Accounting has variously been described as the language of business. This is in recognition of the fact that without accounting, determining organizational performance would have 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 firm. This paper therefore appraises the accounting skills needed by small and medium enterprises for sustainable economic development in a developing nation using Taraba State of Nigeria as a focal point. The paper aims to ascertain the fundamental accounting skills needed by SMEs in the State and to determine the benefits accruable to the firms who acquire these skills. The paper adopted the descriptive research design approach and data were generated from professionals and operators/owners of SMEs in the state through a thirty point structured questionnaire. The data analysis was conducted by means of the means scores and standard deviation of the respondents. The hypotheses were tested using the students’ t-test statistics. The results showed that most of the owners and operators of SMEs in the state do not know the accounting skills required to enhance the economic status of their businesses. They however agreed that the skills will enhance their business acumen and improve their profit margin. Also it was discovered that the accounting skills needed by small and medium scale enterprises do not differ significantly with the skills required by large enterprises. The paper recommends massive and regular training of the 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 that are inherently accruable to owners and operators of SMEs especially in developing nations
Keywords: Accounting Skills, Small and Medium Scale enterprises., Sustainable Development, Taraba State of Nigeria
