Maynard: Financial Reporting: Study Skills

Maynard: Financial Reporting
Oxford University Press, 2013. All rights reserved.

STUDY SKILLS

At this level of your studies, financial accounting gets a lot more complex.

Basic financial accounting covered by level 1 studies usually focuses on the how of
accounting, in other words the preparation of basic financial statements. This usually
requires students to learn standard formats of these statements and complete these from
financial accounting information presented in a similar manner from question-to-question.
There will be a right answer. With a certain amount of rote learning, students can
perform very well in assessments of this nature.

Level 1 studies may also include some details of underpinning concepts and principles,
often to explain the financial accounting methods that are performed for example,
accruals to explain the inclusion of accrued and prepaid expenses and depreciation and
some interpretation principally based on financial ratios. These areas are often covered at
a fairly basic level and require you to demonstrate that you know them, and have some
understanding of them.

At the level of financial accounting and reporting covered by this textbook, gone is the rote
learning of pro-formas in order to answer standard questions. The focus is on
understanding and application. Many different and detailed techniques set out in
financial reporting standards have to be mastered and be able to be applied to many
different items and areas of financial reporting. Scenarios presented are all different
what may apply in one case wont necessarily apply in another. This only reflects real
business life!

You wont be asked to prepare full sets of financial statements (except consolidated
financial statements), but instead have to know how the accounting for a particular
scenario will affect these financial statements. Gone is your security check of finding out
whether the financial statements balance or not! This may involve working through the
accounting using double-entry.

You will also have to appreciate that there may be no right answer to financial
accounting and reporting in practice, and this will be mirrored by some of the scenarios
and questions you will now meet. This doesnt mean that financial accounting is a free-
for-all; boundaries, recommendations and sometimes alternative methods are provided by
financial reporting standards and should be applied. However you may have to decide
whether a particular accounting technique is applicable or appropriate for example, does
the information provided about development expenditure incurred by a company mean
that the expenditure should be capitalised as an intangible asset or not. You will have to
weigh up the evidence presented, form a judgement and, importantly, be able to justify
why you have taken your approach.

Level 2 studies will probably include quite a lot of theory covering financial reporting
systems and frameworks and the underpinning conceptual framework to financial
reporting standards. It is worth getting to grips with these as they provide the context and
basis for the detailed accounting standards material. For example, the IASBs Conceptual
Framework sets out definitions of the elements of financial statements (assets, liabilities,

equity, income and expenses) and provides some principles for when these should be
recognised and how they should be measured. Each financial reporting standard then
follows this approach by defining the particular asset / liability / etc. that is the topic of the
standard and then discussing when they are recognised and how they are measured.
Disclosure requirements are also always included.

Why the accounting for an item or transaction is done in the way that is, will stem from the
principles outlined in the Conceptual Framework. Thus a full understanding of the detailed
techniques can only really be gained by knowing what these principles are.

Financial reporting is ultimately about providing useful information to those who want to
use it, and thus the final main aspect of your study of financial reporting at this level is
being able to demonstrate you understand how the detailed accounting techniques may
affect the users of the financial statements. For example, how do the disclosures of
discontinued operations affect a potential investors interpretation of the financial
performance, or, if a company selects the revaluation model for its properties, what impact
will this have on financial ratios? The focus of interpretation is often the investor, as this is
considered by the IASB to be the principal user of financial statements, so you will need to
be able to demonstrate a full understanding of the techniques this user will use and what
the results of these techniques mean for him/her.

So, in order to be successful at your financial accounting and reporting studies at this
level, you have to:

Be able to picture in your mind what the statements of comprehensive income,
financial position and cash flows look like
o You need to know what line items or areas will be affected by the scenario you are
concerned with
o You need to know the simple accounting adjustments you learned at level 1 for
example, depreciation, disposals of non-current assets, accruals and
prepayments, provisions for doubtful debts without really thinking about them
o You will also need to have a good grasp of double-entry bookkeeping

Have a thorough grasp of a lot of detailed accounting techniques
o Your tutor and the textbook have included the main ones from the relevant
international accounting standards for each topic
o Read the relevant parts of the accounting standards for further details they are
reasonably easy to read you will also see that lots of examples are given
o Use the Key issues checklists at the start of each chapter to ensure you have
covered all the main areas in your learning

Practice lots of different questions in each area
o This should enable you to see how the accounting techniques applied for a
particular issue, for example, impairment of non-current assets or non-controlling
interest in consolidated financial statements, are the same, although the
scenarios may be different
o This should also give you practice in identifying the particular accounting issue
relevant to a scenario, which may not always be given

o You will also gain practice in dealing with situations which require you to form your
own judgement
o Ensure you can deal with the simpler questions first (the Worked examples
included in the chapters and the end-of-chapter Quick tests) before you move
onto questions which take the material further

Be able to explain why the accounting techniques are what they are
o This will be in relation to underpinning concepts and principles
o It will also be in relation to the information that will be important for users to have
o Know what the IASBs Conceptual Framework covers
o Know the structure of a typical financial reporting standard

Be able to conduct a full interpretation of a set of financial statements for an
investor
o Know different interpretation techniques
o Know which are particularly relevant for an investor and for the nature of the
company / companies provided
o Be able to adapt interpretation techniques for the particular scenario / information
given
o Be able to explain what the figures resulting from the interpretation techniques
mean, including being able to bring out the inter-relationships of financial ratios
and other techniques
o Be able to write a coherent and well-structured report
o Practice writing out your interpretation

Have an understanding of other aspects of financial reporting
o The key players in the financial reporting chain
o What is required from the financial reporting framework to ensure that financial
statements are high quality
o The relevance of corporate governance and how this impacts financial reporting
o The growing significance of corporate sustainability
o Ethics as an underpinning to much of financial reporting, corporate governance and
sustainability
o Read the narrative parts of companies annual reports to gain an understanding of
what companies report on in these areas
o Questions in this area will relate to a specific issue you will need to identify what
particular aspect you need to write on, and target your answer appropriately

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Maynard: Financial Reporting

Oxford University Press, 2013. All rights reserved.

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