I Am Not an Accountant
Over my 20 plus years working in the financial industry, I have noticed that people tend to group all financial professionals together. However, each financial professional has their own respective specializations. There are insurance professionals, mortgage professionals, banking professionals, and so on.
However, for some reason, some people tend to think that finance professionals and accountants are the same. This is not true. There is a difference between accounting and finance. Let me provide the details to help you understand the difference.
Accounting focuses on historical or past financial transactions.
Accountants help with things such as:
Recording, reporting, and ensuring accuracy of financial transactions (bookkeeping)
Ensuring financial information is compliant with laws and regulations
Creating financial statements
Tax services (income taxes, tax audit representation, tax planning, business taxes, etc.)
Finance focuses on the future financial position.
Finance professionals help with things such as:
Developing financial plans (for the future)
Providing personal finance education
Developing strategies to manage money and protect assets
Developing strategies to save and grow money for future goals (i.e. retirement, college, home purchase, investments, business expansion, etc.)
Assisting in evaluating financial resources and making adjustments, as needed
Developing investing strategies
Developing financial models to help organizations make decisions about the future
As for me, I am a Finance Professional. I am not an Accountant. I’m definitely not the “tax lady”, which I’ve also been called.
This is why it’s so important that people obtain financial education. Obtaining financial education helps people to better understand the roles of various financial professionals. Also, people then know who to seek out when they need specific financial help.
