Learning accounting as an entrepreneur

Most entrepreneurs like yourself wear many hats. One moment you’re sales and marketing. Next you’re IT support. While each of these is important, there’s another area of your business that deserves your time and focus: accounting.

Put simply, gaining the right accounting skills now could save you from running headlong into financial problems later on.

Reasons entrepreneurs need accounting skills

If you want your business to get off the ground and make you money, you need a solid understanding of basic accounting principles and techniques. How can you succeed if you can’t confidently process daily business transactions in a bookkeeping system? Or if you don’t know the principles of costing? The consequences of poor accounting are huge and can often make or break your business.

Accounting helps you assess, plan and grow your business. By keeping on top of your financial records, expenses and revenue you’ll be able to accurately monitor your profit and loss. It also helps you manage the value of your assets, liabilities and equity.

Learn accounting and stay in control of your business

It’s easy to shy away from the accounting side when you’re caught up in the excitement of a new venture. But a financially literate entrepreneur is more likely to be fully in control of their business.

You don’t have to run the entire financial side single handed. But gaining some accounting acumen means you’ll be able to balance the books and give yourself the best chance to build a thriving business.

Bookkeeping to run your day-to-day business

A basic bookkeeping course will help you with the day-to-day operations of running your business. Bookkeeping is essentially about tracking all your business transactions, from the revenue you earn to the expenses you incur. The traditional double-entry bookkeeping system underpins accounting processes worldwide. And it’s not as scary as it sounds.

Every financial transaction gets two entries, a “debit” and a “credit” to describe whether money is being transferred to or from an account. It’s just a way to log where your money comes from and where it’s going.

Learning bookkeeping skills will also smooth your path for dealing with customer and supplier transactions, processing receipts and payments, and applying discounts and VAT.

Why entrepreneurs need to understand costing

As an entrepreneur, you need to judge which aspects of your business work well and are worth investment, and which functions are unprofitable. That’s where costing comes in.

Costs accounting – measuring costs and relating them to activity – is the key to making good decisions. It’s about understanding how every sales, operational or financial decision impacts profits and cashflow. So if you rent or purchase office space, buildings, equipment, or machinery you need to know how to balance it against projected profit margin increases and investment returns.

It’s important to get to grips with cost recording techniques, and how to compare budgeted and actual costs. With these skills in your toolkit, you’ll be able to place a value on different areas of your business so you can weigh one against another.

Accounting can strengthen your negotiation skills

As an entrepreneur, you’ll know the advantage of being a skilled negotiator. Whether you’re pitching to investors, getting a better deal from suppliers, or hoping to land a long-term contract. A clear understanding of your books adds more substance to your financial discussions.

The ability to draft financial statements will help you here. Your balance sheet, income statement, net worth, and cashflow statement hold the key to your business’s operating activities. Learn how to prepare and evaluate these, and you’ll be on a much firmer footing to negotiate with all those interested in your business’s financial strength.

Will I be able to run my business and learn accounting skills at the same time?

The answer to your dilemma is “yes”. Although studying while running a business requires a certain amount of discipline, you shouldn’t worry! Thousands of entrepreneurs have proved this is not only possible but, in fact, quite easy to manage if you opt for a distance learning course with Eagle Education.

Our programmes don’t require you to be physically present in a classroom or follow a fixed timetable, so you are free to set your own schedule.

You have the flexibility to complete your course from anywhere, at any time, and at your own pace. Meeting with a potential client in the morning? No problem. Log in to your accounting course in the afternoon or later that night.

Expert tutor support, 7 days a week

Any success in your studies will be the result of your hard work. But at Eagle, we’re with you all the way. Our focus is on delivering successful outcomes for every learner. That’s why we give you personal support from the very start. Our expert tutors are available online to support you and help with study queries seven days a week.

Try a course for free

With Eagle, you can even try before you buy! Choose your course subscription plan, sign up and get your first seven days free.

We have lots of accountancy courses that will help you as an entrepreneur. Take a look at our three suggestions here and gain the accounting skills you need to get – and stay – ahead.

Try our AAT Level 2 Foundation Certificate in Bookkeeping free for 7 days

Try our AAT Foundation Certificate in Accounting Level 2 free for 7 days

Try our ACCA Diploma in Accounting and Business free for 7 days