It seems a bit weird that you had to educate this person on financial records, when it is pretty much demanded by the tax authorities in every country to have proper accounting. Otherwise you end up in a grey area which can easily be misconstrued as you trying to avoid taxes or even worse - money laundering offenses. If this person had been around for at least a couple years they should have been paying taxes and to do that, you need to know your incomings and outgoings. With that in mind, some people pay accountants to deal with the nitty gritty details, especially if they're in fields where they make a lot of money or once the company starts to expand but it is necessary to know these basics things to determine if you're making any sort of profit.
In some countries there are no proper taxation systems. Most citizens of developing nations don't pay tax. Even if they pay it is not properly calculated and corrupt tax officials also use tax collection as opportunities to steal. Like in my country only civil servants and registered businesses are require to file tax statement. So most businesses don't keep records and these businesses don't know their financial standings.
It was the opposite for us; it is required to have financial records as you are an illegal business if you don't have them, as this is required before having a permit to operate. That is why it is important, but the problem starts because most of them are handwritten, so they can be cheated, like if you wrote a total of $25k rather than $50k because they are just handwritten, which means they can be easily manipulated, and you really needed to declare it to the tax department so that they can introduce you to how much you are paying monthly or quarterly.