Accountants...Are we reallly good with numbers?

Hahaha...um no. Anytime anyone asks what I do and they find out I am an accountant they always follow up with, “So you must be good with numbers.” My response is first to contain my laughter and then quickly clarify that if I didn’t have my trusty calculator and excel I would be screwed…I am lucky I can count to 10 and up to 20 if I have open toed shoes on. That is not saying that I can’t add it just means it takes me typically a longer time to do math in my head. Let me clarify, accountants yes we deal with numbers but it is typically the software that takes care of the “math” stuff and we double check with calculators. As accountants we typically deal with how to treat those numbers, i.e. whether you can deduct that expense or if you have to report that income. It comes down to, have you followed theories, rules and guidelines such as GAAP (if you are an auditor) or if you do taxes you have to understand GAAP (not the clothing store)and the Internal Revenue Code & regulations (That’s me.) (Not going to lie, tax accountants are so much cooler than the auditors (sorry to all my audit friends, its true). Really who wants to tick and tie other peoples work? By tick and tie I mean redoing and checking the clients work. Plus people tend to like their tax providers over than their auditors. Really can you blame them…who would you like more a) someone who comes in looking for things that you did wrong, or b) someone who helps you out by filing your tax returns, deals with the IRS and other taxing agencies, saves you money and possibly gets some of your money back…ding, ding, ding we have a winner and no it isn’t a.)

I don’t know, personally when I think of someone who is good with math I think of a mathematician, or a scientist. Now those people are good with math. The highest math class I have ever taken is algebra. Yup, I am one of those lucky people who have never taken calculus. So can you really say I am good at math...

oh and by the way...i just got promoted. Yippeee, well I think that is yippee, it typically means more responsiblity...ugh!