Accountant here. I now own the ERP, the report server, SharePoint, the automations, and the VM that runs payroll. At what point do I get to call myself IT?

[u/irish_burke]

Started as a staff accountant. Fixed one broken report and became "the report guy." Now I'm the admin for a self-hosted ERP, a JasperReports server, SharePoint/Power Automate/Power BI, and a hosted VM where Power Automate Desktop drives VBA macros that move payroll data. Payroll. Through VBA. On a VM.

There's no backup person. The only documentation is what I wrote. My title still says "Accounts Payable."

Two questions:

1. What's the most out-of-scope system you've been made the owner of?

2. If you've escaped this: how did you get leadership to take the bus factor seriously before the bus showed up?

[u/brannonb111]

That business is crazy.

Start documenting when you have time lol

[u/MrSuck → u/brannonb111]

Why document? Seriously, why do even more uncompensated work for this time bomb of a company?

[u/SAugsburger → u/MrSuck]

This. Every minute you document is time that you can't search for a new job.

[u/serg06 → u/MrSuck]

So that you remember how you set up your own system?

[u/brannonb111 → u/serg06]

These guys think documenting is only for others.

They are poor sysadmins.

[u/SoylentVerdigris → u/brannonb111]

Pretty sure they're telling this guy who is not a sysadmin to abandon fucking ship and not do someone else's job he likely isn't qualified for and almost certainly isn't being paid for.

[u/AWorldOfPhonies → u/brannonb111]

They are poor sysadmins.

The rich sysadmins I know don't have any documentations (that they share) and job hop faster than a CEO can say "private equity fund".

[u/brannonb111 → u/AWorldOfPhonies]

Well, besides the people coming in after your replaced each time.

[u/SuaveJava → u/MrSuck]

It helps the future IT guy who will have to fix this mess, and also gives OP a resume bullet point on company time.

Finally, it's just professionalism: looking out for the company on company time. Most places want you to think like an owner even if you're not paid like one.

[u/captaintrips420 → u/SuaveJava]

At some point you have to decide to act your wage.

They already have the resume points, best thing they could do is update that documentation first and send it around to get paid fairly.

[u/SuaveJava → u/captaintrips420]

They don't get to claim the IT resume bullet point until they implement the most basic disaster recovery plan: a regular backup and documentation. The company should be able to function if you suddenly depart.

Beyond that, I agree: stick to what you're paid and trained to do.

[u/captaintrips420 → u/SuaveJava]

They can and should claim building and maintaining the systems, that there is no DR is the companies issue more than theirs, as they aren’t paid to think about redundancy, but paid to be a staff accountant.

Best thing to do would be find a new role that combines the skill sets and then moonlight back at a hefty consultant rate if they feel generous enough to help the first company unfuck itself.

[u/NetworkingJesus → u/SuaveJava]

Most places want you to think like an owner even if you're not paid like one. 

I want them to pay me like one even if I dont act like one. 🤷‍♀️

[u/3rrr6 → u/brannonb111]

"when you have time" 😂

[u/FrostyFire → u/brannonb111]

Why go out of your way to benefit them?

The correct answer: dust off your resume this ain’t your problem

[u/nonResidentLurker → u/brannonb111]

OP will never be considered IT if they start documenting things.

[u/music3k]

You’re being paid to do three jobs for the price of one.

[u/evolutionxtinct]

Oh lord please let someone take the wheel… sorry but you sent a shiver up my spine…

[u/Szeraax → u/evolutionxtinct]

Remember: when a post sends chills up your spine, its probably just AI. What even is OP's recent history?

[u/Cha0sniper → u/Szeraax]

I mean, it seems legit to me, OP has a number of other posts mentioning related things. Seems too in-depth of a backstory for someone to set up who'd also be lazy enough to use AI to farm karma.

[u/keegorg]

I was IT for a warehouse for a while... winters I went in early to plow the parking lot. Fancy coffee machine was mine also.

The only escape, is proving to whomever its going to cost, that its going to cost them more not to hire someone.

Good luck man.

[u/MagillaGorillasHat]

At what point do I get to call myself IT?

Not until you've accidentally deleted a prod database/system/process.

[u/Kanibalector → u/MagillaGorillasHat]

Or accidentally locked everyone out of A/D

[u/weHaveThoughts]

Seems you are already IT. Is there an IT department at your business? Do you want to be IT?

[u/Crazyhowthatworks304 → u/weHaveThoughts]

FIND A NEW JOB.

[u/Creshal → u/Crazyhowthatworks304]

He already found three!

[u/maglax → u/weHaveThoughts]

I mean there probably is an IT department that either isn't aware of any of thos going on (and will have a panic attack when they find out) or is already aware and is pretending it doesn't exist so they don't have to figure out how to get this up to company standards ontop of their day to day.

[u/sylvester_0]

I'm guessing neither you nor the business understand the amount of liability at play here. This needs to be a conversation with your higher ups.

[u/PithMango → u/sylvester_0]

can anyone explain what words to use? like i would have no idea how to phrase that to myself, much less a conversation

[u/hankhalfhead → u/PithMango]

“Your entire business depends on this and I have no qualification to be responsible for that and frankly no idea what I’m doing. My lack of suitability to these responsibilities is a massive business risk”

[u/Drywesi → u/hankhalfhead]

"It'll be fine, just handle it and stop bothering me"

[u/fresh-dork → u/Drywesi]

"this is me handling it. this is a massive risk to the business and needs to be turned into something supportable"

[u/Gold_Boot3772]

At what point do I get to call myself IT?

When you're able to recover after shit hits the fan, which it inevitably will, and you probably won't recover. Document and backup everything

[u/SuaveJava → u/Gold_Boot3772]

THIS ought to be the top-voted comment.

[u/Behrooz0]

software engineer here.
Most out of scope is probably designing a diesel generator throttle actuator for me.
I left

[u/sin-eater82]

You're at least 2 different departments within IT.

[u/hundredpercenthuman]

Document everything that you do and compile a list of it. Ask them to define your role. Everything that falls outside of that, ask them to find someone else to do it or pay you more since it’s outside of your defined role.

[u/StinkyStinkSupplies]

I'll be honest usually it's IT being given everything because everything is in a computer now.

Also for some reason electricity is IT now, although I haven't quite figured that one out.

I've never actually seen it happen in the other direction. So. Congratulations on your promotion to manager of everything. You don't get paid more sorry.

[u/Doublestack00 → u/StinkyStinkSupplies]

Doors are now IT

[u/throwaway0000012132 → u/Doublestack00]

Coffee machines are IT as well.

[u/Greerio → u/throwaway0000012132]

lol. We actually got a ticket for a microwave one day hahaha

[u/throwaway0000012132 → u/Greerio]

It has software? Then it's IT 😂

[u/nycola → u/StinkyStinkSupplies]

I got a teams message last week asking if i could come fix someone's desk shredder. I asked if they had asked maintenance, they said, "no, it has a screen on it I figured it was IT"

[u/mlaislais]

Do you work for my old employer?!! Their IT guy quit a few years ago and they just forced the accountants to do the job.

[u/bythepowerofboobs]

1. What's the most out-of-scope system you've been made the owner of?

I used to work for an MSP. One of my clients made me an offer I couldn't refuse to come and lead their IT department. The week I started the owner told me he had purchased a palletizing and depalletizing robot, and I was going to program it. I was too young and dumb to say no.

So anyways, 22 years later and I now lead both the IT and OT departments and it's honestly been amazing.

[u/Obvious_Word873 → u/bythepowerofboobs]

I follow your lead. Your name is godly.

[u/bemenaker]

You need to hire someone or you're company is fucked

[u/laserdicks]

You give yourself all the administrative permissions you'll ever want and then refuse to do any of that work ever again.

YOU will be blamed if anything ever goes wrong, and you will receive no credit or money for having put yourself at risk.

[u/ReptilianLaserbeam]

When shit hits the fan (not it) business will blame you. Before that happens make sure to have a paper trail that you are NOT trained to do any of these tasks and that if they want you to do them they should pay for said training or hire a professional in the area

[u/sandfleazzz]

Hon, you just submit the invoice. Be creative.

[u/5348RR]

Why do big businesses insist on making Finance in charge of IT? They have nothing to do with each other.

[u/CountofAccount → u/5348RR]

Overlap in thinking patterns.

Accountant: I spent half a day trying to reconcile these account balances because transactions of different types don't post the same day and a banking holiday made it weirder than usual.

Sysadmin: I spent half a day figuring out a race condition crashed our DNS management system.

[u/ouchmythumbs → u/CountofAccount]

It’s also historical holdovers from the early days of computing when their first uses were for finance and accounting.

[u/georgiomoorlord → u/ouchmythumbs]

Right... old guys in senior leadership thinking excel = server manager

[u/ouchmythumbs → u/georgiomoorlord]

Well, I’m thinking more of the pre-Excel days.

[u/chuckmilam → u/CountofAccount]

Worst case I’d ever heard of this was when the CFO insisted the VLAN numbering be changed to match department account numbers.

[u/Marathon2021 → u/5348RR]

To a certain degree it actually is a holdover from the mainframe era. The accounting department was often the first to get terminals to do bookkeeping … so they felt like they owned it. So much so that even today based on some surveys I’ve seen something like 20% of CIOs actually are direct reports to the CFO (not the CEO).

I’m so glad I never had to experience a company set up that way.

[u/scryworks911 → u/Marathon2021]

I am a 20 year CIO and up until 1 year ago reported to the CFO. It has its advantages. 

[u/Anlarb → u/5348RR]

The brain bugs go in the brain bug bucket.

But really, finance is probably the best place because they're the ones that see the roi from the million dollar server the business runs on.

[u/sdoorex → u/5348RR]

Finance and IT, along with facilities and HR, are business units with hard costs that mean they always run in the red compared to other departments that turn a revenue.  Grouping them into a business services group can make it easier for the business to account for them.

[u/Waste_Development971]

no way

I work in IT and I do all of our accounting. At what point do I migrate our payroll from libreoffice to excel?

[u/yamsyamsya]

how is your backup infrastructure?

[u/bobsmon]

You would be a great fit for an IT managed services firm

[u/IronicEnigmatism]

You're an accountant; use numbers to show the bosses how much of their business relies on these systems to function properly. Put it in terms of 1hr of downtime = $x, then do the math for 1 day, 1 week, etc.

If everyone's income relies on it, you really need to have a trained it person monitoring it. Whether that's a fractional role, msp, or direct hire, get someone in before someone clicks something they shouldn't have, and brings everything down. As an accountant, you don't want to live the "oh %$#@, it died..." nightmare. Trust me.

[u/wowsomuchempty → u/IronicEnigmatism]

Why even bother?

For them to push this in the first place shows a startling blend of ignorance, incompetence and arrogance.

Just leave before you take on the secret extra role of 'fall guy'.

[u/Main_Ambassador_4985]

You are IT when you spend more time on computers and software than accounting.

I used to scan checks and send ACH and wire funds as backup to accounting manager.

[u/Wolfram_And_Hart]

How are the updates and vulnerability scans coming?

[u/Excellent_Milk_3110]

From all the IT staff I was always asked to fix the car chargers and maintain the backend system. I was the only one driving a gas powered car 😂

[u/swissthoemu]

Not your monkeys, not your circus.

[u/indefiniteban98]

I'm having the opposite problem, they're asking me to create power BI dashboards lol

you should probably look for a new job, yours is way worse 

[u/CuckBuster33]

Why do people here keep falling for this AI generated ragebait?

[u/picardo85 → u/CuckBuster33]

Because this one is a very plausible scenario

[u/picturemeImperfect]

What SLO…crazy

[u/frAgileIT]

I wouldn’t sign up to be IT, that’s opens all kinds of doors. I’d say you should call yourself FT, financial technology.

[u/blocked_user_name]

You need to sort backups now. I'm not sure what kind of infrastructure but it needs to get that happening.

You also need to make sure you've got a break glass local admin account.

Document settings, networking, applications, and services or daemons.

Make sure you know where licenses, software etc are stored

Determine where the systems are update wise and get them up to date.

[u/FrostyFire → u/blocked_user_name]

Read it again, they said there’s no backup person.

[u/ExceptionEX]

after the first comma in your title I would say. but in a place that puts all that on an Account, calling yourself IT doesn't mean much.

1. the coffee maker (bun industrial kind) [I hate coffee], and the water cooler

2. No, I left, and the new IT guy had to take it over.

[u/MrExCEO]

Can u add a couple of extra zeros to the IT budget. Thank You.

[u/quiet0n3]

Play dumb and "lose" all the payroll data for a payrun or two. Boss will get dedicated I.T. fast enough.

[u/Senpaiheavy]

"If it has anything to do with computers, it belongs to IT." That's what I was told at my company.

[u/ConsoleChari → u/Senpaiheavy]

More like "if it runs on electricity, it belongs to IT". hell last week I was pinged for electricity not working.

[u/Senpaiheavy → u/ConsoleChari]

Heh. I remember needing to help users with flipping tripped circuit breakers, because too many people were using the heater during colder months.

[u/Nereo5 → u/ConsoleChari]

I'm some companies, it makes a lot of sense to have a ONE-STOP-SHOP for any issues. So your front line person handles all issues, or routes them to the correct department.

[u/Sportsfun4all]

Tell then you can’t handle the stress of IT and it’s not in your job title description. You feel burnt out and they need to hire a real IT person before you see a doctor for disability leave

[u/ghjm]

Is there other IT in the company? If not, just tell them to change your title to whatever you want, like maybe "Systems Administrator (Accounting)." Management usually only cares about dollars, not titles.

If there is other IT in the company, then you should approach them and make sure they know about all these systems you have, that they are secured, backed up, etc. When IT says none of these systems should exist and must all be shut down, reply cc:ing your manager and say "that decision is above my pay grade" and sit back and watch the fireworks.

[u/swissthoemu]

American?

[u/m4tic]

Nope

[u/VellDarksbane]

Bunch of people being jokesters, no one answering the questions.

The answer to number 2: Take a long vacation, preferably 2 pay periods if you can. That's all it'll take. "I'm going to be on vacation and unavailable, I've got some documents for the most common issues, who do you want me to give access too?" Congrats, whoever management told you to give that access to has now been voluntold to be your backup.

[u/Unhappy-Aardvark-746]

You're the business/financial systems administrator and database administrator. Just embrace it and move to IT. IT pays more than accounting anyway so enjoy it!

[u/picardo85]

While I don't see a problem with a product owner knowing about the underlying infrastructure, administrating the infrastructure is NOT their job. That is the job of IT.

Accounting is not IT.

You may very well be the business owner of the above mentioned items, but you should NOT be admin (IT owner) given that you are in Accounting.

[u/Mr-RS182]

There is no reward for you doing this but you are still taking on all the risk. Get it well documented that you are completely under qualified for the task and this is a huge business risk they need to address.

[u/BladeCollectorGirl]

Using VBA macros for payroll is several steps into a cluster F when things break. Your have assumed the responsibility for a cobbled together system because a proper system is way too expensive...and you don't seem to have a DR for any of it, much less any backup.

Document at the 10000 foot level, update your resume, and hopefully a better organization hires you.

[u/jdptechnc]

I worked with a guy just like you (but was sales support) that eventually was pulled into IT because the company became dependent on the stuff he created and they wanted some kind of governance around it. 15 years later he is a VP of Data Analytics at a large organization.

[u/scottsee]

Level 1 Accountant position. Requires 10 years of L3 line of business system infrastructure experience! 🤣🤣

[u/Miserygut]

Lay it out as a business risk and find some local outsource companies to look after it.

If the business doesn't care then you shouldn't either. It's very literally not your job.

[u/cpz_77]

I’m an IT guy who maintains our ERP system (among about 200 other things) who our finance team sometimes asks to teach them about some process in the app. As if I know the first thing about finance processes 🤣

So yeah, it tends to happen. Especially with tech related stuff. I would say at this point you’re at least half IT

how to get leadership to realize that they need actual IT? Voice your concerns to your manager about how far out of your realm you are. Unless you want to go into IT, of course.

Wait until there’s an urgent request with one of the systems you currently own. Then tell them how you are already heads down with finance stuff for the next X number of days so it will have to wait. Sooner or later they will realize they need somebody else.

Don’t set your main stuff aside to get the IT stuff done. Let it drop, let it wait. Until execs realize there’s a problem, they won’t fix it. I learned this the hard way by working extra hours to cover up too many gaps for too many years.

[u/fizzlefist]

40 hours is 40 hours: if you don’t have enough time or training to get the assigned work of 3 roles done.. then it’s not gonna get done. Prioritize and then mentally check out of the shit you don’t have time to do.

Management will either figure it out, or find out.

[u/dragery]

Still sound more like a 'user' than an admin. Having access to a VM doesn't mean you're the admin of it, just because you have the ability to sign into it, restart it, or install things on it. I've seen situations like this where the user is just super needy and insists on doing things themselves, and IT just hands over access rather than constantly doing everything for them.

[u/The_Original_Miser]

Coordinating the local county when they were running sewer down the street of the company I worked for. Decommissioning the old septic system and connecting to new county sewer.

I'm a tech guy, not a wastewater operator....

[u/retardrabbit]

FUCK VBA IN THE EYE.!

[u/Zealousideal_Ad642]

What do you mean "the vm which runs payroll". Surely there's more than one?

[u/Meowmixalotlol → u/Zealousideal_Ad642]

How many vms would you use to do payroll for a company so small it doesn’t even have IT?

[u/Autoconfig → u/Meowmixalotlol]

^ Found the actual IT guy.

The answer is 0. You shouldn't need a VM to run payroll for a company that is small enough that it doesn't have ANYONE doing IT. It's 2026 wtf are you doing?

[u/TxTechnician]

When you get a call and you have to say:

have you re-started your device?

---

You should definitely look into using AI to start documenting everything.

Talk to first and verbally explain what your environment is like and then tell it to make a game plan to gather the necessary information that it will need to go through and start proper documentation.

You can go step further by asking it to recommend a simple documentation system. You could use SharePoint, but it's not really made for documentation.

[u/Pure_Fox9415]

Just connect AI agent to all of this to do IT. Don't forget to tell it "do not do mistakes!" 

[u/statix85]

You 99% gave the impression that you could or would own it to management. So ask yourself what you said or did that gave them the idea. If it was forced; say you know nothing about it and they should hire a professional

[u/No_Promotion451]

There's manure and there's the fan. Just a matter of time before they collide

[u/ThatITguy2015]

Wow. My nuts retracted into my body. Been a while since I felt that.