Five Cents Ten Cents

Flickr image "Clone trooper" by Uhhhlaine

What is your stereotypical view of a Certified Public Accountant?

Someone who is meticulous in figures? Likes to dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’? Someone who is obsessed in ensuring that debits = credits?

Or is the accountant someone who has every won a table-topics trophy at the division level, who has spoken at more than half-a-dozen conferences and seminars and who writes a couple of blogs in his spare time?

A CPA is not a Clone

The reality is that there is no “typical” accountant. It’s all perception. Just as we think all fat people are jolly, not all accountants are people obsessed with numbers and making sure debit=credit. Not all accountants are boring and who don’t like to interact with people and prefer the company of spreadsheets and figures.

People comes in all shapes and sizes, various characters and characteristics. There is no typical type. The audit/tax/accounting related skills that the CPA possess are not necessarily the character traits of his personality. A CPA is as diverse as there are people in the world.

The common thread that binds CPAs together is the shared background of accounting/tax/audit and that we are committed to a sense of professionalism, ethics and integrity that is the hallmark of any professional group.

If you’re considering becoming a CPA

It’s not so much your personality but rather the fit between the skill-sets required by a CPA and the nature of the job that you should consider if you think you want to have a career as an accountant, auditor or tax advisor.

There are also CPAs who do not do traditional accountning, audit or tax role but perform many other corporate functions or business functions. Accounting knowledge is useful across differerent business spectrums and environments.

What are some of the CPAs (accountants, auditors and tax advisors) you’ve met like?

How do you perceive them before you first got to know them?

Share with Panzer in the comments section.

Be well and prosper.