The Student CPA » Audit and Assurance

Study Habits for the Average Accounting Student

Narcisse Dansou — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 04:50:06 +0000

Succeeding in any field of study requires the use of a solid strategy and accounting is no exception. As an undergraduate student in accounting, I many times had classmates in my accounting courses that would complain about their inability to consistently achieve above average exam grades. In response, I would ask them to outline their strategy for tackling accounting courses. In 9 out 10 cases, they had no clearly defined strategy and that’s exactly what I call a recipe for failure. Successful studies in the field of accounting require a structured approach. While I never did exceptionally well in college, I was however able to do better than average in all my accounting classes because I developed and adopted effective learning habits very early on. Before going any further, I would like to mention that the accounting study tips I am about to share with the whole world are

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Earnings Management: The Dark Side of Financial Reporting

Narcisse Dansou — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 23:21:22 +0000

As I explained in my previous post, accrual accounting is not an exact science. Indeed, a variety of assumptions and accounting estimates is used in arriving at the final earnings figures. In assessing the health of a company, lenders and investors alike almost always look at the quality of its earnings first. However, it is nearly impossible for a company to consistently report stellar periodical earnings over a long period of time. This is because a company’s business activities can be affected by changes in economic cycles, seasonal changes, new legislation, and other extraordinary events. In order to “normalize” the continuous succession of ebbs and flows in financial results characteristic of any typical business, company managers, more often than not, resort to a practice known as earnings management. According to Healy and Wahlen (A review of the earnings management literature and its implications for standard setting’, Accounting Horizons, December

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Integrity: Still a Hallmark of Certified Public Accountants (CPA)?

Narcisse Dansou — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:29:54 +0000

Integrity is one of the essential pillars of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Code of Professional Conduct. A distinguishing mark of the accounting profession is acceptance of its responsibility to honor the public trust. Lenders, investors, government agencies, and other members of the business community rely on the integrity of Certified Public Accountants (CPA) to help preserve the proper functioning of commercial activities. Active and aspiring public accountants ought to embrace the obligation to act in a way that warrants the faith that the entire public reposes in the work they do or will do. Richard L. Schmalense, former John C Head III Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management, once stated: “Without ethics, business can’t be done – or taught”. In the wake of the resurgence of high profile Ponzi schemes and corporate frauds, it is now more important than ever to teach standards

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Earning an Accounting Degree Requires a Never to Be Denied Attitude

Narcisse Dansou — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:51:13 +0000

The pursuit of an accounting degree accounting is not your typical easy walk through the park. It requires a lot of determination reinforced with an attitude of never to be denied. As I went through college, I encountered quite a number of people who gave up on their dreams of becoming an accountant because they could not earn a passing grade in either of the two Intermediate Accounting courses. Or if they did make it through Intermediate Accounting, they were not able to go pass Auditing or Advanced Accounting. My journey to an accounting degree required a lot of long and boring hours of hard labor. I did not have it easy one bit. In my last semester, I was averaging a B after two tests in Auditing when I literally failed the third test which brought my average grade in the class to a D. Halas, I was

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Auditing: A gatekeeper like no other!

Narcisse Dansou — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:31:33 +0000

If you think that getting through your tax and financial accounting classes was challenging, please hold your breath because you ain’t see nuthin yet…pardon my English. Before walking at your graduation ceremony, you will have to win your battle with the ultimate ceremony’s gatekeeper: Auditing. You will be surprised by the overwhelming number of students that give up pursuing an accounting degree just because they are unable to pass through the funnel that is Auditing. Auditing is really a different animal because it requires a lot of memorization along with a healthy dose of critical thinking. Most accounting students naively overlook the complexity of auditing because there is little mathematical computations involved in it. The lack of math is largely compensated by the fact that you will be dealing with a lot of situational issues. Not only will you have to memorize the rules but you will also need

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