Accountants, maths, offices (not off topic)

L

Lucie

New Member
Mar 3, 2007
392
0
0
I promise this isn't off topic, but it'll seem like it for a minute :eek:.

When I left college, I considered going into accountancy as a career. What put me off is that every career advisor I spoke to said you had to be a whizz at maths, or you stood no chance even at a basic level.
'Fair play' I thought, and I opted for chemistry instead.

Recently I've been doing my stages and have been working at a riding school part time to gain more teaching experience. The yard is a part dealing, part breeding, part training and part riding school/stables.
My intention (read 'far fetched dream') has always been to run my own yard and I assumed (for matters mentioned earlier) that I'd need an accountant and other smartly-dressed-types to help with the financial running side of things if that time ever came.

Today I found out that the yard owner does most of her accounts dealings. Not just the basic book-keeping, but basically everything finance related.
I should say that she's not an accountant (or brilliant at maths actually, so how she finds the time to learn is beyond me!) but she is more 'business' sided (doesn't have much to do with the horses or actual goings-on, shes always a busy bee in the office).

So I wondered how common this is in the horseworld. Are more horse qualifications including lessons in business and finance? Are yard owners now accepting they're tied to the office? Is it so expensive to employ the skills of non-horsey people for the day to day running of a horsey business?
 
Horse and Land based subjects do include quite a lot of business. I taught business on them for a while when I worked at a college (never again), give me business students any day. Non of them wanted to do it, although I think they will be grateful later if they set up their own business :D. I tailored it to the horse industry too, ungrateful lot :D
 
lol I was crap at maths at school.

But I'm a fully qualified accountant ;) I started out doing a business course at college, then progessed to book keeping, which in turn progessed to being fully qualified. If you have decent brain regarding business and a calculator, then you'll be fine, a lot of stuff as well comes from experience.

At my last job, our FD (Finance Director) made all sorts of mistakes on reports and in the accounts we were forever having to 'undo' his mistakes ! This guy was CIMA qualified and earing £50k+ ! :eek:
 
Well I run my own Equestrian Centre and do all my own accounts including tax etc but I am also CA (Chartered Accountant) and I have two degrees in Maths :eek:

Daughter designs and runs our (and other peoples) websites with a degree in French :eek:

We both have done BHS exams to Stage 4

However you do not have to be good at Maths to become an accountant and the 'office' side of the business is fairly minimal.

To answer your question , yes it is cheaper to be able to do everything 'in house' but unfortunately lots of people also lose out by trying to save on experts . My favourite people are insurance brokers and finance specialists who I happily pay for their expertise to save myself money
 
Thanks everyone.

Really interesting to hear from all the finance people out there :)!

eml said:
Well I run my own Equestrian Centre and do all my own accounts including tax etc but I am also CA (Chartered Accountant) and I have two degrees in Maths :eek:
Click to expand...

Nobody likes a show-off eml :p!

One degree just wasn't enough :D? How greedy.
 
i know somebody that's going to be an accountant and he hasn't even done an Alevel in maths
i think he's doing a national diploma, or something like that.

my RS has pretty basic money system i think. but the yar owner has a father that has his own business so i think he might help out
 
My OH is an accountant - he definitely isn't good at maths but he is bloody amazing with an Excel spreadsheet!

He didn't go the normal route - he was working in a hotel in Greece when I met him. He came back to the UK and got an admin job with the NHS and studied part time, did his AAT and then went on to qualify ACCA and CIMA - all whilst working full time, it took him about 6/7 years in total to qualify. He hasn't looked back and now is European Business Development Manager for a humongous worldwide company. He would tell you at times it was a very hard slog but he is a very self motivated person and really enjoys getting stuck in - especially when things go horribly wrong.

I'm a qualified solicitor - but quit just over 5 years ago and now work at an EC where I do all sorts of stuff from livery contracts to the accounts (which OH checks for me!), I also do the website, run the saddlery, muck out and lots of other things. I have probably saved our EC a fortune over the past 4 years!

I'm not quite as qualified as EML - two degrees in Maths! Crikey you are clever, I barely scraped my O'Level!!:):) When I left school my best friend went to Uni to study Pure Mathematics ... I thought she was barking!
 
Lucie said:
When I left college, I considered going into accountancy as a career. What put me off is that every career advisor I spoke to said you had to be a whizz at maths, or you stood no chance even at a basic level
Click to expand...

WRONG , i qualified as i chartred accountant at the age of 23 having dropped out of a level maths!


Today I found out that the yard owner does most of her accounts dealings. Not just the basic book-keeping, but basically everything finance related.
I should say that she's not an accountant (or brilliant at maths actually, so how she finds the time to learn is beyond me!) but she is more 'business' sided
Click to expand...

not uncommon at all to see most business owners do alot of their own accounts work , especially the bookkeeping side , but i would always say that a good accountant should certainly be worth the money & keep you the right side of the tax man for any business

Are more horse qualifications including lessons in business and finance?
Click to expand...

the bhs stable managers qualification has a business management & record keeping section to it , i am in the process of tutoring my bhsii instructor for her ininent exam
 
Maths and I have come to an agreement, I won't bother it if it leaves me alone!
 
i did chemistry physics and biology a-levels before i became a book keeper although you don't even need those!

(when i say book-keeper i mean i actually do everything for the 'small' business.
 
I've heard about this mystical invention to help with Accounts for Non-Maths people... it's called a..... calculator.... make sure you get an accountancy one though otherwise you can never fit enough digits on the screen.

No idea to be honest, I work in accounts but maths was my best subject, not much call for algebra or triganometry on a day to day basis though I'm afraid!
 
Another trainee accountant (CIMA) with crap maths skills here :eek:

I was lucky to scrape a C in GCSE Maths :D
 
I've got a degree in Equine Science and a qualified accountant. I managed to get an exemtion from on of my CIMA exams for my Horse Degree!!

There are loads of basic book keeping courses you can take and with calcuators, accountancy soft ware and the wonderful excel you can get your computer to do all your sums!!
 
I'm another accountant who is rubbish at maths, I left school with a C at GCSE maths (and some A Levels!) and worked my way up through AAT and then ACCA to become fully qualified at 23. My final ACCA paper was Masters degree level maths (so our teacher told us who was a moderator for that paper), I thought I would never pass! But somehow I managed a first time pass, with some help from hubby who reminded me which button to press in which order on the scientific calc to get the formulas to work!
 
jenb said:
My final ACCA paper was Masters degree level maths (so our teacher told us who was a moderator for that paper), I thought I would never pass!
Click to expand...

Ooooooh that's tripped me up a bit :confused:.

How can accountants not have to be good at maths, yet the final ACCA paper was at masters degree level mathematics????

Ummmm, either I've read that wrong or there must be more to it :p.
 
From the point of view of running a small business, as long as you're logical and keep good records, then the accountancy side of things wouldn't be something that you should have to employ someone to do. You don't need to be an expert at maths by any means.

Where you may find that some help comes in useful is when you're doing your tax returns. They are something you could do by yourself, certainly, but it's probably the most complex area you'd come across. It's not difficult mathematically, but it's a case of getting your head round the rules, particularly if you're looking for the most tax efficient methods of doing things.

Given good records kept during the year, there's a lot of self employed accountants around who will do tax returns for fixed fees and they're not excessively costly. For the time and hassle it would save you, you may find that worth it. It would also mean you have someone to advise you on things like whether to work as a sole trader or as a limited company and how best to take money out of the business for yourself.

The other thing that springs to mind from a yard point of view is that if you employ staff you'd have to be familiar with PAYE and employee benefits. Again, you don't have to be a maths expert, but you would need to be familiar with the regulations.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
newrider.com
Top Bottom
Back