Why a blog?

You’ve all heard that saying “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”? Well… I don’t know what happens after death so I can’t really write about that. But I do know what it’s like living life surrounded by accounting and taxes! Ha!

As mentioned in my bio, I have over 15 years of progressive accounting experience, specifically in small to mid-size technology firms, with my current role being the Corporate Controller of a 500+ person fast-growing tech startup. The industries I’ve worked for span everything from e-commerce, Saas, and fintech to integrated technology (this just means hardware with a software component).

You might wonder…how does the accounting differ at all these vastly different companies? The simple answer is, it really doesn’t. Accounting is accounting. Of course, if you want to be nit-picky about it, I could say, well each of these industries require different knowledge of different accounting rules, and perhaps specialized understanding of how to apply those rules. This is true. But at the end of the day, there are a couple of very important fundamental concepts that accountants need to master that will allow them to be comfortable with any new area that gets thrown at them.

I spent about 6 years tutoring college students in accounting and helping them understand these fundamental concepts. Here are some of the biggest issues I see with how accounting is being taught or learned in most college courses nowadays.

1. Teachers generally do not have real world experience teaching accountants how to do their jobs. Because they are not providing real world examples, first year accountants often have a hard time connecting what they learned in class to what they are trying to accomplish at their job.
2. Teachers are only teaching the framework of debits and credits and things such as the matching principle which are helpful for accountants to understand, but they lack the ability to apply these to their day jobs.
3. I was taught how to balance debits and credits on a large sheet of newspaper (I kid you not). The homework assignment was a big sheet of paper that folded into quarters which was the size of a regular piece of paper. We were given a set of prompts to be able to complete the journal entries and ultimately balance the “books”. The note from the teacher was to use pencil so that we could erase if we made a mistake! This is such an antiquated way of learning accounting, 100% of my work is done on a computer and I barely ever have to pick up a writing utensil except to sign documents for a government agency. Classrooms and governments move at a very slow pace, and I find that what we’re being taught and asked to do are probably 10 years behind where the world is.

My goal with this blog is to share real life examples of things that I come across in my day to day job as a Corporate Controller. I will admit freely that I do not know everything, but I’m hoping that if you are starting out in accounting or maybe just want to improve your understanding of accounting, you will find something helpful in this blog.

The world needs more great accountants! It’s a hard, thankless job at times, but we keep the world turning and if you have the right attitude, aptitude and personality, it can be a very satisfying and rewarding role.