From big to small businesses, there is always a requirement for efficient accountants, who can take care of the finances of the company, so that it runs well. For this, there is always the requirement of skilled and professional accountants. Probably this constant demand and a prospective career in the field of finance and accounting are drawing students to the study of this discipline.
The problem with accounting sums:
If you are also a student of this discipline, there is always the scope and opportunity for you to have a successful career ahead. However, for that you need to make sure that you do well in your studies. But, while studying accountancy or finance, the accounting sums are a nightmare for the students. I have been through this road and I know they are often quite difficult.
But, if you know how to deal with them, studying can be quite enjoyable. The first thing that you need to understand is that accounting sums, unlike all other mathematical problems, do not solely focus on the results or answers. You need to focus more on the process and justify your steps.
Hence, to make your accounting problem solving experience an easy one, here are a few tips that will help you. Trust me, these are tried and tested!
Tips to help you solve your accounting sums:
- Know the basics at first:
While doing your accounting sums, you need to keep a basic equation in mind. This is –
Assets = Liabilities + Owner’s Equity.
Here, what these individually mean is –
- Assets: The things that are owned by one.
- Liabilities: The amount of money that one owes to the creditors.
- Owner’s Equity: The financial interest.
The owner’s equity covers the capital account. With withdrawals, the amount decreases and with revenues and investments, it increases. These are the basics that you need to keep in mind.
- Read the problem time and again:
As a teacher of Accountancy, I can tell you that most of the time, students are confused with these problems because they do not read a sum properly. Sometimes, students make the mistake of missing out a clue or even blindly starting to solve a sum, thinking that they know how to do it.
You might know the answer. But, the steps that you do to solve it, might take a lot of time. Hence, you need to choose the best possible solution method that will save time and bear maximum score.
- Know alternative methods:
When I was a student, my teacher taught me to learn two or more alternative methods. For example, if you are solving a problem to calculate the provision of doubtful debts, you can either choose the rough method or you can choose the method of provision for doubt account.
- Look for keywords:
There are certain keywords that will help you in identifying the operation required in a word problem. In case of accounting problems, these are –
- Paid: This means that cash is decreased.
- Received: This means that cash is increased.
- Invested: This means that cash was invested by an owner. But this investment might have a proper market value and hence, it might be considered as an asset.
- Received a bill: At this point, cash is not paid. Only the bill is made and sent, to be paid on a later date.
- Bought: This means that cash is spent.
- Billed customers for service: This means that no cash is received yet, but cash would be received by a certain date.
Searching for these keywords would help a student to solve accounting problems easily.
- Solve more problem:
This is something really helpful to make your accounting sum solving process easy. But, this is also the one that is most often taken for granted. The more books you read and the more problems you solve, the more methods you will learn. There is no denying the fact –
Practice makes you perfect!
I myself have highly been benefited with this. Many doubts are clarified; much confusion is cleared out, as you read more books and solve more problems.
- Go through similar examples:
Whenever I used to be confused with a problem, I used to go through the similar problems. Trust me, it helps! There are solved problems in every book. Go through the worked out sections and this will help you in understanding a problem better.
- Take help from a professional:
If nothing works, there is always a solution that will certainly work out and that is to take professional assistance or help. There are available experienced academicians online to help you. If you are in the middle of a project, homework or assignment and have no time to complete it, they can help you.
Even if you are burdened with preparations for an ensuing examination, these professionals are there to help you. All that you need to do is, get in touch with them through email and they will help you. The best part of their help is that they take care of even the most minute problem and factor. Thus, you can be relieved that the problem will be solved with utmost details that will help you to clear your doubts and you will be able to solve a lot of your problems on your own.
- Few factors to keep in mind:
Often the confusions regarding accounting problems or sums are associated with a few factors. Here are a few tips that will help you in solving the problems.
- Credit should never be judged in terms of an emotional or biased concept. It is neither good nor bad.
- Debits must always be equal to credits.
- Whether it is credit or debit, the normal balance is always the plus side of an account.
If you follow these easy and simple tips, it would certainly help you to solve your accounting problems easily. Always remember, understanding the problem and giving more importance to the solution method are two most important factors that you must keep in mind!