Happy accountant, angry accountant

Well, just like every other things we do in life, the choice is yours whether to be a happy accountant or an angry accountant. It’s entirely up to you to decide what path to follow.

I have heard many people debate on this issue in the past. One of the finance guys firmly believe that accountants are always while the accountant vehemently disagreed and the argument goes on and on.

Things that make accountants happy

• Know how to use tools at your disposal: happy accountants are those that invest that extra time in learning new and efficient ways of performing a task. I am a happy accountant because I have above baseline knowledge of accounting software used by my company. Imagine spending the last couple of hours of your working day doing what you enjoy most because you have efficiently finished your assigned duty for the day. Wouldn’t you be happy going to work the following day?
• Be humorous: without humour, life sucks. You will enjoy every bit of your work more if you can just learn to laugh at yourself and not being so hard on yourself when things are not going the way you planned it. Happy accountants can attest to this.
• Keep your accounting knowledgebase updated: you will quickly become outdated and old fashioned if you don’t keep in sync with the trend in accounting. The accounting professional bodied understand this so well that they made it compulsory that every qualified member must spend certain number of hours learning new things. Happy accountants are those that won’t wait till the eleventh hour before scrambling for CPE/CPD.
• Update yourself with technology: technologists never cease to develop improved way of doing things. All you need to do is keep attuned to the finance technology channel and you will be glad you did. Happy accountants are those that are nick named by their colleagues as techy-tant. Be at the forefront of technology.
• Understand the psychology of happiness: being happy is your birth right that only you can choose not to use. Happy accountants understand that happiness comes from within and is independent of what your bullying boss might think of you.

Factors that makes accountants angry and unhappy

• Lacking in soft skills: work place will be hell to you if you lack the required soft skills that are needed to excel as an accountant. It has been established that accounting soft skills are as important as the technical expertise. If you want to be a happy accountant, the time is now ripe to start building on your people and resources skill.
• Not understanding compliance: nowadays, business owners require more from their accountants than simply keeping their books and preparing periodic financial statements. At the very least, your employer wants you to be more than a number cruncher. They expect you to provide some strategic advice that will help move the business forward. Am sure you don’t need a prophet to tell you what will happen if you fail to deliver on this. To be that happy accountant you long to be, bring more value to the table of your employer – especially in the area of compliance.
• Allowing yourself to be under pressure: as a new generation accountant, you have to live by the slogan ‘KEEP CALM AND…..’ Do not allow yourself to be overwhelmed by the amount of things you are expected to do as an accountant. Your best weapon is ‘applicable knowledge’. Learn to use basic tools at your disposal in order to be efficient at work place. You will for example be less pressured when asked to generate spreadsheet reports in various formats if you know how to use built in tools like Pivot table and Powerpivot (add-on in excel 2010) table.
• Inability to use new technologies: I still remember the looks on the face of one of my colleagues when my former employer deployed SAP ERP system. She felt that deployment of this technology will mean spending time to learn the transaction codes associated with working in an SAP ERP environment.
• Being ill-informed: very many people venture into accounting as a career without knowing what it entails to be successful as an accountant. I have a cousin that grumble every day because the parents persuaded him into studying law without highlighting the challenges involved in law as a profession.

The bottom line is, you can be whatever you want to if only you are willing to make the right choice. I encourage you today to go ahead and become that bubbling accountant that everyone sees in the picture. I hope that you have been motivated by this article? If you think that someone you know will benefit from this article, please do not hesitate to share it.