All the things accountants are fed up of hearing
‘Excel is your best friend’
Accountants have a hard time – they take a lot of grief, most people think they’re boring, use excel all day and never go out.
But the stereotypes are all wrong. This is a list of everything people have got wrong about accountancy and everything accountants are fed up of hearing.
You must be amazing with numbers
At dinner your friends will ask you to split the bill in your head immediately.
“Jamie, mate, you’re the accountant, can you split this bill 13 ways? A few of us are paying by card and Rebecca had three more mojitos than Jane.”
We get it, our day-to-day does involve numbers, but we’re by no means mathematicians.
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You’re so boring
We aren’t boring: we just get really excited about boring things, like prepayments or financial discrepancies.
Let’s not forget Mick Jagger was training to be an accountant at LSE before his career kicked off and he dropped out.
We also decide the budget at Christmas.
Your industry is full of guys
Forty-four per cent of all full-time accountants in the UK are women. Two of the big four accountancy firms have appointed women as CEO, with Lynne Doughtie taking the reins at KPMG and Cathy Engelbert at Deloitte.
What do you actually do? I swear computers do everything anyway
As long as people need help with taxes and as long as businesses exist, accountants will be in demand. Accountants play an essential role in business success.
The number of jobs for accountants and auditors is projected to grow 13 percent through 2020.
Oh, you’re working in accountancy, you must work for the big four then
No, not PwC, not EY. It’s impressive and everyone’s heard of them. But our qualifications mean we could work anywhere we wanted to: from Nike to Morgan Stanley.
Remember that it wasn’t the military or the CIA who caught Al Capone but the FBI’s special auditing team (accountants).
So, who do you work for then?
(They won’t know the name and they’re not really interested…)
Not for one of the ‘big four’. You won’t have any idea.
Oh, so do you wish you were a banker then?
While the bankers were busy plunging us into the 2008 financial crisis, accountants were the ones saving us from the mess. It can take a minimum of three years after your degree to become a qualified accountant, but any bog standard English Lit degree can go into banking.
We literally never see you out, you’re always working
You just don’t get it. What do you mean you haven’t heard of month close?
No world leaders are accountants
Think again. Fifty-two per cent of the FTSE 100 have a Chairman or CEO with an accounting or finance background.
You have no day-to-day social interaction
We sit in an office of 200 people, we walk past all of them with our eyes closed with our headphones in and when we get to my desk we climb into a blacked out cocoon.
Excel is literally your life
You’re right it is my life. Let’s get something clear, Excel is the bomb, it holds thousands of businesses together in hundreds of countries across the world.
Can you help me with my tax return?
Not all accountants know tax inside out. There are a lot of different types of accounting and tax is just one part of it. But yes, probably!
You’re such a nerd
The definition of a nerd: a single-minded expert in a particular technical field. Doesn’t every professional strive to be described so? *Mic drop.*
ACCA is looking for ambitious grads to join the global body for professional accountants