Accountants as Bean Counters

Posted by James Hutchinson May 13, 2009

One term I really hate as an accountant is when people refer to the profession as bean counters. Most people don’t really mean it as insult, or at least a mild one.

The expression comes from the perception that accountants just add up numbers and keep track of other people’s money. Although there is plenty of math involved, accounting is more than that.

The primary responsibility of an accountant is to present the financial statements of a company in a fair and accurate manner. That requires a lot of analysis and judgment to make sure the estimates used are done correctly, but more importantly, appropriate for the item being measured.

Estimating the collection of receivables, or valuing a portfolio of complicated investments requires skill and training, a lot more than just the ability to count.