ruba dub dub, accounting in a tub

Unfortunately, some short-sighted business owners view accounting as unnecessary overhead, so they hire the least educated, lowest paid people they can find. On the other hand, smart business owners know that accountants are worth their weight in gold and hire they best they can find.

Which group do you fall into?

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i fall into the group that does not hire overqualified people for a bonehead job. besides, smart people get bored and quit if you punish them by forcing them to book keep all day.

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I am sure it will surprise you to know that among all professions CPAs consistently rank in the top 3 in intelligence.

By the way, your confusing bookkeeping with accounting demonstrates your lack of understanding of both bookkeeping and accounting.

If you pay them enough and have any respect for them they won't quit.

Jerry the Bookkeeper

what poll is this? the self-serving CPA society poll?

Percent of harvard grads who are CPAs = 0, I bet!

this brings me to my other question. why does every accountant deny he is a bookkeeper? embarassed about his job?

I am not sure where you get these delusions that equate accounting professionals with fast food workers. Please explain and cite your sources.

On Jan 21, 9:39 pm, Rocinante wrote: On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:27:38 -0800 (PST), mrs. eliza humperdink wrote: >> I am sure it will surprise you to know that among all professions CPAs >> consistently rank in the top 3 in intelligence.

what poll is this? the self-serving CPA society poll?

Percent of harvard grads who are CPAs = 0, I bet!

this brings me to my other question. why does every accountant deny he is a bookkeeper? embarassed about his job?

"mrs. eliza humperdink" wrote

I ~do~ bookkeeping, for sure. But there are so many other aspects of what I do for my clients, businesses, non-profits, trusts, estates and individuals, that the word "bookkeeping" doesn't quite cover the scope of services that are expected, demanded and provided.

I'm a resource that is necessary for my clients to be successful.

It is safe to say that this is the wrong forum to trash accountants or accounting. If you have issues, please cancel our subscription. We know that accounting is the "language of business." Too bad you don't speak that language.

I quite curious - do you have a citation for that? Like a ranked list of occupations?

Thanks.

there's one service you definitely don't provide: bringing home the bacon. Accountants talk all they want, but they mainly shuffle paper and figures around. If they actually had personality and talent, they'd be in the outside generating business, making things, creating wealth for society.

no citation because it's false. the surest proof that accountants are dumb is to compare schools accountants graduate from to schools that smart people, like MBAs and doctors and lawyers, graduate from. We're talking UIUC versus Harvard.

when has an accountant ever made a sale and generated some revenue for the firm?

"mrs. eliza humperdink" wrote

Accountants often save the business money. Accountants often help the business be more profitable. Accountants are involved in making strategic financial decisions for the company.

"mrs. eliza humperdink" wrote

Actually I do.

If you want to look at it that way. That's all everyone does - right.

"in the outside"?

Is that what you hired them to do? Do you want the Controller at the hospital operating on you? Do you want the theology professor at the university handling the admissions papers and collecting the tuition? Do you want the cellist at the opera handling the business end of the theater, or have them "in the outside" selling tickets?

The question is, do you want all your employees out selling? If so, then fire everyone else - and I mean everyone else - then send the remainder of the workers "in the outside" to generate business. The thing is, you need to have a functioning office, which includes recordkeeping, accounting, payroll, sales tax, and financial reporting of one form or another. You probably don't want to bring in the "oil change guy" to keep the books.

And without the accounting, how will you know that wealth was created? .... and how will you know that ~~that~~ wealth was created and passed on to the owners of the business? Will you have the tools necessary to know what you could do to be more profitable, to create more wealth for the owners.....how will you know without accounting for your business transactions?

"mrs. eliza humperdink" wrote

You are aware that Harvard has a very good business school.....and a good number of it's graduates work in accounting......and none of their MBA or Doctoral graduates would dis the accounting profession like you are.

They are, as you state, "smart people".

Instead of calling names, let's discuss the realities in business.

A good accountant is worth more than most salesman!!!

If a salesman makes a $10,000 sale, how much of that makes it to the bottom line? Answer: Maybe $300-$500, about 3-5%, on average, after "overhead."

If an accountant saves the company $10,000, by reducing "overhead" or any number of ways, how much of that makes it to the bottom line? Answer: $10,000.

Who contributed the most to the company's success?

Success in business is not how much you take in, but how much you keep. It is only by tracking margins, controlling costs, and making sure you are profitable (which is known as "accounting"), that companies succeed. I spent 20 years as a financial analyst and as a commercial banker. It was difficult to believe how many business owners equated their success with their revenue and not their profit. Many of them thought that borrowing money would solve problems. I always insisted on seeing their financial statements, to see where they were and where they were going. When they had none to offer, or they delayed because they had to get one "made up", which was often the case, I knew the source of their problems. You have to be lucky to succeed when you run a business by the seat of your pants. Smart entrepreneurs do not rely on luck. Smart entrepreneurs know that accounting is a business management tool and good accountants are worth their weight in gold.

By the way, I am not an accountant. I am an adjunct professor, I write business books, and I own my own business. I sell useful accounting software to small businesses! I sell the tools they need in order to succeed. Accounting is a means to an end, a tool to success. I talk to people all the time about their accounting issues. Some of them think their checkbook software is "accounting" software. It is a delusion, but a very common one, almost a plague. Knowing how much you have in the bank doesn't tell you anything. You cannot make an informed decision based only on how much cash you have, unless you manage by the seat of your pants.

When I completed my master's thesis, I studied business risk. I learned that that most people are under the mistaken impression that most businesses fail because of lack of money. For those that try to go into business with inadequate capital that is the case, but most viable businesses fail not because of lack of capital, but poor management of that capital. They don't do accounting. When they call us for accounting software, they are usually desperate to find out how they got into trouble or what they can do to avoid getting into trouble again. A good accountant with real accounting software, will provide the kind of information they need.

I worked as a turn-around consultant for several years. Without exception, the problems faced by business owners were based on poor management practices, primarily poor accounting. So, when someone comes online and begins bashing accountants, I know them. I know who they are and where they are headed. They are doomed to fail or at best, remain insignificant until they go out of business because they do not understand business basics. All of the ranting, raving, and name calling will not change reality. If you don't do accounting well, you will be lucky to make it in business. Protest all you want, call names, be insulting, but it will not change reality. Until you face reality, your future is limited, very limited.

You have choice. Ignore reality or deal with it. You cannot change it.

Anonymous

if they can do all these fantastic things, why the heck are they still burdened with doing the ACCOUNTING?

sigh. Yet another accountant who denies he is an accountant and claims to be something else, AND is peddling ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE and other services.

For all the people in the world professing NOT to be an accountant, there sure is a lot of people offering accounting services and software!

yeah, but suppose all your sales people quit. You have no revenues. No matter how much your accoutants cut costs, YOU HAVE NO REVENUES and hence no profits.

You mean, as in lets depreciate the costs over 25 years so our expense this year is reduced by 96%?