The last time this was posted on HN (October 2023), I posted this comment which I think makes it easy to understand the fundamentals of accounting:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37951781

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kjshsh123 7 hours ago | parent [-]

It's a good comment but I think to make something intuitive you really need to understand why something exists and I think for most people there just isn't in fact a good reason.

If you know it, it's easy to use, so why not? But if you don't, whatever method you come up with to track account balances and revenues vs. expenses is going to be useful enough. For individuals not accounting for receivables, debts, depreciation properly isn't likely to make a big difference.

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rahimnathwani 7 hours ago | parent [-]

This is a great point.

I take it for granted that people want to be able to read a balance sheet and an income statement.

But most people don't.

	▲	ghaff 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That was my thinking reading this. You need the basics but I would assume the main motivation is to look at a company's financial statement and at least recognize a lot of the language and the significance of the relationships. Of course there are going to be a lot of subtleties but the statement shouldn't be seen as being written in an ancient language.