bean-counter

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bean counter

1. A derogatory term used to describe someone who obsesses over trivial and insignificant expenditures in an attempt to save money. As soon as the staff learned they had to purchase their own office supplies, they knew it was a result of the finance department's new bean counter tightening the company's purse strings.

2. An accountant. We need to get a bean counter in here to analyze these expense reports and give us the big picture on our finances.

bean-counter

n. a statistician; an accountant. When the bean-counters get finished with the numbers, you won’t recognize them.

References in periodicals archive ?

British military action and re-equipment is now being strictly governed by Whitehall bean-counters who do not have that many beans to count.

A Russian history lesson worth remembering... Get in touch - tell us what you think Email: ecletters@walesonline.co.uk Twitter: @WalesOnline Facebook: facebook.com/WalesOnline Post: Media Wales, 6 Park Street, Cardiff CF10 1XR

Bean-counters in then Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald's office warned decisions on payments should be kept well away from his desk.

State can't hide from the past.. COMMENT Park House, 191 - 197 North Circular Road, Dublin 7 Tel: 01 868 8600, Fax 01 868 8626, irishmirror.ie

If replacing an M2 machine gun pin for a couple of bucks can save replacing a $500 barrel extension, you can bet the bean-counters sit up and take notice.

Free but priceless

Cuts that potentially pose a risk to residents are unacceptable and usually made by bean-counters - in this case central government bean-counters - who have little knowledge of the services they intend to savage.

The cuts that could place us all at risk

The bean-counters have just revealed average household disposable income dropped another pounds 200 last year.

Cracking the whip

To hell with the Whitehall bean-counters, build more prisons and put law-abiding citizens before criminals.

Longer sentences; emails & letters

YET again the bean-counters have been at work and it's been revealed that Britain's dog and cat lovers will spend pounds 100million on pressies for their pets.

Kayla tackles another parasite

While Alan Orme (Letters, May) may be understandably worried about the financial implications of climate change, I suspect that he, like most of us bean-counters, doesn't know enough about the subject to offer an informed opinion.

Green bean-counting

I was very upset last September when the Programme for Adult Education was delivered and I realised what a wholesale destruction of the service had been carried out to the god of bean-counters and small-minded people of little vision.

Letter: You say - Adult education wrecked

Somebody obviously tried to raise the game with a sprinkling of drilled aluminium, but the GM bean-counters completely ruined the effect by stuffing in Astra indicator stalks and a tacky plastic interior light in the middle of the dash.

Quentin Willson's Motoring Column: SHAME ABOUT THE INFERIOR INTERIOR

The bean-counters at The People are a bit like my old Scottish mate Ian St John - tighter than a mallard's posterior.

HI folks, Jimmy Greaves here [...]

The Phoenix Four's reputations may have been tarnished by the demise of MG Rover, but their ill-fated reign at Longbridge is now overshadowed by the grasping bean-counters of HBOS.

Is this why the banks were saved?

As usual the NHS management, unlike the NHS staff at the sharp end, does not work for the benefit of the patients but for the bean-counters in suits.

Letter: Your Say - Muddled thinking will cause big problems

The smart alec whizzkids and management bean-counters who have tarnished that reputation are not the people to restore it.