Reality Versus Myth: What it is Like to be an Accountant

Today’s world has a lot of misconceptions when it comes to work and career. Whether it is a superhuman soldier or police officer, nurses whose sole responsibility is to help the doctors or jail officers who are surrounded by cold-blooded killers all the time – it is very easy for people who have never spent a single day in their career to make any assumptions that are different from the reality. 

While accounting is not usually portrayed in the mainstream media as an over-the-top or bombastic light, there are still a lot of things the uninformed used to get wrong when it comes to the job. In this article, we will help you clear up some confusion.

What it feels like to be an accountant? Some of the misconceptions and myths explained. We asked expert accountants to share the most common misconceptions the public thinks about this field and help straighten up the record. 

All accountants are math geniuses

Most people usually think that if you are working in this industry, automatically, you love math, and you are good with numbers. While accountants enjoy crunching numbers, most of them still use Microsoft Excel, and let it do the dirty work. Do not get us wrong – number literacy is still very important when it comes to this job. 

But a lot understands the impression that working in this industry, possess a form of rare genius people working in the accountancy industry love to spend their free time in completing their advance calculus homework from their school. Some of them may find it more appealing, but the idea that the math behind some accounting tasks is very complicated is just fiction. In some cases, division, multiplication, subtraction and addition will get the job done. 

They like giving free tax advice to people who need it

A lot of accountants spend a lot of hours navigating challenging tax arrangements and looking for ways to maximize the profits of their clients the right way. Of course, they love to spend their extra time taking a look at your W-2s, as well as all your receipts. 

You can possibly see the primary goal, but it is a terrible presumption to make. There is a reason why they get paid a lot of money for the work they do. They are not digging deep into the details of the United States tax code because they just like it. And even if you know someone kind enough to help you with your tax obligations, there is no certainty that they can be able to automatically help you with information and details on the top of their heads. 

It is the same with how physicians automatically asked about their opinion on an irregular-shaped mole; accountants get tons of requests for any forms of tax advice. While they know a lot about tax issues, they only specialize in a particular area since this industry is so vast.

To know more about this subject, you can visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting for more information.

Working in this industry is boring

When it comes to excitement, this industry might not compare with being a physician, a fighter pilot or a police officer, but it is not fair to assume that the job is boring on a regular basis. Like any type of work, various parts can be monotonous or dull, but other elements can be fascinating. It is usually true for workers who have been working in a leadership position. 

People typically do not know or understand that financing and accountancy become strategic partners. These people have an unbelievable vantage point to their client’s operations. They know where the money comes from and where it will go, learn a considerable number of things about what is going on with the business or if their clients are running a profitable business.

They are unfriendly and dull

Sure, working in the accountancy industry can be dry sometimes. Any person that tends to get excited about pens and papers might cause to raise your eyebrows. Still, just like any career, you will find different kinds of personalities and characters throughout the industry. 

People assume that accountants are anti-social or do not have characters or personalities. Most people who meet with them for the first time are surprised that most of these people have hobbies and are very outgoing just like the rest of us.