Why Treasurers And Accountants Aren’t Really Boring

Are you one of those people who think treasurers and accountants are boring? Well, you are not the only one. People all over the world share your opinion and tend to assume that accountants and treasurers are more effective than the average sleeping pill.

So we decided to bust this myth and to give you some reasons why treasurers and accountants aren’t really boring.

1. First of all, these people work with money! They have money (or data related to money) in their hands every day, day after day, for their whole life. Without acting like materialists, how can anything related to money be boring? Surely a lot of people have dreamt of having a job that fills their hands and lives with money! Well, that’s what accountants and treasurers have.
2. Now take treasurers as a group. The name of their profession comes from ‘treasure’. How can anything related to treasure be boring? We grew up with books like ‘Treasure Island’ and filled the cinemas to watch ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean.’ These stories showed us people looking for treasure, but if you are a treasurer you get to find and guard the goods all the time.
3. A lot of accountants and treasurers in fact have favourite accountancy jokes and are happy to share them with us: ‘An accountant is a person who doesn’t have the charisma to be an Undertaker’ or ‘Q: Why are they putting the accountants at the bottom of the ocean? A: They found out that deep down they are not so bad.’
4. In fact, a lot of accountants or treasurers are just ordinary people with a great sense of humour who just happen to be interested in the things that we don’t want to bother with. Thank heavens for their perseverance and intelligence! Without them, we would be forced to deal with our own money or lack of it. Luckily someone has an eye on the numbers for us.

If you are not yet convinced that accountants and treasurers are not boring at all, check out this funny post with the typical Monty Python spin on it: http://whatdoclientsreallywant.com/are-accountants-boring/.  You just might change your mind!

How To Teach Finance To Your Board

As Treasurer, the management and control of the financial reports falls to you. Aren’t you lucky?

If you have read some of our interviews with treasurers, you will have noticed that they comment on how big that responsibility is especially when the members of the board or committee don’t really understand what you are talking about.  Many reports are approved on sheer trust and that isn’t a good basis for decision making.  It leaves treasurers feeling very vulnerable.

Sometimes it will fall to you to teach the board about how to read the reports and what they really mean. You might even have to show them that they are responsible for the contents of the report, whether or not they understand it.  For some members you might have to start at the beginning and show them what basic accounting and finance is all about.

Our Community has developed a simple, online course that will help you teach finance to the members of your committee.

The course starts at the very beginning and explains what financial reports are and what they should cover.  It gives readers a basic view of accounting, bookkeeping and financial controls.  It isn’t an in-depth course but it will give the members of a committee a better understanding of the role of the treasurer and what the reports actually mean.

The course is free to do and will help the members of your committee to support you better in your work as treasurer.