There is a scene in the Academy Award-winning movie Good Will Hunting where Will is speaking with his girlfriend, Skylar, and she asks him why he is so good at math. He compares being adept at math to Beethoven playing the piano. Skylar then asks him if he plays the piano, to which he replies, ''No, not a lick. I mean, I look at a piano, I see a bunch of keys, three pedals, and a box of wood. But Beethoven, Mozart, they saw it, they could just play. I couldn’t paint you a picture, I probably can’t hit the ball out of Fenway, and I can’t play the piano. But when it comes to stuff like math, I could always just play.''
Growing up, I was a lot like Will — when it came to math, I could always just ''play.'' But when it came time to choose a career path for myself and find a job, I never once looked in a field at all associated with mathematics, accounting, or numbers — much to my mother’s chagrin. I was always a creative child, and during college I fed that creativity by taking classes in the arts. Math was just too black and white for me. Perhaps because it did come so easily to me, it simply didn’t hold my interest. I prefer a challenge. But perhaps I judged too quickly.
The term ''creative accounting'' used to conjure up images of accountants cooking the books in rooms filled with cigarette smoke, Enron employees shredding documents, and money being embezzled into offshore accounts. But no longer. Accountants need to utilize a bit of creativity in their everyday jobs to be successful.
And I don’t mean ''creativity'' in the illegal sense. Who would you rather hire — the accountant who tells you that you have $2,000 in your bank account, which means you can only spend $2,000, or the accountant who tells you that you have $2,000 in your bank account, but you can spend $3,000 without going into debt? With numbers sometimes things are not entirely black or white.
Accountants have to possess a certain amount of creativity to see beyond the black and white numbers to what they represent as a whole. If the average Joe — or Jill, as the case may be — goes out and buys a $2,000 computer, he or she sees it as a $2,000 expense — period. But accountants are able to see way past that $2,000.
Today’s accountant looks ahead and outside of the proverbial box and sees that $2,000 become a depreciation and tax deduction due to future income increases. He or she sees today’s $2,000 charge as being the same as a $300 charge after three years of being used as an asset and a tax deduction. Spreading the $2,000 out over three years allows the average Joe or Jill to depreciate the expense and save the deduction for later years. Voila: ''creative accounting''!
So if you are looking for a job in the accounting field, be creative with your resume and in your interviews. Most of the accounting jobs posted on AccountingCrossing list ''creativity'' and ''being able to think outside the box'' as requirements. When writing your resume, make sure to list attributes and qualities that make you stand out from the crowd. Are you good at training new hires? Have you ever developed and designed accounting software? Have you implemented a new accounting system in a former job? Let your creativity shine when applying for accounting jobs; be a ''creative accountant''!
