Which of these phrases is a somewhat disparaging term for an accountant?

The “Bean Counter” term was used in a 1975 "Forbes" magazine article that referred to "a smart, tightfisted and austere 'bean counter' accountant from rural Kentucky," The allusion is clearly to an accountant so dedicated to detail that he or she counts everything, down to the last small, but still important, bean.

By the 1980s, however, most appearances of "bean counter" in the media were taking on a derogatory tone, and "bean counter" is now frequently used to mean a nitpicker who, lost in the numbers, fails to see the "big picture".

An accountant might be asked to perform a thorough inventory of his or her company's assets, only a bean counter would literally count the number of beans contained in the company kitchen's cupboards. A financial bean counter may also scrutinize each department's budget to find any form of potential waste, no matter how insignificant or nominal it appears to be.