Hide Text Transcript

JIM MARKEL: The mistake I made was I got involved early on in different accounting systems to run the business, and a typical mistake people make is they under buy. They buy too small of an accounting system that won't scale up if their business grows. And the reason they do that is because of cost. They say, "Well, I can't afford a big accounting system because I'm not doing the business." Well, what happens when you crush the accounting system? And I've crushed three of them. I kept making the same mistake, finally, and finally, as my accountant put it, he goes, "You bought a combine to mow the yard," and that's a good analogy because the system that I have now will take me as far as I ever want to go financially, you know, for yearly sales in this business. Once it gets beyond that this would be mega corp., I would be the big cataloguer. You control costs by knowing what things cost, and you don't know that unless you have an accounting system, and flat out you need an accounting system, and a good one.