When it came time to pick a college major, I surveyed my most-beloved high school subjects—classical music, history, grammar, literature, Spanish—and landed on I picked a Bachelor of Science in Accounting, a typical 4-year, hour degree in a subject I had previously had zero experience in. Shock or outright terror became the most common reaction when I told friends and family about my degree choice.
If you believe the cultural stereotype, I was an unlikely accountant for sure. Accountants are the stern, semi-monastic gurus of great financial mysteries beyond the pale of the happily-unaware. I was just a starry-eyed dreamer longing to organize a world I had never explored. I chose accounting for two reasons:. I wanted a firm grasp on a concrete business skill to round out my artistic tendencies. After focusing on the humanities in high school, I wanted to gain more practical expertise as I entered adulthood.
Accounting seemed like a prime career option with great earnings potential and lots of job location flexibility. But honestly, I had no idea I would actually be good at it, much less enjoy it. As I began my studies, I found out why accounting fit strangely well into my creative personality.
Here are some signs accounting might be a more likely match than you think:. You just need the mental ability to associate abstract information numbers printed on a page with real-world quantities money and other valuables. For a whimsical bookworm, I was surprisingly skilled at accounting… but why? The adventurous pieces of my childhood were all indicators that I would be really, really good at categorizing things.
Turns out accounting is organizing on steroids. Other course options that may fulfill your general education math requirements might include general classes like Introductory Survey of Mathematics. The most important accounting mathematics skills are simpler than you might expect. Much of the financial reporting that happens in accounting has to do with credits, which you add, and debits, which you subtract.
Although that may sound too easy to be true, accounting math skills mainly involve such basic functions as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. The notion that accounting is all about math is one of the most prevalent myths about accounting.
Accountants certainly do work with numbers, and they follow formulas to create financial statements. However, those formulas are consistent and typically require accountants to simply plug in the right numbers. If you aspire to become a certified public accountant CPA or attain another accounting certification, then you will need to perform enough math to pass your exams.
Some accounting professionals report that the math needed to pass their credentialing exams is more complex and difficult than the math they use daily in their work as an accountant. In particular, the Financial Accounting and Reporting FAR section of the CPA exam requires you to put your math skills to work in analysis and application tasks that include calculating fluctuations and ratios in comparative balance sheets and preparing single-step and multi-step income statements.
In , the cumulative pass rate for the FAR section of the test was Success in accounting takes a lot more than math skills. Although accountants work with numbers on a daily basis, math is just a small part of what they do.
Some of the most important qualities for accountants to have, according to the BLS, include:. Instead, speak with an advisor or career counselor at your school or an established accounting professional to find out how much math you will really need to do to earn your accounting degree. You may be pleasantly surprised to find that you already have sufficient math skills for the job.
For students who have solid skills in basic math and arithmetic, an accounting mathematics education is more a matter of learning accounting theories and how to apply them than it is studying math. AD Degreequery. Featured or trusted partner programs and all school search, finder, or match results are for schools that compensate us. This compensation does not influence our school rankings, resource guides, or other editorially-independent information published on this site.
Got it! Accountants may also state profit margins as a percentage of sales, which requires dividing profit by revenue. Mathematical formulas help accountants, management and lenders compare income, expenses, profits and debts to other those of other companies in similar industries. These formulas usually result in ratios or percentages that facilitate comparisons between a company and industry standards, although the actual income and expenses of each company may differ.
Accountants may calculate EPS using only outstanding shares of stock or all possible shares, including options. The EPS appears on the company's income statement because of its importance to stockholders and lenders. Accountants also use formulas to calculate depreciation on assets. However, the particular formula depends on the type of asset, such as straight-line and modified accelerated cost recovery system.
Julia Fuller began her professional writing career eight years ago covering special-needs adoption. She holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from Marywood College, is co-owner of GJF Rental Properties as well as a livestock and grain crop farm.
0コメント