Aside from the different industry knowledge in the specific environment, in the above four aspects, the law is the framework and constraint, which determines what can and cannot be done most of the time; Finance is a language-like tool, which helps us to have a dialogue with stakeholders under a standardized grammatical system and also translates the ins and outs of economic interests into a language that we can easily understand. Finance is the command of finance and law, and the engine of discovering value and creating transactions.
Why did you kill the accountant first? Because accounting, as a language, is the basis for us to understand things. If we don't understand accounting, we don't know what economic activities are presented in the report. It can be said that if you don't understand accounting, the so-called understanding of financial concepts is completely superficial.
I have recommended Investment Bank Notes to a friend who wants to know about investment banks before. After reading it, she said that some places were completely confused about what she was saying. When she pointed to "profits attributable to the parent company" and told me her understanding of this term, I realized that reading this book would encounter insurmountable obstacles for people who have no accounting foundation at all. So I suggested that she learn some accounting first.
Although I know only a little about accounting, I still try my best to give my understanding of learning accounting.
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From the end, let's first set the learning goals and standards-what is the basic enough to learn in the first step?
In my opinion, the first step is to learn accounting until you can understand the accounts. Understanding here means that you can clearly and accurately understand the meanings and cross-checking relationships of various subjects in the financial statements of general companies, so as not to have a specious understanding; At the same time, it is effortless to learn the concept of financial indicators.
After setting the goal, let's talk about the methods and paths-how to learn accounting without foundation at all? I think we should follow the following six steps:
1. Create an intuitive impression on what accounting statements, accounting entries, accounting vouchers, etc. What it looks like in practice;
2. Find a financial statement of a listed company, find out the meaning of each subject by consulting Baidu, and further find out the comparative relationship of each subject, and then find out the accurate concept of the main financial indicators appearing in the financial statement;
3. Understand the logical basis of accounting double entry bookkeeping, in short, remember what to borrow, what to borrow and why;
4. Read through financial wisdom and get a general understanding of various "truths" in the financial field. If you can't understand, you can build a general impression.
5. Seriously study an accounting qualification examination, basic accounting knowledge, and then carry out accounting systematically;
6. If you have spare capacity at this time, please go to CPA textbook ~
The above order is very different from the average person's accounting learning order. Why? Personally, I think that if we want to learn knowledge in unfamiliar fields efficiently, we must pay attention to establishing intuitive impression and clarifying concepts and understanding (logic/truth) at the same time. None of these three points is tenable. Intuitive impression is established at the forefront, and abstract concepts can be better understood behind. When the concept is clear, the reason behind the rules can be better understood.
The following discussion or example explains why it is the above six steps:
A, I still remember when I was in college, the accounting teacher told us about "borrowing" and "lending" as soon as I came up, telling us how to make accounting entries, but didn't tell us why to borrow and why to borrow. The textbooks are all in English. As a result, smart people like me are deeply confused, and there are three puzzles:
First, why is borrowing "borrowing" and lending "lending"? Why is income added as "loan" and dividends recorded as "borrowing"? I didn't understand this problem until I understood the logic of double-entry bookkeeping. After I understand it, I don't have to worry about not making accounting entries. Those who have this question can refer to the answer to this question: how to understand "debit" and "loan" in accounting entries? What are the formulas including tax and excluding tax? Why does the tax-inclusive/1+ tax rate not include tax?
Two. What did the accounting entries we made look like in the end? I didn't know what was going on until the accounting teacher showed us a complete report in the last class. However, when I read the annual reports of listed companies for the first time after work, I immediately knew what was what-this shows how important intuitive impression is.
Three. Why are revenues and profits income, and why are profits and earned profits? Stupid can't tell. Reflecting on the experience of being tortured by English terms, I am convinced that it is a complete disaster for a native like me to face language barriers when contacting unfamiliar knowledge fields. The two should be separated. It is not difficult to understand concepts and logic before solving language barriers.
B, why do you want to read the annual report of listed companies? Because the annual reports of listed companies are the most standardized and have detailed notes, it is very useful to read them carefully (remember to read the notes) for the understanding of the subjects. How to understand each subject? The suggestion is to look at the combination of notes and Baidu and work out the relationship between numbers with a calculator.
(Address of annual report of listed companies: Juchao Information Network-multi-level capital market information disclosure platform, search the stock code of listed companies, and open the post-election periodic report page)
It is worthy of criticism that the accounting teachers in universities are ignorant when talking about the concept of "assets": "Assets refer to resources formed by past transactions or events, owned or controlled by enterprises and expected to bring economic benefits to enterprises." The part in quotation marks can be seen in the teaching materials of certified public accountants or accounting standards for enterprises, which is very rigorous and is the standard for judging, and is useful for understanding what assets are in matters such as "financial leasing"; But for beginners, it is too abstract. Because we first establish vague and inaccurate intuitive impressions, and then establish rigorous concepts, this is the correct order.
C. Why do you recommend the book Financial Wisdom? Because it is really easy to read, the concept is very clear-compared with the domestic eight-part essay textbook, it is really cute. After reading this book, you can master many accurate, simple but not superficial things.
D. Why do you recommend basic accounting knowledge such as eight-part essay and Accounting, a textbook for senior certified public accountants? There is no other system. Living examples show that it is enough to be an insurance agent for investment banks after eating CPA textbooks. In my personal opinion, as a result of standing high, smart investment bankers who have just finished accounting are enough to kill a large number of financial managers in financial philosophy and logic.