beancounting

Etymology

From bean + counting.

beancounting means the act or policy of relying on quantitative measurable details, especially those concerned with expenses and profits, as opposed to seeking a broader understanding of something. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 100 out of 100.

Why this word is great

BEANCOUNTING — [Noun] The act or policy of focusing excessively on minute quantitative details, especially financial figures, at the expense of broader strategic or qualitative understanding. From bean, a common item used as a unit of account in early commerce, + counting, the act of enumerating. Unlike strategizing, which charts a course by starlight, or oversight, which presumes a watchful height, beancounting is a posture of perpetual stooping. It is the faint, maddening scratch of a pencil tallying paperclips while the warehouse burns; the glacial reallocation of a budget for rubber stamps as a competitor revolutionizes the market; the sterile glow of a spreadsheet at midnight that obscures the human face behind the number—a monastic devotion to digits that mistakes the tally of seeds for the harvest.

noun

The act or policy of relying on quantitative measurable details, especially those concerned with expenses and profits, as opposed to seeking a broader understanding of something.“Birt was 'obsessed with systems and procedures and power diagrams and channels of accountability' and 'turned the BBC into a beancounting Babel'.”