First Professional Accountancy Experience - Coursework Example

EXPERIENCE AS AN ACCOUNTANT Day I got admission in I started to look around to begin my professional career. With commerce as my field and accountancy majors and internships in accounts departments of various firms, I opted to join a small organization as an accountant to explore my capacities in full as in other larger organizations following of set rules and software were successful in giving the right result but difficult to explore the context in practical that led this set pattern develop. Though, this decision proved to be a great learning experience but to mention not a fairy tale as it appeared to me. Since first day I was required to bring all work in proper accountancy formats, focusing especially on those formats that were easily understandable and communicable to other people in the organization. Therefore along with digging all information from provide material I outlined the following plan for the company. PLAN Evaluate various accountancy software among large number of options available that could best suit the need of the company. Selected software shall provide following solutions all in one: Basic accounts payable, receivables, payroll, inventory matters, banking, costing details, general sales and purchase ledger, customized detail or clients, fixed assets details, basic financial reporting in form of income statement and balance sheet, tax calculations, budgeting and forecasting, graphical illustration etc. Cost effective. Accessible as well as safe. Timely manageable. Easily understandable. It was important for the software to be simple, well-organized, helpful in saving time, accessible from anywhere. Plan and devise such guideline / program that give quick access to required information. Standardizing major formats. IMPLEMENTATION Before beginning work with accountancy software, I standardized formats for major details of business mainly related to day to day operation. On simple excel sheets, I devised some formats with formulas fix which ensured that correct accountancy required pattern and can be imported straight through software applied. This step also provided a basic structure of guideline of recording information to other staff in their respective areas of jobs with presentation apparently similar to one like that software selected so taking off staff to software gets easier with some familiarity already developed. Next to this initial level, entire information for past years were taken up and standardized under certain heads. This step was the most difficult one as breaking of information to be posted under right head of account was high time consuming, extensive effort and hectic consideration requiring job. Overall efforts led to the basic accountancy rule and understanding importance and mechanism of putting right egg in right basket. Software selected for the organization by the management was one of the widely used by SME’s Quickbook Pro. I gave them three different software names, and the management felt that Quickbooks can do the job the best. Quickbook software is among the highly recommended software that keeps details of business in very similar way to manual while providing insight from this information. It also provides access to information from email and phone. Insight outlay from this software is also presented in simple way so the entire concerned staff can understand it with simple business knowledge and without comprehensive pure accountancy knowledge. Therefore, all the required things could be done by this software and one of my tasks was completed here in finding the right software. With lengthy but fruitful step accomplished of format standardization, categorization, data uploading the next was to take off team to it. Integrating humans and software always proves to be challenging. Though some levels were already covered in earlier step and software freight was somewhat had been removed, but application and adaption still required some extensive exercise till final stage. After some mock trial, trial and error, training of basic accounting principles all staff was finally aligned with the software. LEARNING Throughout this entire exercise, there was great learning an each step provided good deal of insight relating to various areas. As decided in the main objective to get the insight practical implication of accountancy principle, this exercise provided an opportunity to revise the entire course previously learned as well as also as preparation in practical for professional qualification. It also provided an opportunity to learn usage of simple accountancy software. Understanding of the importance and ways of implementation of these tools in enterprise who keep cost considered strictly and so does not have capacity to hire professional accountant with high salary. Further, qualified professional accountant would also find it difficult to incorporate extensive rules and regulation of advance accounting to such small business concerns and adherence to those rules could also prove to be difficult for personnel with no basic accounting knowledge. It was also an interesting experience of taking up team from manual to software where I explored multi-domain knowledge. Application of accounting principle to information available in scattered form in very similar form as was taught, training of accountancy to entire related staff specifically with respect to their part of job and solving related issues and queries etc till their understanding and satisfaction. ACHIEVEMENT Taking up an SME from manual to software was itself the biggest achievement in the beginning of my career and so every step in the entire process was an achievement. However, standardization of process in accordance with requirement of the software, application of knowledge and making it in line with software method was also test to basic accountancy proficiency. The most appreciated area from the team side was the ease in accessing and reporting in areas with methods more system oriented than human oriented self designed mechanism for every department and even varying among individuals in department based on best suiting to one’s way. Management was more concerned with the accessibility of options from phones that raised overall productivity and efficiency. MISSING AREAS Since it was the beginning of my career, highlights of wherever missing was observed as though an opportunity to understand more accurately, however, it raised the cost and time of task. There were events where mistakes in making accounting entries and other controllable measures. It also accounted some error where actual and computer generated results did not match and it was difficult explaining the how such any such change happen due to application of accounting principles. Hence, overall success had these petty issues throughout that constantly made the term and task challenging. AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT Human can breathe and learn to the last breath of his life; therefore there were many areas of improvement that I was able to point out for betterment. An initial decision to dig out past data and information and spending time on getting them aligned first before taking it to software was less advisable decision than taking data for shorter spam. Time spent on same could have been utilized in software learning phase if started alongside then cost, time and efforts all would be saved. I suggested different software and then the management selected the software on the basis of its claim to address most of the requirement and its high usage and recommendation rate in industry and no early confident knowledge about particular software. Therefore, in case of it not suiting to organizational needs could have resulted in mess and I was involved in finding three software for the company. Overall as well as all sub-tasks were challenge given as I myself did not have proficiency in it therefore, the cost raised and time increased was though accepted by firm but ethically it can be questioned. FINAL WORD First professional accountancy experience was a great learning experience overall. It provided extensive practical and real life knowledge of what was taught in form of theory and case studies. It further strengthened my understanding of the course with digging from crude form to usable and then to software module. During experience, it was highly helpful in refining my expertise as well as highlighting the areas where I require improvement. Read More