...or thereabouts. Radoja gave me the task to make a nivelation report. That would be on "how much did we make on inflation". At some point you have a quantity of 6 of something you bought at 100, worth 600. Then you buy three more at 150, and now all nine have this price, worth a total of 1350, while your cost was 1050 - so the 300 is this nivelation. It's not income yet, these aren't sold. It's just the value of stock.
Now in Čelik they saw this report and didn't like it. Nothing wrong with the report, though, it was correct. They didn't like the result. Because the nivelation was often negative. How can that be? Well, suppose you buy two more at 200, now you have 11x200=2200. Then you sell five of these at 100... and now the value of stock is 6x200=1200, but the income is not 1000, it's only 500. And the missing value is seen on this report.
Knowing what's coming, Radoja told me to pull the history for one 120l still they had on stock. In march they had three, at 16 (million dinars). Then in april they sold one and bought two more at 19. Then in may they bought a couple more at 32 (we did have some serious inflation at the time). Then in june they sold one at 17, and one at 21. Total loss 24, that's how below the current price these were sold (all prices include the margin, i.e. these are not cost prices). When they called, he took this item history report and brought it to them. Didn't have to go far, their offices were on the main street, and ours in the first backstreet, so 100m altogether as the crow flies, or 250 through the nearest passage.
Having seen that, the bosses of Čelik saw that they can't wiggle their way out of this, it's a report they asked for and it's correct. Their invention was the total under each page. Items not grouped nor sorted in any way, they went by item ID, no structure at all. The total, however, wasn't the page's total... it was a running total. Total of all the pages so far. This total would go wild - on some items the numbers were sort of OK, on some they were high, on some they were ridiculously negative, showing some fantastic losses. So the total up to page one was so-so, on page two some miserable amount, on page six it was a few millions below zero, un page ten it looked great, on page 24, the last one, it was so low they should fire someone, or engage a firing squad.
What did they do? Tear below page ten and discard the rest. The total on page ten was correct down to the last dinar. It was only incomplete.
30-IX-2020 - 20-XI-2025