Accounting Skills for Sustainable Entrepreneurial Development : A Study of Selected Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in Edo State, Nigeria

Accounting skills was found to be contributory to business performance and as such entrepreneurs are advised to embark on capacity building in accounting skill in the area of financial management and record keeping. Entrepreneurs are agents and drivers of development in most economies of the world including Nigeria. An entrepreneur establishes his presence through the formation of a small and medium scale enterprise (SME). Accounting on its part, is of great importance to the development of small and medium scale enterprises. Accounting has variously been described as the language of business. This is in recognition of the fact that without accounting, determining organizational performance would become a mirage. Accounting provides fundamental information about a business so that interested parties and in particular investors can make informed decisions regarding that business entity. This paper therefore looks at the relevance of accounting skills to entrepreneurs of small and medium enterprises for sustainable performance and development in a developing nation using Edo State of Nigeria as a focal point. The aim of this paper is to ascertain if acquisition of accounting skills by SMEs operators have benefits that are accrual to the firms. The paper adopted the descriptive research design approach and data were generated from professionals and operators/owners of SMEs in the state through a fifteen point structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed using percentage analysis, the weighted mean, and the Z-test statistics. The hypotheses were tested using the Z-test for population proportion adopted at 5% level of significance under the two-tailed test. The results showed that accounting skills acquired by owners and operators of SMEs in the state will enhance their economic status and businesses performance. The result also showed that accounting skills will enhance their business acumen and profitability. It was also discovered that accounting skills has significant benefits accrued to firms who acquire accounting skills for sustainable performance and development. The paper recommends massive and regular training of owners and operators of SMEs nationwide on the accounting and business skills. The paper concludes that the acquisition of fundamental accounting skills by owners of small and medium scale enterprises is of utmost importance given the numerous contributions which are accruable to owners and operators of SMEs especially in developing nations