These days, it’s rare if you have a friend, sibling, or cousin who doesn’t have a side hustle that they’re trying to turn into a full-time job. Because who doesn’t love the idea of being their own boss, developing their own ideas, and creating their own rules? Cue earth-shattering silence. But entrepreneurs will be the first to tell you that it’s not easy, especially without the skills to grow and scale efficiently. That’s where accounting comes in with its superhero cape! Here are five accounting skills that are bound to ensure that whenever you decide to take the entrepreneurship plunge, your business won’t just survive, it’ll thrive! 🦦

Skill #1: Now You’re Speaking My Language

As an accountant, one of the first skills you learn is how to understand financial statements (think: a report card of how your business is doing financially) and communicate the financial health of a business. So, as an entrepreneur, when you’re preparing to go into a meeting with a banker or investor, you’ll have all the tools and knowledge you need to secure the bag 💰 (aka a loan or investment). All because you speak the same language of business: accounting.

Skill #2: Puzzle Solving Makes the Entrepreneur’s World Go Round

One thing about accountants: they are experts in thinking critically and solving problems. As an entrepreneur, you’re going to need critical thinking skills in order to figure out how to structure the business you’re trying to build and come up with solutions for the challenges you’ll encounter. For example, as a restauranteur, if three of your employees call out sick for their shifts and you’re in the middle of a dinner rush — how do you ensure service doesn’t break down? You have to be quick on your feet and think “how can I fix this with the resources I have available”? Knowing how to julienne a carrot may be handy in the kitchen, but the critical thinking and creativity needed for accounting can get you out of the real pickle. If you need some practice with this, accounting has endless opportunities for problem solving all wrapped up in a cute, remote and flexible package that pays well. 😏

Skill #3: Cloudy with a Chance of Sales

One thing about a career in accounting — there are so many opportunities to get seven… eight… nine figures in your account. From becoming a CFO to a multi-million dollar company, to using your financial knowledge to make smart investments, to plotting how you can make a lot of sales with your business.

Let’s say you’re selling perfumes and colognes. You might notice a trend of being very profitable in September through December. Why? Well, you probably want to smell good when you go to winter formal and homecoming, and so does everyone else. Then you have the holidays when people are buying gifts for family and friends. After December, you might see a slow-down period because people balled out for the holidays and now they need to return to regularly scheduled spending.

However, once spring is in the air (and new scents are in stock for the season), you should see an increase in profits. Why this time? Because graduation and prom are coming up, and guess what? People want to smell good then too. As an accountant, you learn the skill of forecasting so you don’t purchase too many winter scents from your supplier and find ways to decrease costs January through February.

Yes, you heard right, forecasting isn’t something just your local weather person or Karen from Mean Girls does. In accounting, forecasting is similar to predicting the weather in that you can begin to predict when a business will be most or least profitable. Accountants spend a lot of time comparing the reporting of one period to another in order to conduct analysis that leads to seeing patterns and trends. As an entrepreneur, you can eventually use those insights to build a budget that considers those financial ebbs and flows. And what do you know? 😲 Now you have more realistic numbers for investors to look at.

But that’s not where forecasting stops being useful. Entrepreneurs also have to use forecasting to do their financial planning so they can decide how they plan to spend the following year and on what. You might foresee an increase in perfumes (shoutout to #PerfumeTok 😉) and have to plan to rent a bigger warehouse, pay additional manufacturing costs, and hire new employees.

Skill #4: Hold On, I’m Taking My AirPods Out

The best accountants are good listeners. In order to properly account for economic activity, it’s essential for accountants to listen to clients or business partners explain the ins and outs of their business. Similarly, entrepreneurs are only as successful as their ability to listen and understand customer problems. Otherwise, you can’t come up with a solution that adds value to that customer.

Skill #5: Askin’ All Them Questions

What people don’t realize about accounting is that there is a lot of analysis involved. Accountants are constantly thinking about the business, like where it’s at and where it’s going, and learning how to translate that into numbers. Here’s an example: say you sell two-finger gloves for eating Takis and Cheetos (Can you believe these are a real thing? 🙏). If you increase the price of your product by 5%, how does that increase your overall income? Will it have an impact on how many people buy them? If you were an accountant, you would have an answer quicker than I could have finished the sentence... mic drop

So, if your end goal is to be your own boss, consider taking the accountant route to get there. Not only are accounting “soft skills” like listening and organization major keys (we hope you read that in DJ Khaled’s voice), but the more empowered you are in knowing and understanding your finances, the easier it will be for your business to grow. While YouTube University will always be there, you don’t have to wing it because accounting’s got your back! Learning while earning? Unmatched!