Understanding Finance & Accounting
Financial and accounting are the two pillars on which the banking and finance industry operates. All major financial work carried out can be grouped under these two disciplines. People are often confused about the purview of finance and accounting. It is often used interchangeably by people who are not familiar with the scope of each discipline. So what is finance and accounting and how do they differ?
If you are looking for a simple answer you can follow this approach; the finance discipline deals with the future monetary prospects whereas accounting deals with the financial transactions that have already taken place in the past. Accounting is more focused on recording and maintaining financial data whereas finance deals with raising funds and projecting future income from a business or project is undertaken.
Accounting is necessary for any business entity as it helps to maintain vital financial transaction-related data and allows introspection into the company’s finances. It helps to identify irregular and fraudulent transactional data. Moreover maintaining proper accounting records are mandatory for most of the businesses as per the laws. Finance, on the other hand, has a much broader scope and entails long term management of asset and liabilities in the business.
Learning Finance & Accounting
Now that we have a fair understanding of finance and accounting, let’s explore how we can learn finance and accounting effectively and efficiently. One of the most basic things to keep in mind before learning finance and accounting is to know the purpose of your learning. Why do you want to learn finance and accounting? This is an important question that you need to address before learning finance and accounting as it will help to guide you better on your educational journey.
The approach you take to learn finance and accounting is majorly influenced by your purpose of learning. If you just want to add some knowledge then you can pursue a different route than if you want to learn it for getting a job in the financial domain. Secondly, it depends on what stage of life or career you are at. If you are just in school then you have the advantage to build your foundation from the beginning.
If you have completed your high school and aiming for graduation then you can choose a relevant undergrad degree such as Bachelors in Commerce. This will give you a fair advantage if you want to get a job just after completing yours under graduation. You can supplement this knowledge by enrolling for finance and accounting course online, this will help to provide you with an edge over the competition and also help to clear your concepts on a deeper level.
Coming to the third scenario where someone is already doing a job and want to boost their prospects for finance or accounting job. In this case, the best thing to do is to opt for an online finance and accounting course. So why is this best option? Well, the first reason is that it allows you to learn at your own pace and convenience. Secondly, you won’t have much time to spare if you are already working at a job and this course will give you much more flexibility as it is very precise and don’t beat around the bush.
Finance and accounting course can teach you the specifics that you are unaware of, you can choose the topics that you want to learn as per your requirements and skip through the others. It has a more personalised approach to teaching the subject and focuses on individual requirements. You can also learn finance and accounting by following YouTube channels related to the field if you are looking for a quick and cost-effective solution. If you want professional qualification then you can opt for specializations like CFA, CA, FRA, etc.
