Accountants as Truth-Telling Superheroes

You may be thinking, this is all well and good, but what do accountants actually do? Great question. What is the role of accountants? Accountants are truth-tellers about the economic reality of an entity. This means that accountants are responsible for communicating useful and transparent information to managers, employees, shareholders, debtholders, governments, suppliers, customers, communities, and any other users of financial information. In brief, accountants are society’s protectors, defending investors, employees, and communities from potential harms caused by companies.

The role of accountants is to hold companies to account. If companies communicate through financial information, and accountants are responsible for the production and verification of this information, then the accounting profession and the ethics, skill, and professionalism of accountants is the glue that holds markets and society together. I hope that whatever role you find yourself in, in business and in life, that you can see the importance of accounting. Whether or not you agree with capitalism or the role of business in society; whether your focus is finance, marketing, HR, starting a business, managing a personal budget, charity work, or community activism; you engage with accounting information. Let’s take this time, in this course and hopefully many others, to become acquainted with accounting information and the people and processes that create useful, transparent information.