Learning Business and Personal Accounting:
Should You Care About Accounting?
Several years ago, the prediction was made that personal
computers were a passing phase, and that they would never make a huge
contribution to business. Do you think now that the individual who
made that observation was wrong? Yes, we know now that the prediction was
poor judgment, but the prediction was made by an IBM corporate executive, the
“big” computer people of yesterday. What does this have to do with
accounting? Almost everything.
Computers have made accounting a tremendously important part of every individual’s life, just as personal computers made computer skills an absolute necessity. Accounting as a profession, will see more growth over the next 50 years, than ever thought possible, but it will also impact every phase of your adult life, in so many more ways than we thought possible. Take a look around, everything around you is electronic, digitized, or synthesized. Accounting has become a part of that life, too. Bank accounts with paper checks may never be obsolete, but there’s a whole generation that uses debit cards, credit cards, and electronic payment methods, such as PayPal to conduct business. This too is accounting.
Rather, it is the everyday form of personal accounting that
all individuals need to have an understanding and knowledge of use. As
we progress further into the computer age, and the information revolution, the
concepts that rule the world of accounting will have a more common place in our
everyday lives. Just a few short years ago, it wasn’t necessary to
understand banking, credits, debits, and the use of a debit card in order to
conduct your personal finances. It was a matter of simply exchanging cash.
Today, however, there is very little direct exchange of cash for services
rendered. More often than not, it is an electronic transaction of either a
direct deposit, or money transfer.
Many schools today have not come to the realization of the
importance of teaching money management as a necessary core, in addition to the
basics of reading, writing and arithmetic; however, over the course of another
50 years, this necessary skill will become as vital as being able to read and
count. In order to ensure the success of tomorrow’s adult, they must
be given all the tools and basic skills necessary to compete in a rapidly
changing and advancing world. The ability to manage your finances will
either help to assure your success or failure in a world heavily dependent upon
the knowledge of financial responsibility. Your access to credit, your
ability to budget your household, and plan for your retirement will all rely on
your accounting skills.
As you prepare to enter a world that computes everything about
you according to a number, you will need to be a “numbers” person, in one sense
or another. Your household income, your credit rating, your ability to
capitalize on those figures, will all come down to numbers. Traditionally,
accountants have been the “numbers” people, and our everyday life didn’t revolve
around accounting and financial expertise, but that world is changing.
More Career and Business
skills information
To teach and learn money skills, personal finance, money management, business,
careers, and life skills please go to the Money
Instructor home page.
