| Accountancy was my second career. I currently do a mixed accountancy/technology management role at an SME. I learnt to code from books and the internet. I'm not bad at using high level languages to get things done. I couldn't pass a Google whiteboard test, I couldn't write a compiler, an os, a db or anything. I know about coding, but I am not a software engineer. Becoming an accountant actually does not have a prequsite much beyond basic maths, ratios, percentages etc. Then it requires 2-3 years of intensive on the job work and study to get to the basic level. In the UK that would also mean passing 10 intensive exams in that time. To get to CFO would probably mean another 7 years experience. But it sounds like you want to know about finance. I would learn to read financial statements. Get some financial statements for some smaller companies from whatever your local corporate register is (uk companies house has them free online). Start with the balance sheet (sometimes called statement of financial position) and profit & loss (sometimes called an income statement). Go through it line by line and read the acounting policy and Google the terms. You can also look them up in your local accounting standards. Next take a look at a cash flow statement. Notice how different looking at cash is to looking at profit. Work it why and why it is much more important to have cash than profit. Learn some accounting ratios like Return on Capital Employed, see if you can calculate them from those statements. A bit of knowledge about Mudigliani & Miller, and NPV (not the maths, Excel can do that. The assumptions) would be good. Learn the Sunk Cost hypothesis, and relevent costs. I think this will get you where you need to be without long coursed of material that you may not use. You don't need to be able to prepare financial statements. |