The Mission

It seems like a simple concept: get businesses to open up their accounting, for internal employees and external investors. Yet today, even the most "progressive" business often prohibits employees from learning about their colleagues salaries, or how bonuses are distributed, let alone a cap table describing ownership.

This is bad for business. Harmful for employee engagement, of course, but also simply bad for capitalism itself: how can you validate which businesses are truly transformative if you can't trust their own accounting? Why invest in a business if you can't see how they are making money?

The simple matter is that at most firms - there is no "secret sauce" that would allow competitors to run amok if they had access to the data. And at most firms, withholding key accounting info feeds rumors and speculation rather than allowing progress to be shown. Is diversity a problem? Are employees paid fairly? Surely hiding the data doesn't drive positive outcomes.

Of course, like most complex problems, the "solution" needs to encompass multiple domains - but most of these boil down to two large areas:

• Technology - do systems exist to allow for real-time accounting of cost, down to specific individuals? Can these systems, if they do exist, publish their data in a way that the public both inside and outside the firm can consume?
• Cultural Norms - how comfortable are staff with letting everyone know their salary? And bonuses? How comfortable are owners sharing how close their firm comes to not making payroll one month? How many months could a business run before it runs out of cash entirely if a disaster strikes?

Finally, if open accounting allows businesses to become more effective - how can we get more of them to adopt? Until the perception changes - how can well run, open firms advertise how they do business differently? Could a validation system exist to showcase the truly innovative firms from the ones locked in a legacy mindset?