The Pope’s view on accountants

Image from wikipedia

A recent quote from Pope Francis to the World Congress of Accountants captures the broader role of accounting quite well:

” everyone, especially those who practise a profession which deals with the proper functioning of a country’s economic life, is asked to play a positive, constructive role in performing their daily work, knowing that behind every file, there is a story, there are faces.”

This quote reminds us that behind the numbers are real jobs, real people and real effects. It may be easy to forget this as you trawl over a ledger audit trail or provide information to managers, but reminding ourselves of the broad reach of our accounting numbers can only be a good thing.

The full text the address by Pope Francis can be found here.