5 Common Misconceptions about Accounting You Must Know

Misconceptions about Accounting
Accounting is one of those professions that a lot of people don’t fully understand because most people will never need to hire one. It’s if you start a business and find yourself a bit overwhelmed about tax returns and bookkeeping, that you might wonder whether it’s finally time to hire an accountant. All things considered; accounting is a phenomenal career path. Accountants generally enjoy great pay, competitive benefits, and rock-solid job stability—even when the economy takes a turn for the worse. Research by an assignment writing service shows that the job market will create over 452,000 new positions for accountants and auditors by the year 2020.

But, for all its good points, accounting has one major problem: a bad public image. Movies and television shows often portray accountants as fastidious introverts obsessed with numbers. Many people don’t pursue a career in accounting because they’re afraid they’ll die from the monotony of crunching numbers all day. In reality, these myths about accounting couldn’t be farther from the truth. Naturally, before you make any kind of investment in your business, it’s a good idea to research it. If you’re here to learn more about what an accountant will all day, you’ve to return to the right place.

Accounting Is Just Bookkeeping:
One of the biggest misconceptions about accounting regards the actual definition of accounting, which is sometimes confused with bookkeeping. Bookkeeping—the recording of revenue and expenses for a business—is an ancient skill that goes back to the beginning of human civilization. While bookkeeping is a critical element of accounting, accounting goes beyond just keeping accurate books. Accounting also involves analyzing the past financial records of your company and using this data to form forecasts for your future. Essentially, accounting involves categorizing and understanding your bookkeeping and predicting what your books will look like down the line. Part of your accounting practice should include analyzing your records as well as conducting regular business planning.


Accounting Is Too Hard For You:
Even though becoming an expert accountant requires years of education and experience, many small business owners take on at least part of their accounting responsibilities. Depending on the size of your business, you'll not be able to afford to hire an accountant or outsource the job to a firm. With some research and practice, you can do at least some of your accounting. Using software, you can also keep detailed, organized records that will require fewer billable hours from an accounting professional if you do still choose to go that route.

You Have To Be A Math Expert To Do Accounting:
For many centuries, bookkeeping and accounting required extraordinary math abilities. Errors meant money went missing or the business received unwanted attention from tax authorities. In the past few decades, though, the mathematics part of accounting is now almost entirely digitized, and—as long as you can use a calculator—you now have enough math skills to do basic accounting. But being able to understand and double-check your business’s books by hand will help immensely, especially if you encounter numbers that don’t add up. Still, software and calculators create this much easier today. There are many resources available for free that cover what figures, equations, and formulas you should be paying special attention to as a small business owner.

You Only Need To Worry About Accounting During Tax Time:
April doesn’t need to be so stressful. While your business’s taxes require time and energy to file accurately, Tax Day becomes far less painful if you follow accounting best practices all year round. Many small business owners—especially many new entrepreneurs, gig workers, and freelancers—might not really think about the financial side of their enterprises until taxes are due. Even if you can’t afford a professional, you should be continually focused on accurate bookkeeping and accounting to avoid winding up on the wrong side of the internal revenue service. However, accounting is not just for the IRS—it’s also so your business will thrive and expand.


You Don’t Need Professional Help:
While you might find that hiring a financial professional is not currently in your budget, you should still find room to make it a priority because the expertise is well worth it. While you can get by with doing all your accounting, your best bet to improve your revenue—and avoid an IRS audit—is to get professional help. Even if you only see an accountant or tax preparer once a year around tax day, that can still relieve a tremendous burden on your business.

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