|
|
|
|
|
|
by bberenberg
2160 days ago
|
|
|
I would say that the skills really break down into 2 areas: - Fundamentals that can be learned and quickly applied. This means taking an Accounting 101 and 102 course. Then applying those accounting principles to your own personal finances. They're not that different from a small business. I would also encourage you to take a couple of intro to law courses, they have been very helpful to me. - Contextual understanding. This is the ability to take what you have learned in the fundamentals, and understand how it applies to a current set of data. This is significantly harder, and there isn't a general solution here. For example, cash flow seems like a fairly simple concept. But once you take into account enough variables, it gets very complex. Those variables are specific to one organization. Finally, while not directly tied to your skills, I can tell you that as a founder, having an excellent accountant who I can trust to understand the minutia of all of this is super helpful. I focus on the high level and making sure that it's driving in the direction I need, he focuses on the guts. My understanding of the fundamentals means I can understand what is going on when he explains why something happened that I may not have understood initially. All of what I wrote here applies to our lawyer as well. |
|
|
In layman terms, it's all sorts of revenues and expenses, short term or in the future, interacting together. Ask yourself, how much do you pay for salary? for office? for equipment? for materials? when? and a hundred more questions...
A good chunk of it is rather straightforward really, yet it takes a course or a discussion with an accountant to learn the proper terms and the broader concepts formally. Seen all of that in university long ago, to be able to make our own companies when we graduate.
That being said, I am not sure this would help to talk to the CEO. I'm not sure CEO generally care or understand about this sort of this. Just outsource accounting.