Should accountants learn TSQL and VBA?
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One of our accountants is leaving and he has been using Transact SQL and VBA(Excel) for reporting purposes. He has organised for the financial director and another accountant to learn VBA and TSQL so that they can take on his work when he leaves. I have been doing follow-up training with the FD in basic VBA. My concern is that both of these people in accounts have no experience in programming/development etc and are on a very steep learning curve. I partly believe that it should be the IT team that takes on this area of work and that the accounts team should be concentrating more on accounts. On several occasions I had to correct the TSQL of the accountant who is leaving. So my concern is that: .1) He is over-confident in his programming skills. .2) Due to point 1 he over estimates what the other accountants will be capable of in a short time. .3) Time spent learning TSQL and VBA will be time taken away from other important accounting work – particularly in the case of the FD. My role in the business is senior developer/DBA so I feel secure in my position, i.e. no fear of losing my job, and don’t want to spend time correcting spaghetti code – only over my dead body will they get update/insert/delete permissions. So here are the questions Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills? Am I being a control freak? I want the opinion of the wider community, so your opinions are appreciated in this area. Thanks Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
GuyThiebaut wrote:
One of our accountants is leaving and he has been using Transact SQL and VBA(Excel) for reporting purposes
there are one person like that in my friend's company. He know a lit bit about Microsoft Access.. so, he used to create the table, a lot of buttons and related reports. for example: if one clicks "Purchase Orders Report" button then he wrote the code to show the list of purchase order in report. The staffs in that company love him because they think that it's easy to use. The boss also loves him because he got some small programs for his office without extra costs..
GuyThiebaut wrote:
Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills?
No.. I don't think an accountant need to learn the programming skills.. a) the accountants won't want to learn the programming. b) As they don't wish to learn, they won't be able to create the good and reliable program. c) it doesn't make sense for them to learn programming because if they want to move to other companies, knowing programming language for them is not that useful in their future.. one thing for sure is that if you just follow what your manager or your boss asked you to do then they will say that you have good attitude. So, you should think before doing something against your manager or your boss. :)
Thanks and Regards, Michael Sync ( Blog: http://michaelsync.net)
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One of our accountants is leaving and he has been using Transact SQL and VBA(Excel) for reporting purposes. He has organised for the financial director and another accountant to learn VBA and TSQL so that they can take on his work when he leaves. I have been doing follow-up training with the FD in basic VBA. My concern is that both of these people in accounts have no experience in programming/development etc and are on a very steep learning curve. I partly believe that it should be the IT team that takes on this area of work and that the accounts team should be concentrating more on accounts. On several occasions I had to correct the TSQL of the accountant who is leaving. So my concern is that: .1) He is over-confident in his programming skills. .2) Due to point 1 he over estimates what the other accountants will be capable of in a short time. .3) Time spent learning TSQL and VBA will be time taken away from other important accounting work – particularly in the case of the FD. My role in the business is senior developer/DBA so I feel secure in my position, i.e. no fear of losing my job, and don’t want to spend time correcting spaghetti code – only over my dead body will they get update/insert/delete permissions. So here are the questions Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills? Am I being a control freak? I want the opinion of the wider community, so your opinions are appreciated in this area. Thanks Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
Guy, I am of the opinion that people should be empowered with the tools necessary for them to do the job they do. However, this must be tempered by their abilities and also by their terms and conditions of employment. As far as you being a control freak, I would suggest that it is you who should demand restrictions on the damage such people can do to the data that you are responsible for, unless you are looking for a way-out of your current employment.
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One of our accountants is leaving and he has been using Transact SQL and VBA(Excel) for reporting purposes. He has organised for the financial director and another accountant to learn VBA and TSQL so that they can take on his work when he leaves. I have been doing follow-up training with the FD in basic VBA. My concern is that both of these people in accounts have no experience in programming/development etc and are on a very steep learning curve. I partly believe that it should be the IT team that takes on this area of work and that the accounts team should be concentrating more on accounts. On several occasions I had to correct the TSQL of the accountant who is leaving. So my concern is that: .1) He is over-confident in his programming skills. .2) Due to point 1 he over estimates what the other accountants will be capable of in a short time. .3) Time spent learning TSQL and VBA will be time taken away from other important accounting work – particularly in the case of the FD. My role in the business is senior developer/DBA so I feel secure in my position, i.e. no fear of losing my job, and don’t want to spend time correcting spaghetti code – only over my dead body will they get update/insert/delete permissions. So here are the questions Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills? Am I being a control freak? I want the opinion of the wider community, so your opinions are appreciated in this area. Thanks Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
GuyThiebaut wrote:
Am I being a control freak?
Yes, you are. But I haven't seen a DBA who isn't. :-D Instead of not allowing people to try programming, it is probablly much easier for them to learn how hard programming is by themselves.
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GuyThiebaut wrote:
Am I being a control freak?
Yes, you are. But I haven't seen a DBA who isn't. :-D Instead of not allowing people to try programming, it is probablly much easier for them to learn how hard programming is by themselves.
Thanks,
Xiangyang Liu wrote:
it is probablly much easier for them to learn how hard programming is by themselves
Good point.
Xiangyang Liu wrote:
Yes, you are. But I haven't seen a DBA who isn't
lol As Martin and Richard pointed out it's the 'cover your ass' mentality Regards Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
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Guy, I am of the opinion that people should be empowered with the tools necessary for them to do the job they do. However, this must be tempered by their abilities and also by their terms and conditions of employment. As far as you being a control freak, I would suggest that it is you who should demand restrictions on the damage such people can do to the data that you are responsible for, unless you are looking for a way-out of your current employment.
Thanks, It also gives me a bit of a break - training can be fun when the person you are training is bright. I just hope they don't keep asking "Why" - or I'll reply "OH - JUST BECAUSE!" :laugh: Yes - regarding data integrity, I only let myself do modifications to the data (that is outside of the Accounting Application which manages data integrity(which I then have to clean up)). Regards Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
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A control freak? Well I don't know you personally, so difficult to say :) Lots of non-developers need some programming skills, especially those who work with data in an analytical capacity. It's quite good that your guys want to learn how to do this as a) It'll let them get on with their own jobs quicker, b) it'll save you from month-long backlogs of requests to get a spreadsheet to do something against the database and the inevitable change requests that come after that c) the bickering about why something doesn't work, why it's taking so long etc etc. Why they'd need to be able to modify the database itself, however, is a different matter. Even as a DBA, I bet there are business limits on what you can realistically do in terms of modifying/updating the data, and I'm willing to bet there's a whole process to go through (I call it ass-covering) featuring many an approval signature before data actually gets deleted.
"On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card the machine said I hadn't. "I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher - not lower - than -8 but I'm not having it." -Tina Farrell, a 23 year old thicky from Levenshulme, Manchester.
Thanks, You have helped to temper my control freak coefficient. I think the point you make about people being able to get on with their jobs better is very pertinent. Also:
martin_hughes wrote:
c) the bickering about why something doesn't work, why it's taking so long etc etc.
Will help them understand what it is I am doing in front of the screen all day(besides watching youtube, selling on ebay and of course reading and contributing to CP) since they will get a sense of just what is involved in programming. Regards Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
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GuyThiebaut wrote:
One of our accountants is leaving and he has been using Transact SQL and VBA(Excel) for reporting purposes
there are one person like that in my friend's company. He know a lit bit about Microsoft Access.. so, he used to create the table, a lot of buttons and related reports. for example: if one clicks "Purchase Orders Report" button then he wrote the code to show the list of purchase order in report. The staffs in that company love him because they think that it's easy to use. The boss also loves him because he got some small programs for his office without extra costs..
GuyThiebaut wrote:
Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills?
No.. I don't think an accountant need to learn the programming skills.. a) the accountants won't want to learn the programming. b) As they don't wish to learn, they won't be able to create the good and reliable program. c) it doesn't make sense for them to learn programming because if they want to move to other companies, knowing programming language for them is not that useful in their future.. one thing for sure is that if you just follow what your manager or your boss asked you to do then they will say that you have good attitude. So, you should think before doing something against your manager or your boss. :)
Thanks and Regards, Michael Sync ( Blog: http://michaelsync.net)
Thanks,
Michael Sync wrote:
follow what your manager or your boss asked you to do
I'm in the lucky position where my manager/boss is the one who tends to let me do what I want and turns to me for advice. Regards Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
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Thanks,
Michael Sync wrote:
follow what your manager or your boss asked you to do
I'm in the lucky position where my manager/boss is the one who tends to let me do what I want and turns to me for advice. Regards Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
GuyThiebaut wrote:
I'm in the lucky position where my manager/boss is the one who tends to let me do what I want and turns to me for advice.
then, you can suggest him not to force the accountants to learn programming and ask them their opinions whether they wish to learn programming or not.
Thanks and Regards, Michael Sync ( Blog: http://michaelsync.net)
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Thanks, It also gives me a bit of a break - training can be fun when the person you are training is bright. I just hope they don't keep asking "Why" - or I'll reply "OH - JUST BECAUSE!" :laugh: Yes - regarding data integrity, I only let myself do modifications to the data (that is outside of the Accounting Application which manages data integrity(which I then have to clean up)). Regards Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
For training purposes, perhaps you could get them a copy of 900+ page book "Database System Concepts" published by McGraw-Hill (or just the slides/pdf's by chapter at http://codex.cs.yale.edu/avi/db-book/slide-dir/index.html[^] Accountants I have found are very dry. This book might appeal to their sense of "dryness".
modified on Tuesday, January 01, 2008 9:38:41 AM
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One of our accountants is leaving and he has been using Transact SQL and VBA(Excel) for reporting purposes. He has organised for the financial director and another accountant to learn VBA and TSQL so that they can take on his work when he leaves. I have been doing follow-up training with the FD in basic VBA. My concern is that both of these people in accounts have no experience in programming/development etc and are on a very steep learning curve. I partly believe that it should be the IT team that takes on this area of work and that the accounts team should be concentrating more on accounts. On several occasions I had to correct the TSQL of the accountant who is leaving. So my concern is that: .1) He is over-confident in his programming skills. .2) Due to point 1 he over estimates what the other accountants will be capable of in a short time. .3) Time spent learning TSQL and VBA will be time taken away from other important accounting work – particularly in the case of the FD. My role in the business is senior developer/DBA so I feel secure in my position, i.e. no fear of losing my job, and don’t want to spend time correcting spaghetti code – only over my dead body will they get update/insert/delete permissions. So here are the questions Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills? Am I being a control freak? I want the opinion of the wider community, so your opinions are appreciated in this area. Thanks Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
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One of our accountants is leaving and he has been using Transact SQL and VBA(Excel) for reporting purposes. He has organised for the financial director and another accountant to learn VBA and TSQL so that they can take on his work when he leaves. I have been doing follow-up training with the FD in basic VBA. My concern is that both of these people in accounts have no experience in programming/development etc and are on a very steep learning curve. I partly believe that it should be the IT team that takes on this area of work and that the accounts team should be concentrating more on accounts. On several occasions I had to correct the TSQL of the accountant who is leaving. So my concern is that: .1) He is over-confident in his programming skills. .2) Due to point 1 he over estimates what the other accountants will be capable of in a short time. .3) Time spent learning TSQL and VBA will be time taken away from other important accounting work – particularly in the case of the FD. My role in the business is senior developer/DBA so I feel secure in my position, i.e. no fear of losing my job, and don’t want to spend time correcting spaghetti code – only over my dead body will they get update/insert/delete permissions. So here are the questions Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills? Am I being a control freak? I want the opinion of the wider community, so your opinions are appreciated in this area. Thanks Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
Accountants should be expected to understand programming concepts to the same level that you are required to learn accounting concepts. Tim
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One of our accountants is leaving and he has been using Transact SQL and VBA(Excel) for reporting purposes. He has organised for the financial director and another accountant to learn VBA and TSQL so that they can take on his work when he leaves. I have been doing follow-up training with the FD in basic VBA. My concern is that both of these people in accounts have no experience in programming/development etc and are on a very steep learning curve. I partly believe that it should be the IT team that takes on this area of work and that the accounts team should be concentrating more on accounts. On several occasions I had to correct the TSQL of the accountant who is leaving. So my concern is that: .1) He is over-confident in his programming skills. .2) Due to point 1 he over estimates what the other accountants will be capable of in a short time. .3) Time spent learning TSQL and VBA will be time taken away from other important accounting work – particularly in the case of the FD. My role in the business is senior developer/DBA so I feel secure in my position, i.e. no fear of losing my job, and don’t want to spend time correcting spaghetti code – only over my dead body will they get update/insert/delete permissions. So here are the questions Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills? Am I being a control freak? I want the opinion of the wider community, so your opinions are appreciated in this area. Thanks Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
GuyThiebaut wrote:
Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills? Am I being a control freak?
For any accounting depafrtment using Excel I recommend that at least one and maybe two persons know, or at the minimum have a basic understaindg of VBA for Excel. To address your second question: As an IT geek it is in your core nature to be a control freak. If you did not want to be a control freak, we'd have to kick you out of the club.
“If we are all in agreement on the decision - then I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.”-Alfred P. Sloan
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One of our accountants is leaving and he has been using Transact SQL and VBA(Excel) for reporting purposes. He has organised for the financial director and another accountant to learn VBA and TSQL so that they can take on his work when he leaves. I have been doing follow-up training with the FD in basic VBA. My concern is that both of these people in accounts have no experience in programming/development etc and are on a very steep learning curve. I partly believe that it should be the IT team that takes on this area of work and that the accounts team should be concentrating more on accounts. On several occasions I had to correct the TSQL of the accountant who is leaving. So my concern is that: .1) He is over-confident in his programming skills. .2) Due to point 1 he over estimates what the other accountants will be capable of in a short time. .3) Time spent learning TSQL and VBA will be time taken away from other important accounting work – particularly in the case of the FD. My role in the business is senior developer/DBA so I feel secure in my position, i.e. no fear of losing my job, and don’t want to spend time correcting spaghetti code – only over my dead body will they get update/insert/delete permissions. So here are the questions Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills? Am I being a control freak? I want the opinion of the wider community, so your opinions are appreciated in this area. Thanks Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
GuyThiebaut wrote:
Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills?
Apparently, yes. In my (soon to be former) workplace, there is a business analyst who is pretty skilled in making busines reports using tools such as SQL and VBA/VBS. Now, I don't work on the business side of development so I have no idea how good he really is, but again, it is not exactly mission-critical code either.
GuyThiebaut wrote:
Am I being a control freak?
Maybe, but there are situations when it is good to be a control freak :)
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GuyThiebaut wrote:
Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills?
Apparently, yes. In my (soon to be former) workplace, there is a business analyst who is pretty skilled in making busines reports using tools such as SQL and VBA/VBS. Now, I don't work on the business side of development so I have no idea how good he really is, but again, it is not exactly mission-critical code either.
GuyThiebaut wrote:
Am I being a control freak?
Maybe, but there are situations when it is good to be a control freak :)
Well, thanks for the "one vote", but I can assure you it wasn't me who hired this business analyst and told him to work with SQL and VBA :)
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One of our accountants is leaving and he has been using Transact SQL and VBA(Excel) for reporting purposes. He has organised for the financial director and another accountant to learn VBA and TSQL so that they can take on his work when he leaves. I have been doing follow-up training with the FD in basic VBA. My concern is that both of these people in accounts have no experience in programming/development etc and are on a very steep learning curve. I partly believe that it should be the IT team that takes on this area of work and that the accounts team should be concentrating more on accounts. On several occasions I had to correct the TSQL of the accountant who is leaving. So my concern is that: .1) He is over-confident in his programming skills. .2) Due to point 1 he over estimates what the other accountants will be capable of in a short time. .3) Time spent learning TSQL and VBA will be time taken away from other important accounting work – particularly in the case of the FD. My role in the business is senior developer/DBA so I feel secure in my position, i.e. no fear of losing my job, and don’t want to spend time correcting spaghetti code – only over my dead body will they get update/insert/delete permissions. So here are the questions Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills? Am I being a control freak? I want the opinion of the wider community, so your opinions are appreciated in this area. Thanks Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
As an accountant who also learned how to write TSQL, PL/SQL, java, VBA, VB.Net, C#, etc. etc., I can only say that it helps me in my job tremendously to know both sides of the coin. IMHO no one should be forced to learn something they don't want to. Accountants were hired to be accountants, IT guys were hired to take care of the technical side. Where I work, we have an IT department that only wants to work on the large stuff. Several times in the past we have had the occasion where we requested a report, only to be told it couldn't be done. 30 minutes later, I had written the report. When we re-submitted the request from a higher level, IT said they could write the report, it would take three months and they didn't want anything I had written. IMHO this is not the way things should work. I realize that I may not be the best programmer, TSQL writer in the world and would love to have the IT department look at every single line of code I write to ensure I am not putting anything on the server in harm. I say all this to say, it should not hurt to have accountants that can write some code. You as the DBA should however be able to look at server loads and if problems exist, have a good enough relationship with said accountants that you can review what they have written and make improvements, while using that time to explain why what you improved is better. I promise that an accountant that has taken the time to learn some TSQL/VBA code will appreciate the training. You should use the opportunity you have now to volunteer to take over the mini-application if the FD does not really want to handle it. It is obvious that the written application is important to the accounting department and he may feel as if they have no choice but to learn VBA/TSQL. By being open to helping out, you are gaining another ally in the corporation, one who may control the purse strings. Sorry for the long post. :)
Jeremy Oldham
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One of our accountants is leaving and he has been using Transact SQL and VBA(Excel) for reporting purposes. He has organised for the financial director and another accountant to learn VBA and TSQL so that they can take on his work when he leaves. I have been doing follow-up training with the FD in basic VBA. My concern is that both of these people in accounts have no experience in programming/development etc and are on a very steep learning curve. I partly believe that it should be the IT team that takes on this area of work and that the accounts team should be concentrating more on accounts. On several occasions I had to correct the TSQL of the accountant who is leaving. So my concern is that: .1) He is over-confident in his programming skills. .2) Due to point 1 he over estimates what the other accountants will be capable of in a short time. .3) Time spent learning TSQL and VBA will be time taken away from other important accounting work – particularly in the case of the FD. My role in the business is senior developer/DBA so I feel secure in my position, i.e. no fear of losing my job, and don’t want to spend time correcting spaghetti code – only over my dead body will they get update/insert/delete permissions. So here are the questions Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills? Am I being a control freak? I want the opinion of the wider community, so your opinions are appreciated in this area. Thanks Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
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One of our accountants is leaving and he has been using Transact SQL and VBA(Excel) for reporting purposes. He has organised for the financial director and another accountant to learn VBA and TSQL so that they can take on his work when he leaves. I have been doing follow-up training with the FD in basic VBA. My concern is that both of these people in accounts have no experience in programming/development etc and are on a very steep learning curve. I partly believe that it should be the IT team that takes on this area of work and that the accounts team should be concentrating more on accounts. On several occasions I had to correct the TSQL of the accountant who is leaving. So my concern is that: .1) He is over-confident in his programming skills. .2) Due to point 1 he over estimates what the other accountants will be capable of in a short time. .3) Time spent learning TSQL and VBA will be time taken away from other important accounting work – particularly in the case of the FD. My role in the business is senior developer/DBA so I feel secure in my position, i.e. no fear of losing my job, and don’t want to spend time correcting spaghetti code – only over my dead body will they get update/insert/delete permissions. So here are the questions Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills? Am I being a control freak? I want the opinion of the wider community, so your opinions are appreciated in this area. Thanks Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
You are definitely correct. VB, VBA, Excel, Access, etc. are dangerous in the wrong hands. (And yet they're marketed to those very same wrong hands.) A year ago I inherited a quagmire of Excel files to maintain. I've kvetched about it here before so I won't do so today. Suffice it to say, I doubt what you're up against is worse than what I had to deal with this past year. Put data in a database, use custom applications to access and maintain it. Every time, no exceptions.
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Accountants should be expected to understand programming concepts to the same level that you are required to learn accounting concepts. Tim
No, certainly not to the same level.
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One of our accountants is leaving and he has been using Transact SQL and VBA(Excel) for reporting purposes. He has organised for the financial director and another accountant to learn VBA and TSQL so that they can take on his work when he leaves. I have been doing follow-up training with the FD in basic VBA. My concern is that both of these people in accounts have no experience in programming/development etc and are on a very steep learning curve. I partly believe that it should be the IT team that takes on this area of work and that the accounts team should be concentrating more on accounts. On several occasions I had to correct the TSQL of the accountant who is leaving. So my concern is that: .1) He is over-confident in his programming skills. .2) Due to point 1 he over estimates what the other accountants will be capable of in a short time. .3) Time spent learning TSQL and VBA will be time taken away from other important accounting work – particularly in the case of the FD. My role in the business is senior developer/DBA so I feel secure in my position, i.e. no fear of losing my job, and don’t want to spend time correcting spaghetti code – only over my dead body will they get update/insert/delete permissions. So here are the questions Is it usual for accounts departments to learn these sorts of skills? Am I being a control freak? I want the opinion of the wider community, so your opinions are appreciated in this area. Thanks Guy
You always pass failure on the way to success.
GuyThiebaut wrote:
I partly believe that it should be the IT team that takes on this area of work and that the accounts team should be concentrating more on accounts.
Therein lies the problem. First, how well does IT and the accountants communicate? Second, you may think it odd that the accountants learn TSQL and VBA, but did it occur to you that for the IT team to do their job well, they need to learn something about accounting? [edit]Third (almost forgot), how responsive is the IT team to the accountants needs? Is this maverick accountant simply reacting to an adversarial relationship with IT?[/edit] One of the biggest problems that nobody recognizes regarding software development is that most of it is cross-discipline work, on both sides of the fence. The only workable solution that I've found is when there is at least one person, preferably several, that are skilled in at least two of the disciplines needed in the job. All too often, companies fail to recognize the importance of this "resource" bridge. Who is the this bridge between accounting expertise and IT expertise in your company? If you don't have one, get one or become one. Marc
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GuyThiebaut wrote:
I partly believe that it should be the IT team that takes on this area of work and that the accounts team should be concentrating more on accounts.
Therein lies the problem. First, how well does IT and the accountants communicate? Second, you may think it odd that the accountants learn TSQL and VBA, but did it occur to you that for the IT team to do their job well, they need to learn something about accounting? [edit]Third (almost forgot), how responsive is the IT team to the accountants needs? Is this maverick accountant simply reacting to an adversarial relationship with IT?[/edit] One of the biggest problems that nobody recognizes regarding software development is that most of it is cross-discipline work, on both sides of the fence. The only workable solution that I've found is when there is at least one person, preferably several, that are skilled in at least two of the disciplines needed in the job. All too often, companies fail to recognize the importance of this "resource" bridge. Who is the this bridge between accounting expertise and IT expertise in your company? If you don't have one, get one or become one. Marc
Marc Clifton wrote:
First, how well does IT and the accountants communicate?
On amicable terms. I have known and worked with the FD for some 12 years. There is a good level of trust present between both of us.
Marc Clifton wrote:
but did it occur to you that for the IT team to do their job well, they need to learn something about accounting?
Very good point - I have to and do understand debtors/creditors/stock ledgers in order to be able to support and develop our systems.
Marc Clifton wrote:
Is this maverick accountant simply reacting to an adversarial relationship with IT?
Originally he was part of the IT team being an accountant who was familiar with some accounting software. He left the IT team to join the Accounts team and carried over his interest in IT. As a consequence he developed spreadsheets and TSQL reports for the team. With him leaving he is saying that others in his team need to know how to maintain those reports. In terms of his work style he very much worked on his own, rarely collaborating. My contact with him regarding TSQL tended to be when he told me there was "something wrong with the data" - I would then look at his TSQL and correct that which strangely enough corrected the data as well :laugh: Unfortunately maverick is probably the correct term as he has poor analysis skills leading to him being overly-optimistic regarding the ease with which IT projects can be completed. He has saved me from having to write the reports though - so there is a positive side.
Marc Clifton wrote:
Who is the this bridge between accounting expertise and IT expertise in your company?
That'l be me. Having worked my way up from the shop floor I have worked in pretty much every department - this has stood me in very good stead. My concern is that TSQL and VBA is not just about learning to code - which in itself is no small matter. But in order to be able to put that knowledge to good use one has to have a good understanding of the underlying data structures / business model(from an IT perspective) etc. This having been said all thes responses have been very helpful - I will change my perspective and steer more towards getting the appropriate people trained and ensure that I can support and supervise them where necessary.