You’re an accountant? Does that mean you spend your time writing down credits and debits, and adding up columns of figures all day? Can’t be very exciting.

So what do accountants do?

You mean the shareholders?

So you prepare reports for managers?

And the cost of the accounts department!

You mean what they do in the front of shops?

Ah, now that’s interesting...

That’s bookkeeping. Not quite the same thing.

Well, accountants do record cash flows, and the value of assets and liabilities, and they calculate profits and losses, and so on. But it’s not just writing down numbers. We’re really in the business of supplying people with information.

No, not only. Managers always need the help of accountants. They need financial statements, and budgets, and cash-flow projections, and so on, to measure the success of what they’ve done, and to make decisions about allocating resources for future projects.

No, managerial accountants do, but I work in cost accounting. We have to work out the real cost of each item the company makes, which means finding a way to allocate all the overheads to different products.

Of course. But like I said, we’re necessary. And useful. Haven’t you heard of “window dressing”?

Sure, but it’s also another name for what some people call “creative accounting” - making a company’s financial situation look as good as possible in the balance sheet, and so on. It’s not very legal, but it happens. The accountants in my firm also have lots of wonderful ways of reducing our tax bill.

Ha! Now you’re going to ask me to tell you how you can pay less tax.