Accounting professionals are always in demand, serving businesses in your local neighbourhood, to international corporations and beyond. When it comes to organizing finances and managing financial transactions, accounting professionals are the experts business owners often turn to.
If you’re a motivated individual looking for a challenging and fulfilling career, you may have been searching for an accounting college program. Academy of Learning’s diploma and certificate programs help you turn your passion and interest into a rewarding accounting career that serves business owners in your community.
Here are three business ownership facts for those interested in accounting training.
1. There are Four Main Types of Business Ownership
For every business, there are one or more designated business owners. Owning a business is often a shared endeavour, creating complexities in how a business’ ownership rights and responsibilities are distributed. Basic forms of business ownership include sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, and cooperative ownership (or co-op).
All of these business types hire professionals with accounting training to help manage their finances. These accounting professionals understand the subtle differences in business ownership involved in each of these business types.
In laymen’s terms, a sole proprietorship involves one person with exclusive ownership rights over a business. In a partnership, this ownership (and the rights, responsibilities, earnings, and liabilities that go along with it) gets split among two or more people.
Corporations are owned by many different people, known in business-speak as shareholders. A cooperatively-owned business is similarly split among many people. Co-op owners are referred to as members, not shareholders, each of whom holds equal financial and legal responsibility for their shared business.
A graduate of accounting training manages the ledgers and accounts of his clients
2. Different Taxes Apply to Different Ownership Types
It’s important for accounting professionals to be knowledgeable in the bookkeeping work for each of these kinds of businesses. Perhaps chief among accounting duties related to business ownership is taxation.
If you pursue an accounting diploma at a college like Academy of Learning Career College (AOLCC), you’ll learn the key differences between tax policies that apply to the various kinds of businesses. For example, Canadian sole proprietors are entitled to some tax advantages when their businesses are struggling, such as the option to deduct their losses from their personal income and to assume a lower tax bracket when their profits are low.
There are also specific tax deductions that apply exclusively to corporations when they become officially incorporated through the Canadian Federal Government and/or provincial governments. This allows shareholders of a corporation to often enjoy certain tax rates that are lower than tax rates that govern other business owners.
Understanding the different tax rates and policies that apply to businesses and their owners can help people like you comfortably manage the tax-deducting duties of modern payroll and accounting professionals. You’ll learn about these duties in further detail in an accounting college program.
3. Accounting Diploma Holders Can Own their Own Businesses
Graduates of accounting training from colleges like AOLCC become assistants to accountants, many of whom own their own accounting businesses. Accountants with a large portfolio of clients often choose to open their own accounting businesses, which in turn fall under business ownership categories—a single accountant starting a business would be a sole proprietor, accounting peers launching a business as a partnership would share ownership, and so on.
If you pursue accounting training of your own, you may end up working for one of these accountant-owned firms or businesses. You may even go on to open an accounting business of your own. Whether you work independently or as part of an accounting team, knowledge about business ownership will help you on your way.
Visit AOLCC to learn more about our flexible learning options and supportive environment.
