I’ve had more than one person complement me on what must be great math skills, or at least a love of math since I’m an accountant. But what does math really have to do with accounting? Not much. Let me explain.
What Accounting Is Really About
Accounting is the business process of recording, tracking, and presenting financial data for a business, individual, or organization. This mainly involves tracking the spending and receiving of money. Therefore, generally the most common forms of math used by accountants is basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Mostly what many have learned in as a child in school. There is no need to worry about complex formulas and equations for the most part. Occasionally it may be important to understand certain common calculations used in business and finance, such as net present value calculations, but generally for the most part, unless doing something extremely specialized, most accountants will only be using basic math skills each day and it is not required to be particularly good at math.
The Tools At An Accountant’s Disposal
We also can’t forget the many tools at an accountant’s disposal. Accounts have access to calculators, excel, and often other programs that help with the math tasks of their day-to-day jobs. Most accountants are penciling in long calculations or computations on scratch paper these days. Again, the math is quite limited.
Required Math Classes To Get An Accounting Degree
While an accounting degree isn’t necessary to begin a career in some accounting jobs, those who do choose to get a degree in accounting will note that many accounting degrees do not require many complex math courses within their curriculum. There may be a math class or two but most accounting courses will be aimed at the many rules involved in how, when, why, and how to record business transactions, rather then how to calculate the numbers for those transactions.
Do Accountants Even Like Math?
In my personal and professional experience over the last several years I would say that accountants don’t generally have a high excitement for math more so then any other industry. Accounting is actually more about organization, puzzles, rules, and order.
So, not good at math? No sweat! Don’t care for math? That’s fine. You can still enjoy a long and happy life in accounting.