series

October 8, 2019|3 Comments

A somewhat specialized financial system process is called allocation. As noted in this introduction to the series, usually financial reporting is about accumulating business events to measure things over time.  But allocation processes establish relationships [...]

Business Rules & ERP Integration

September 9, 2019|3 Comments

This week's episode of Conversations with Kip continues the discussion of reference data in our financial system, specifically discussing how a great deal of reference data is embedded in ERP systems, but use of that [...]

Business Rules vs. Reference Data

August 26, 2019|2 Comments

This week's episode of Conversations with Kip discusses the need to maintain lists of reference data values, that then are embedded into various rules, and the impact if those are not valid values. Reference data [...]

Business Rule Structures

August 20, 2019|2 Comments

This week we begin a series of videos to discuss business rules in the finance system. Today's episode discusses the general structure of business rules, either table or if-then-else structures, and compares and contrasts those [...]

Balances in Financial Services Sectors

June 24, 2019|0 Comments

This week's episode focuses on the data required three major financial services sectors, Financial Markets, Banking, and Insurance, focusing on the need for various balances, and length of time in perspectives. Financial Markets--effective any traded [...]

What is Money?

June 17, 2019|0 Comments

This week's episode debunks the idea that money is an exchangeable precious metal, or requires some type of mining per many virtual currency systems.  Certainly what money is has changed over the centuries, but what [...]

Tabulating System Metadata

May 28, 2019|1 Comment

In the final episode about how many of our financial systems are based upon tabulating system principles, we'll discuss how to detect more specific information about those specific programs. Finding the posting programs within tabulating [...]

Complexity in Tabulating Systems

May 13, 2019|2 Comments

When investigating systems, often legacy financial and business systems, my simple descriptions in the prior videos begin to break down as we dive deeper: these systems are not always simple. Here's what to look for [...]

Posting Processes in Tabulating Systems

May 6, 2019|2 Comments

Continuing our series on how many of today's financial systems are fundamentally tabulating systems in nature, today we'll discuss where posting processes fit in these systems.  (See prior post  Series Introduction, and Tabulating System Program [...]

Tabulating System Program Structure

April 30, 2019|2 Comments

Continuing our series on the principles behind tabulating system, let's discuss the basic program structure. Perhaps some of the first tabulating systems were developed before the idea of structured programming, but this pattern for program [...]

Spaghetti Code or Tabulating System?

April 22, 2019|2 Comments

Today's episode of Conversations with Kip introduces a set of videos around the term Spaghetti Code.  Many systems are not understood by today's developers because they do not understand the principles of the underlying systems. [...]

The Have It Your Way ERP Package

March 4, 2019|1 Comment

Contrasting with last week's prescriptive ERP Package approach, the other major vendor uses an integration approach to the problem. This ERP Vendor grew through acquisition of various products, and integrated them. This means that often [...]

ERP Package: My Way or Highway

February 25, 2019|1 Comment

This week's episode characterizes one type of ERP Vendor often used in major corporations for finance functions, which is highly integrated but also quite prescriptive in approach. Vendor's specialize in particular processes or industries; competition [...]

Vendor Choice in ERP Selection

February 18, 2019|1 Comment

This week's episode is in response to a request from Brazil to assist a customer in ERP package selection.  The first point I make when approaching such a question is asking the customer to be [...]

Blockchain Gap: Posting Process

December 17, 2018|0 Comments

We've discussed the blockchain gaps of liquidity management, double entry accounting, and reporting integration.  This week's episode discusses posting processes. The purpose of posting processes is almost forgotten in today's world of ubiquitous computing.  But [...]

Blockchain Gap: Reporting Integration

December 10, 2018|1 Comment

Today's episode is in response to a question from Steven Ulmer about the challenges of reporting using Blockchain. The development of papyrus in ancient Egypt was a breakthrough technology, but today if one needs to [...]

Consider the Punch Card

November 19, 2018|0 Comments

Today's banking and financial systems were by and large automated in the 1970s and early 1980; the process began in the late 1950 and through the 1960s.  I find it helpful to reduce the problem [...]

ERP Systems and Reporting Processes

November 12, 2018|0 Comments

ERP systems perhaps were to deliver on three promises; Automate more business processes; perhaps approaching all of them.  ERP systems have added great automation to a lot of new business processes since their introduction 25+ [...]

Financial Reporting Qualities

October 18, 2018|0 Comments

What makes a good accountant, and good financial reports?  Qualities of good financial reports are well known by those who produce, but we seldom discuss the attributes of those who produce them. Kip Twitchell, the [...]

Computers Explained: The Meeting Analogy

September 17, 2018|2 Comments

In business computing, it's simple to break types of work done into two broad categories: (1) Transaction Capture and (2) Reporting Processes. The amount of code supporting transaction capture processes is likely much more extensive [...]

Have Courage

September 3, 2018|0 Comments

On Saturday a good friend and work colleague passed away after a tremendous fight with cancer, Jeff Wolfers.    When I think of Jeff, the words "have courage" come to mind.    Jeff did not [...]

Finance Department Costs Overview

August 10, 2018|0 Comments

In this episode of Conversations with Kip, I highlight that the costs of the financial systems far exceeds the ongoing cost of the finance department. As I have explained this in talking about finance system [...]

The Journal in Historical Accounting

July 23, 2018|0 Comments

This week's episode examines the second book of historical bookkeeping, the Journal. The journal turns business transactions into debits and credits, reflecting the flow of money through the categories of accounting, Assets, Liabilities, Equtiy, which [...]

Spread of Bookkeeping

July 2, 2018|0 Comments

This week's episode of Conversations with Kip discusses the spread of accounting knowledge throughout Europe, and the commonality of the books defined as part of bookkeeping.  The knowledge spread was quite consistent; each textbook discussed [...]

Pacioli’s Summary of Bookkeeping

June 25, 2018|0 Comments

This week's video looks over Pacioli's summary bookkeeping, and points out how complete the bookkeeping cycle is documented. Below is Jerry Cripps translated version the summary. The full translation can be found here.  This is [...]

Pacioli Trial Balance and Closing

June 18, 2018|0 Comments

This week's video gives an overview of each chapter in Luca Pacioli's seminal bookkeeping treatise, and focuses on the last steps of the accounting cycle. Pacioli covered many special topics of accounting, including partnership accounting, [...]

Pacioli and Blockchain

June 11, 2018|0 Comments

This vlog episode connects Pacioli's comments on reconciling multiple books to today's interest in blockchain technologies. Pacioli, in his treatise on bookkeeping written in 1494, talks about transactions with various parties, including taxes to the [...]

Pacioli, Debits and Credits

May 29, 2018|1 Comment

In our continuing exploration of Luca Pacioli's documentation of bookkeeping in 1494, this weeks' video highlights the purpose of Debits and Credits. Bookkeeping has a flow to it. Like raw materials through a production line, [...]

The Three Books of Bookkeeping

May 21, 2018|1 Comment

Luca Pacioli described three books to be used in bookkeeping in his 1494 treaties: The Day Book, the Journal, and the Ledger. All three of these "books" typically exist in modern financial systems. The Day [...]

Luca Pacioli & Business Ethics

May 7, 2018|0 Comments

This week's video begins to digest the bookkeeping portion of Pacioli's book, talking about his focus on being ethical, and why that is important. Pacioli, in the first page of discussing bookkeeping, says: "In the [...]

A Conversation with Alex Hume

April 2, 2018|0 Comments

This week's episode of Conversations with Kip is a conversation with Alex Hume, a controller at a large regional bank, discussing data and three simple ideas: (1) Choose a language. Data is about communication. Communication [...]

Gratitude for Great Teams

March 26, 2018|0 Comments

A few weeks ago Rick Houlihan posted a link about great teams. I then had a number of encounters with team members I still work with, and some I have worked with in the past. [...]

Social Risk Pools and Fintech

March 5, 2018|0 Comments

Our last conversation introduced the idea that trustworthiness generates the highest efficiencies for those involved. Today'ss conversation builds on that idea, introducing the idea of Social Risk Pools. Financial Services is the process of managing [...]

Social Benefits of Trustworthiness

February 26, 2018|1 Comment

To many, trustworthiness seems pretty old fashioned; so old that it is perceived as a competitive disadvantage. Someone who doesn't care about honesty can do anything they like; they aren't constrained in their choices. This [...]

Data Discovery: Show me the money

February 12, 2018|0 Comments

This week's discussion outlines a very effective form of data discovery, but one which I find is not usually employed. It uses financial knowledge to understand the relationship of transactions to balances. This relationship would [...]

A Quantitative-Cognitive Architecture

January 15, 2018|0 Comments

Besides the recent trend of Blockchain, another major current theme is cognitive systems. The intersection of these two areas requires understanding the nature and structure of data that support both. Blockchain, as distributed ledgers, will [...]

Balances are the Inventory of Finance

January 8, 2018|3 Comments

Two decades ago, manufacturers learned that by moving to just-in-time inventory, they could significantly reduce cost by eliminating inventory. Inventory requires forecasting demand, with all the potential errors associated with obsolescence or missed opportunities, as [...]

Apache Spark IO and Index Access

December 18, 2017|1 Comment

In the next three week's episodes of Conversations with Kip, I focus on Apache Spark, a technology that recognizes the power of scanning large transactional data sets to produce analytical outputs. This week we focus [...]

Ledger Posting Processes in 1959

November 13, 2017|1 Comment

Today's episode of Conversations with Kip focuses on the posting process, as discussed in the Historical IBM Banking System Videos. Posting is the process of reading a set of sorted transactions and the corresponding balances [...]

Modern Day Data Capture Processes

October 30, 2017|0 Comments

This week's episode of Conversation with Kip explores the current implication of the data capture processes shown in the IBM Historical Banking Movies, including the 1977 IBM Historical Optical Character Recognition System.  Our systems today [...]

Financial Reporting in 1961

October 23, 2017|0 Comments

Today's episode of Conversations with Kip explores what financial reporting looked like in 1961 using an IBM historical film, "The IBM MICR Banking Solution" and the 1959 video already released. Within this video you'll get [...]

Blockchain, Ledgers, Journals and Posting

July 24, 2017|0 Comments

Transactions have traditionally been recorded as journals in the General Journal, not the Ledger.  A true Ledger requires a posting process, something not considered in Bitcoin's blockchain.  Episode 75 of Conversations with Kip, the best [...]

Backdating and Reclassification Processes

June 26, 2017|0 Comments

As if Reclassification Processes weren't complex enough, this week's video gives a perspective on how complex they become when they intersect with backdating processes.  Episode 71 of Conversations with Kip, the best financial system vlog [...]

The Reclass View in Reclassifications

June 19, 2017|0 Comments

This week's Reclassification Problem episode defines what a "Reclass View" looks like, wherein new business events are generated based upon changes in reference data.  Episode 70 of Conversations with Kip, the best financial system vlog [...]

Reclassification Problems Overview

May 22, 2017|1 Comment

This week's episode begins a series of videos discussing problems with reclassification, the problem when attributes assigned to balances change. This is not an easy problem to solve; it's a big, hairy monster, and it [...]

Post Reductionism and Financial Services

May 15, 2017|1 Comment

This week's episode discusses how organization of IT systems based upon historical perspectives may be impeding our ability to innovate new solutions in financial data and analytics.  Episode 65 of Conversations with Kip, the best [...]

A Conversation with Amit Trehan

May 8, 2017|0 Comments

This week's episode is a conversation with Amit Trehan, a specialist in finance systems, instrument ledgers, and particularly reconciliation processes.  Episode 64 of Conversations with Kip, the best financial system vlog there is. Watch it [...]

Fintech and True Community Banking

February 21, 2017|0 Comments

This week's episode is fourth in a series of five episodes describing Fintech and how an Instrument Ledger might enable renewed community or true social banking to become a reality.  Episode 53 of Conversations with [...]

Fintech and Product Control

February 6, 2017|0 Comments

Second in a series of five episodes describing Fintech and how an Instrument Ledger might enable product and financial control in financial services systems.  Episode 51 of Conversations with Kip, the best financial system vlog [...]

Fintech and Data Supply Chains

January 30, 2017|0 Comments

This week's episode is the first in a series of five episodes describing Fintech and how an Instrument Ledger might enable the potential revolution of financial services systems.  Episode 50 of Conversations with Kip, the [...]

A Conversation with Jeff Wolfers

January 3, 2017|1 Comment

A conversation with Jeff Wolfers, a senior executive in IT and financial services. Jeff is a courageous man of integrity and intelligence, and I feel fortunate to be able to publish this to encourage Jeff [...]

Blockchains and Data Supply Chains

December 5, 2016|0 Comments

This week's episode discusses how the objectives of a consolidated data supply chain a blockchain or distributed ledger work towards many of the same objectives.  Episode 42 of Conversations with Kip, the best financial system [...]

Step-ups in a Data Supply Chain

November 28, 2016|1 Comment

This week's episode outlines how step-ups can be used in a consolidated data supply chain to increase the potential scope of the required reports and analysis produced.  Episode 41 of Conversations with Kip, the best [...]

Lengths of Data Supply Chains

November 21, 2016|0 Comments

This week's episode discusses the lengths of data supply chain, which are driven by the number of steps required to produce the required reports and analysis.  Episode 40 of Conversations with Kip, the best financial [...]

Data Supply Chain Scope

November 14, 2016|0 Comments

This week's episode defines a data supply chain scope, or how many reports and analyses can be produced from the data supply chain master file.  Episode 39 of Conversations with Kip, the best financial system [...]

Data Supply Chain Layers

October 24, 2016|0 Comments

This week's episode discusses Business Event Capture, Post and Store, and Analyze and Report layers of a business system.  Episode 36 of Conversations with Kip, the best financial system vlog there is. Watch it here. [...]

Continued Impediments to a Metric Engine

October 3, 2016|0 Comments

This week's video continues the discussion of why more flexible reporting engines, particularly around quantitative data, have not been constructed and implemented more widely.  Episode 33 of Conversations with Kip, the best financial system vlog [...]

Impediments to a Metric Engine

September 26, 2016|0 Comments

This week's video discusses why more flexible reporting engines, particularly around quantitative data, have not been constructed and implemented more widely.  Episode 32 of Conversations with Kip, the best financial system vlog there is. Watch [...]

A Conversation with Richard K. Roth

September 19, 2016|2 Comments

This week's episode is an actual conversation with Richard K. Roth, retired Price Waterhouse, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and IBM Partner, and expert in financial systems.  Episode 31  of Conversations with Kip, the best financial system vlog there [...]

9-11 Tribute

September 11, 2016|0 Comments

This week's video, shot at the 9-11 Memorial in New York City this week, is a special episode of Conversations with Kip, reflecting upon the impact and importance of mentors in our work lives.  Episode [...]

Metric Engine Requirements

August 29, 2016|0 Comments

This week's episode discusses the high standard required to make our quantitative systems more flexible, including levels of detail, timing involved, and potential impact. Episode 26 of Conversations with Kip, the best financial system vlog [...]

Metric Engine and Report Program Steps

August 15, 2016|0 Comments

This week's video is a simple review of the reporting steps outlined in the prior episode, including selection, sorting, column filtering, calculation, etc.   Episode 24 of Conversations with Kip, the best financial system vlog [...]

Metric Engine Report Production

August 8, 2016|1 Comment

This week's video discusses the reporting processes that typically follow the Master File Update, including the steps needed to produce reports.   Episode 23 of Conversations with Kip, the best financial system vlog there is. [...]

Metric Engine and Normalization

July 11, 2016|1 Comment

This week's episode of Conversations with Kip describes data normalization, a data modeling concepts, as it applies to financial systems including business events, transactions, balances and a Metric Engine.   Episode 19 of Conversations with [...]

Metric Engine and Joins

July 4, 2016|0 Comments

This week's episode describes what is meant by a join process, one of the more costly processes a metric engine would need to perform to be realized.   This is episode 18 of Conversations with [...]

The Power of Step-ups

June 27, 2016|2 Comments

Describes how step-ups can be very powerful in building a true metric engine; without being tied to specific reports or even to finance functions.   They can be used for any posted balance desired.   [...]

Metric Engine and Step-ups

June 20, 2016|1 Comment

Step-ups are a type of balance that are very flexible for reporting, but not so specific they only satisfy one report.   In video I introduce what they are, and how they might be used [...]

Metric Engine and the Chart of Accounts

June 6, 2016|1 Comment

Describes a key data concept in structured, quantitative reporting: the attributes assigned for the primary posting key.   Notes the importance for an enterprise view including non-finance data supply chains.   Episode 14 of Conversations [...]

Introduction to a Metric Engine

May 31, 2016|1 Comment

My new video describes what a metric engine--as opposed to a search engine--would look like.   Think of your world before or without a search engine; how difficult getting   information would be.   But [...]

ERP Posting Processes

May 23, 2016|0 Comments

In this episode of Conversations with Kip, I outline how an ERP environment is also based upon posting processes, how it accumulates data from business processes into the financial system, and the resulting reconciliation processes [...]

Data Warehouse vs. Finance System

May 17, 2016|3 Comments

In this week's video I describe the differences between a financial system and a data warehouse, and explain why even though the data warehouse often contains financial data, it often does not reconcile with the [...]

The Why of Business Events

May 9, 2016|1 Comment

This week's vlog post explains why I'm talking about financial and analytical systems.   It gives a sense of the problems I continue to see in this spaces; I think systems which understand the importance [...]

Data Supply Chains Defined

May 3, 2016|1 Comment

I've released Episode 9 of Conversations with Kip, Data Supply Chain Defined here YouTube Video Link.   It covers Finance, Performance Management, Risk and Customer Analytics,   and briefly shows the impact of them on [...]

The Daily Financial Cycle

April 25, 2016|3 Comments

Check out a new Financial System video on The Daily Financial Cycle by @finsysvlogger YouTube Video Link here. It describes the attributes used in the General Ledger, the processes around its daily update, and the [...]

Posting Processes

April 19, 2016|0 Comments

This video was released without a corresponding Linkedin Blog Entry.  This is episode 4 of Conversations with Kip, the best financial system vlog there is https://youtu.be/lv6H7KDw_zo

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