I thought I'd end the day with an exchange I had with an accountant who would like me to add some more to my web site. Here's the exchange in full: some good ideas and I've promised to do what I can and will happily do what he asks if I can. 7 Nov 02 Dear Duncan Williamson, I have browsed through your site and took it as a refresher course for myself. However, I would like to suggest some categories to be added in to your site, namely, BUSINESS and MANAGEMENT. We, as qualified accountants are given side roles in business as well as management. For instance, I am involved in another portfolio - maintaining my company's quality management system (after having implementing it) in line with ISO 9001:2000 requirements. I was told by my Lloyd's Register assessor that more and more accountants are being appointed as Quality Mgt Reps. How about considering what I said? Maybe, in time to come your site will be able to "compete' with the AWeb in certain ways. As of todate, I can't find a site that provides Q & As on ISO matters just like AWeb provide. Perhaps, yours could be the first? I look forward to hearing from you further. Regards, LWL Thanks, LWL, and I have a lot sympathy for your quest. I'd love to do what you suggest but let me remind you that I have a full time job and my web site is my hobby. That means I have to ration my time according to my interests and requests from people such as yourself. I try to add business and management things as I can: clearly, more could be done. I like the idea of the AccountingTutorWeb idea that I think you posted on AccountingWeb ... I do some of this; but given the way I work, my site isn't focused on one aspect of accounting and education. I would be more than happy to work with you on, for example, publishing work on ISO 9001:2000 or anything else you are interested in. Please let me know if you'd like to work on this and we'll discuss it further. Alternatively, let me know your problem area and I'll tell you if I can work on that! Best wishes and thanks for your interest. Duncan Williamson Dear Duncan Williamson, I understand your position as having a full-time job with your website as your hobby. My suggestion is something for consideration and I am glad you are receptive towards it. Perhaps, doing a little bit at a time on those new areas, in time to come, I am sure you will build up an informative website. At the moment, I do not have much problems in my accounting portfolio job as sad to say I do not involve much in the technical aspects, though holding a professionally recognised UK qualification. I guess you gave me that encouragement to participate in your website, and I shall take advantage of this extra mile to pose some questions of some technical or complex situations. I guess at a lower level, the problem of today's accounting department lies in the difference caused by knowledge and organisational capabilities. This "knowledge gap", I guess is going to widen with today's competitive needs of companies planning to go global with the WTO and AFTA requirements. This could be caused by some overly contented staff and this is one backlog problems accountants might face in their subordinates' training programme trying to "unlearn" those bad habits of their subordinates. To me, the work of the QMR (quality mgt rep) is much more challenging of the two portfolios I hold. Dealing with recalcitrants is one terrible aspects I could imagine of and also with some "dead wood" staff. One of my encounters involved having to resolve the problem cause by this consultant who interpreted the ISO clauses wrongly, having convinced the top management team. Sad to say, why are such people so easily taken in by their lack of knowledge. We are not continuing the services of this consultant anyway. So much so about work, this type of stories could bore another. I thought having some kind of hobby like astronomy, etc could place your website to be even more interesting and attractive. Again, this needs time and effort. This is just another one aspect which I thought could spruce up the entire website of yours. When time permits, I shall try to inputs some of my questions with the hope that your wbesite will be more informational. Till then, hope to hear from you again. Regards, Loh WL Dear LWL, I think you are right about the general education of accountants. I used to work as a cost accountant and you might be astonished to hear that fellow cost accountants would happily sit in their offices all day and not even dream of walking around the factory to see how our products were all put together and how products and product costs were inter related. Similarly, we ought all to take as many opportunities as possible to work on our general business background. After all, as you have found, we don't all necessarily stay in the technical side of business for ever, we might have a department to manage one day ... Looking forward to more of this! Best wishes Duncan Williamson DW