Phew! A new word learnt from my British friends to express relief from fatigue. Ya, the Financial Accounting exam is just over. Hardly imagine that within 5 weeks of 15 hours lecture, I eventually managed to understand the substance of the mysterious accounting statements, read the financial statement of any of the listed companies without frowning and at least capable of some general analysis of the company performance.
It all owed to Peter, the lecturer of the financial accounting class. A British gentleman with lots of sense of humor. He made the dull accounting numbers a series of interesting stories. He made the seemingly complicated concepts easy to understand. And he made us (or some of us) the accounting beginners comprehended the tricks and the so called creative accounting behind the book.
As Peter mentioned in the first class, the course aim is not to teach you how to prepare a bookkeeping. It is all about how to understand the financial statement, analyse it, and use it for management decision as a future manager. The course is to demystify the financial statement, so that you won't be scared away by the accountants that speak to you in the accounting jargons which seems to be a foreign language. You can talk the talk and finally you will learn to love accounting!
Well, I don't know whether I have fallen in love with accounting, but at least accounting is no more a boring subject for me. It was so delighted that unconsciously I able to discuss about some company business performance using the accounting knowledge learnt from the class in the chat with friends. That's super cool!
The course covered of course the 3 main financial statements, the balance sheet, the income statement and the cash flow. But not much discussion on how to prepare those statement. The emphasis was more on how to analyse them and what are the tricks that some companies use to disguise their profits. A more detail discussions were done on topics like tangible assets, intangible assets, leasing, employee benefit, and group companies.
A 5 weeks lecture, 15 hours, plus 3 workshops for the preparation of exam, and 2 thick textbooks, numbers of powerpoint slides. That's the speed of a subject in an MBA program. Looking on the piles of other text book, I realised that the journey is still long away. NfP project submission and presentation, Economics presentation, Marketing presentation, Economics, Marketing, Finance, Skill for Successful Manager exam will occur subsequently in next 5 weeks.
Not feeling "phew" anymore...but at least I am enjoying the learning process. I don't aim to be an accountant, an economics, or a Finance or Marketing expert after all these courses, but if I can talk their language, understand their tricks, and may eventually manage them (haha!), wouldn't it sounds great!
It all owed to Peter, the lecturer of the financial accounting class. A British gentleman with lots of sense of humor. He made the dull accounting numbers a series of interesting stories. He made the seemingly complicated concepts easy to understand. And he made us (or some of us) the accounting beginners comprehended the tricks and the so called creative accounting behind the book.
As Peter mentioned in the first class, the course aim is not to teach you how to prepare a bookkeeping. It is all about how to understand the financial statement, analyse it, and use it for management decision as a future manager. The course is to demystify the financial statement, so that you won't be scared away by the accountants that speak to you in the accounting jargons which seems to be a foreign language. You can talk the talk and finally you will learn to love accounting!
Well, I don't know whether I have fallen in love with accounting, but at least accounting is no more a boring subject for me. It was so delighted that unconsciously I able to discuss about some company business performance using the accounting knowledge learnt from the class in the chat with friends. That's super cool!
The course covered of course the 3 main financial statements, the balance sheet, the income statement and the cash flow. But not much discussion on how to prepare those statement. The emphasis was more on how to analyse them and what are the tricks that some companies use to disguise their profits. A more detail discussions were done on topics like tangible assets, intangible assets, leasing, employee benefit, and group companies.
A 5 weeks lecture, 15 hours, plus 3 workshops for the preparation of exam, and 2 thick textbooks, numbers of powerpoint slides. That's the speed of a subject in an MBA program. Looking on the piles of other text book, I realised that the journey is still long away. NfP project submission and presentation, Economics presentation, Marketing presentation, Economics, Marketing, Finance, Skill for Successful Manager exam will occur subsequently in next 5 weeks.
Not feeling "phew" anymore...but at least I am enjoying the learning process. I don't aim to be an accountant, an economics, or a Finance or Marketing expert after all these courses, but if I can talk their language, understand their tricks, and may eventually manage them (haha!), wouldn't it sounds great!
