Accounting Student: Word and Excel

I learned computer fourteen years ago. At that time, a computer was a rare product in my hometown. It was expensive. I remember my faculty bought one computer Intel 486 and maybe 4 megabyte memory around US$3000. That is why we —student— have to be satisfied with laboratory computer, an Intel 386-processor, with 1 megabyte memory.

The operation system we used was DOS and the application we learned was Word Star (as a word processing application) and Lotus 123 (as a spreadsheet application). The computers did not have hard disk, and we just used two disk drives, drive A and drive B. We inserted application software in drive A and put data disk in drive B.

One year later, I started my final paper. My research topic is about capital market, thus I had to work with many data about stock transaction volumes from many companies. I used Lotus 123 and rented a computer at the computer rental near my dorm. Remember, it was a computer with just 1 megabyte memory. The computer was easily hanging because of memory limitation. It was such a boring job, entering data then hanging. When it happened, I had to restart again and reenter the data again. Even I was afraid to type fast because the computer easily “confused.”

Two years later, I was graduated from college and started working as a research assistant. I used Lotus 123 to record all the data. It was such a challenging task to work with macro and formula in Lotus 123 to tabulate data as efficient as I can. At that time, it is already look smart just because you conquered Lotus 123 better than your friends. With my little knowledge about computer and software, it was enough for me, accounting graduate, to enter the job market.
Then, the time is passing by. As we know, everything is changing.

Along the way, during twelve years in my job, I learned about another application, like Generalized Audit Software, Accounting Package, Database Application, and Programming Application. Even then, I realized that I still have to learn more …. because what I know right now is only a little compared to what I should know as an accounting professional. The computer hardware and software development is too fast, I can not cope with it anymore.

Now, many sophisticated applications that are user friendly and ready to use is in the market. We heard about Audit Command Language as one of generalized audit software; Dec Easy Accounting, Peachtree Accounting, and MYOB as alternate accounting package that can be used by small business; SQL Server, MySQL, Microsoft Access and so on as database application. I see accounting student learned about all of it. It is become harder for them to enter the job market. Just understand Microsoft Excel (as a spreadsheet application) and Microsoft Word (as a word processor) is not enough for accounting graduate to be competitive. They need to conquer more. Why?

As we see, now, computer is not expensive anymore. Not only big company can buy and use computer, even small business can buy and use computer, if they want. With around $500, they can get Pentium IV with 256 megabyte memory. Some industries become more dependent with computer, as retail or banking industry. Computers become part of daily transaction processing. Accountant job is handling and auditing the transaction processing, how can we do our job if we do not know how to process transaction using computer?

Some university –means accounting departments– in my country, try to introduce some of those application to their student with a hope that the student can catch the basic understanding. Some students choose to study in two subject, accounting department and informatics department, either serial or parallel. Some of them even study in different university.

I see one interesting phenomena. One university in my country offers a good solution for students. Bina Nusantara (Binus) gives opportunity for students to take dual degree, accounting and informatics. With little additional money and time, the student can get two knowledge … that can not be denied, it is still a rare combination right now. One person conquers accounting and information technology. As far as I know, until now, there is no other university in my country following their strategy. Thus, Binus’ student can be proud? May be not, cause only for this time being they are better from other graduate. We do not know yet what will happen another ten years from now.