Whilst we wait for the ICAN results, I don’t know which ICAN candidate needs to hear this but if it applies to you, take it seriously.
Learn Double Entry.
The major reason you have issues with courses like FR and SBR is because you don’t really know double entry.
Learn Double Entry.
Don’t be ashamed. Yes, you have an accounting degree. Yes, double entry was a 100L topic. Yes, you’ll feel like you’ve been a fraud all these while for not even knowing the fundamentals.
There’s nothing to lose or be ashamed of when you are seeking knowledge.
You know why you hate accounting standards? And prefer stuffs like statement of cashflows?
It’s because questions on accounting standards will ask you to tell how the transaction will be treated. You’ll end up doing guess work. You might get it right not because you truly know it. It’s because you’ve memorized many questions and answers such that what you’re doing in the exam hall is pattern recognition.
You have always treated accounting like mathematics.
“Anywhere I see revaluation surplus at the acquisition date I will add it to the net assets acquired”
“Anywhere I see intra-group sales , I will deduct the unrealized profit from inventory”
You don’t know why you are even doing these things, you’ve just memorized them like a formula.
Things get complicated when the examiner decides to change the pattern you’ve already memorized.
Whenever IAS 8 is examined as full question, the results usually not impressive because you can’t CORRECT something when you don’t even know how it was supposed to be.
It’s heart breaking to see an SBR student struggling with journalizing.
Learn Double Entry.
Once you crack it, you’re king.
Over time, I’ve offered to give students classes on double entry or ask them to watch videos. At first they’ll feel like they are being demoted. But when they start, they’ll realize they never knew the thing.
If you ONLY think of “receiver” and “giver” when you want to make entries, you need to learn.
Imagine being a construction worker and finding bundles of dollars in a building. One bundle of $100 notes alone is $10,000, which is over ₦13 million. A moving man has found his luck!
I was eyeing the CFO role of a very big real estate company in Abuja. Very big that only the commissions they pay to agents in a month is in billions.
One day, my principal had a dealing with them that warranted me to send an email to the said office.
I addressed it to the ‘CFO’.
He saw my draft and said ‘CFO ke, accountant jare’
I didn’t think much of it.
Another day, I accompanied my principal to an event hosted by the company.
We sat at the front then one young lady was sharing water. My principal said “Na the accountant be this”
Sharing water and small chops???😭😭
Before I could recover from the second-hand shame he added “They just increased her salary to N250K”
There’s no finance department. Just one accountant doing the work of 15 people🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
Shame wear be Givenchy😭