Australian Money

I'm a pretty smart girl, at least I think I can count money properly. So since I arrived here in Australia, I have been effectively counting cash and finding it much more difficult than counting American money. You might wonder why this is such a hard phenomenon for an accountant, so I will give you the brief version of my view on the American Dollar vs. the Australian Dollar.

First, if you are American like me, consider the moment when you began to recognize American money. It was probably as early as kindergarten or first grade. Then, if you were lucky your parents likely gave you a weekly allowance for doing chores and you were also given a piggy bank or somewhere you could store it.

Now consider how many times in your life you might have counted, recounted, added, divided, used or otherwise handled your cash money. I am sure it has been hundreds of thousands of times, and for me, I also handled other people's money as well as my own. Working in any form of retail as a cashier or working in a bank (both jobs I have done before) means you are counting money more times in a day than most other people.

I bet you are wondering why I went to great length to discuss this mentality... well, thinking about how I was "so experienced" at counting money, I thought the transition from an American Dollar to an Aussie Dollar would be simple. I mean, I can count from 1 to 100 and that is the basis of one dollar in america, right?

What I forgot was that counting money is not just about counting from 1 to 100, it is all about understanding the denominations that you are given and recognizing what the coins and dollars look like. The faster you recognize the size, shape and color of the denominations, the faster and more accurately you can count money in any country.

So here is a short version of the differences between American Money and Australian Money (from 1 cent to 100 dollars). In America there are coins penny (1 cent), nickle (5 cents), dime (10 cents), quarter (25 cents), half dollar (50 cents) and a Susan B Anthony dollar or a gold dollar (1 dollar). American dollar denominations are 1, 2 (if you are lucky enough to find one), 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100.

In Australia you have silver coins, gold coins, and colored money. The bills are seriously different colors for different denominations, the silver coins are denominations less than a dollar and the gold coins are 1 dollar or more.

So here goes... Australian coins are 5 cents, 10 cents, 20 cents, 50 cents, 1 dollar and 2 dollars. Australian bills are 5 dollars (purple), 10 dollars (blue), 20 dollars (red), 50 dollars (yellow) and 100 dollars (green).

Did you notice the lack of a 1 or 2 dollar bill... and whatever happened to the penny and the half penny? Looks like the Aussies like to count by 5's when it comes to their coins. Why round down when you can round up?