ASS#1 Step 1

Skimming over the Introduction & Chapter 1, I quickly wrote down the first questions that came to mind. These questions were What is accounting? Can a business grow or stretch without accounting? How does online communication tie in with accounting? I wonder if I wrote down all the businesses operating in our little remote town would I be surprised? The 5 elements of accounting I have heard of and used but do I really have a true understanding of all of them? I went back and read the Introduction & Chapter 1 and am excited to begin this new chapter in my life and to grow as a person and think about the way that I learn.

KCQ 1

What is accounting?

Recording business transactions and being able to tell others how the business is doing is important as it not only shows the people involved in the business how your business is doing financially, but it can also be a way of letting others know if the business is viable. You may want to grow your business and invite shareholders to invest in the business and having a record of business transactions is a way to measure and show to potential investors. Having experience as a bookkeeper for our own family business I have had experience with reconciliation, preparation of BAS, superannuation and PAYG and entering transactions but now after working for and looking at larger businesses I want to be competent with reading financial statements and have a true understanding of how the business is doing. I want to know that when looking at financial statements that I understand what is written on them and how these tell the reality of the business or do they? So many question that I still have and learning through university will equipe me with the knowledge and expertise to do this. I have so many more questions that I fully believe that will be answered as we progress through this unit.

KCQ 2

How do I learn?

I started off reading the chapters and then moved to listening to them in the car on my 760km return trip that I make to work each fortnight. What I have taught myself recently is to have the courage to ask the question if I do not understand, go back and listen or write it down to unpack the statement or paragraph and gain a true understanding of what I am reading or listening to and not to just memorise it. When I read the six different ways of learning it had me thinking about times when I have applied all 6 to learning something in my current workplace. Being that I do not have a train driving qualification I have had to increase my knowledge on train driving and gain an understanding of how things work when they are transporting sometimes upwards of 400t of product from a mine site to the port of Townville. I have had to learn, memorise, put into practise, understand the reality and change as a person to become a better leader especially when I have had to perform an investigation into an incident that has taken place. I had not actually thought about the ways in which we learn or how I have moved from learning in school where we were repeating for example our times table to memorise this and how now as an adult I am using this skill everyday not only in business but in everyday life. Reading the way of viewing learning and developing new insights does make the world different and change a person as through personal discovery I think it opens our eyes to new experiences and can develop an excited and inquisitive mind. I know that this is certainly what it has done for me.

KCQ 3

Why are there two sides to everything?

The saying There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it by Charles F. Kettering has me thinking about how I was taught bookkeeping. I had to learn how to “do the books” manually on paper before I was allowed to enter the details into MYOB which was the program that we were using at the time. I knew that the details had to be entered correctly but really did not understand how entering these details impacted so many other aspects of the business. I can still remember the day that I was reconciling the main business account and it was not adding up and having to revert to manually reconciling the account that I realised that by me not entering the details into the correct category this had not allowed the computer to correctly reconcile the bank account. Finding this small hiccup and correcting it then allowed the amounts to reconcile. I do like how MYOB has linked accounts and now having to only enter the transaction once it will apply the details to the linked accounts that it needs to however, I have also seen where a transaction has been entered and has created unbalanced transactions of other accounts.

I remember being told in high school that for every credit there has to be a debit and now understand that this is the two sides to everything! I liken it to when a company buys a new vehicle. It is an increase in the asset of the firm but the firm now has an obligation to manage the vehicle and provide a return on it for the benefit of the firm. We would have a liability in the management of the vehicle and if the vehicle has a loan attached this would also be a liability. The accounting equation gives us a view at a particular point in time with the extended equation taking into account the changes during a period. I wonder can we tell if a business is seasonal or what has influenced the point of view that accounting can give us at a certain point in time using the extended accounting equation.

Step 2

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