A very happy Accountants’ Holiday to you, Canadian number crunchers! We made it another year!
I hope all my accountant friends are enjoying the day off (or at least recovering peacefully from their respective tax parties).
If you know a public accountant (or you are one), you know we all but disappear during the three-or-so months of tax season (or “busy season” since not all of us are busy with tax, but there’s a ripple effect). In Canada that’s February through April, but it differs around the globe. Many of us are off racing through the ocean of income tax filings that happen on February 28th, March 31st, and possibly April 15th (I see you, US tax practitioners), all culminating in the grand finale on April 30th.
By then many of us have been reduced to overstimulated, sleep-deprived tax zombies and you can practically feel the heat radiating from our burn-out as we walk by. It happens to be the perfect time for a tiny little existential “crisis of the cubicle”, which I find terribly amusing. So in honour of May 1st, I invite you to join me on a little journey into the abyss and back again!
What are we doing here, anyways?
So I was riffing with one of my public accountant friends toward the end of busy season this year, and we couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all – especially the amount of stress that seems to wash over our profession during busy season. What for? It happens that many of our friends have what we affectionately call “real jobs” – doctors, engineers, teachers, trades – professions that we depend upon to secure our health, safety, and futures, and that have a tangible effect on people and the world around us.
Then there’s what we public accountants do. If you’re feeling cynical, you might say accountants just look at made-up numbers all day that follow made-up rules that regulatory bodies came up with to tell us how much tax to pay, or how a financial statement should work.
The more we thought about it, the more “made-up” the job itself seemed… Kind-of like like when you’ve said a word too many times in a row and it loses its meaning.
Hold on – money is a real, tangible thing, you may be thinking. Is it, though? Is it not just a number imprinted on a coin or better yet, fancy paper? Does the economy, as influenced by the government, not “decide” what the money’s actually worth?
Welcome to the abyss! It’s no wonder we dread the “what do you do for a living” question – “I’m an accountant” understandably brings the conversation to a full-stop. What on Earth do we really do?
Of course I say all of this in loving jest. No, we’re not necessarily saving lives, building bridges, or unlocking the mysteries of the universe, but we still have an important role to play in the grand scheme of things.
And yes, at the root of it is money.
Okay, I’ll give us some credit – here’s what we really do
It’s really easy to talk pessimistically about money, but it’s May 1st and I’m not talking about capitalism – I’m just talking about the concept of money.
The pretty paper with the numbers on is an invention of humanity that essentially elevated us beyond the barter system. The barter system was the key to the development of community which shaped our lives as we know them, and money launched us on a trajectory of stunning growth and expansion.
Today, for better or for worse, money is both the foundation of our general wellbeing and the key to our individual freedom of exploration. It is, as they say, what makes the world go around.
Naturally, the accountants play a key role in a world where regulatory bodies make up the money rules.
We learn the rules so you don’t have to, and we do what we can to keep things fair and equitable:
- Taxes – in theory – are the money we put into a pool that we entrust to the government so that the government can then use it to take care of us and the space we live in. The “rules” are supposed to make our contributions to that pool equitable.
- Financial reporting – in theory – is intended to promote transparency and understanding. You want to know what the money is doing, that it’s being managed responsibly, and so-on. So, we take real-life concepts and represent them numerically so that they can be globally financially understood, keeping things fair.
It occurs to me frequently that language is also just made up by humans for communication, and without communication, where are we? Accounting is communication – it is the language that is the foundation of our economy. That’s the beauty of it!
So all you accountants out there, give yourself a pat on the back, because you do have a “real job” – at the heart of it all, we’re just trying to do our part in keeping the economy working and its people cared for.
So that humanity has the resources not just to survive, but to thrive, to dream, and to create.
With that, I’m off to reconnect with the world again!
