As the semester has gotten harder, a good number of my peers have considered if all of this work is truly worth it. Some of the people I’ve spoken to are thinking of trying to find a more rewarding profession, such as nonprofit work, or helping people in some way or another.  As much as they love accounting, sometimes it’s hard to see the big picture of why accounting is such rewarding work and how it can change people’s life. I took these sentiments personally because I feel accounting can be one of the most rewarding professions in helping others, and decided to do some research.

The first article I found was by Brenda Lee Tang of the Trinidad Express from November of last year called “Why accountants are the new heroes”.  In this article she says that accounting is “important work to be done on an ethical level.” Accountants are committed to the public good and are taught in ethical practices. We are an independent voice that stakeholders can trust. My personal favorite part of the article was the following paragraph:

“The impact of accountants’ professionalism will be most keenly felt in developing economies. Aided by their integrity and commitment to sustainability, accountants will be able to help create sustainable economic infrastructure, regulatory mechanisms, and codes of governance in places where there were none before. Most importantly of all, they will be vital to the development of the educational infrastructure that will equip the next generation of accountants.” – Brenda Lee Tang

Some people might think that accountants as “heroes” might be too strong a statement. However, I personally use Christopher Reeve’s definition of a hero:
“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”
I think it’s interesting that it is so hard to find articles that praise the work accountants and auditors do. Especially recently, it seems like every article about accountants is describing audit failures. There are hundreds of front page articles about alleged auditing mistakes, but none about  all the audits that are completed every year without any issues. Continue reading Accountants: Unexpected Heroes of the World →