ACCT13017 Assignment 1 – Step 3

My company which has been chosen for me is ITV Plc (Can be found here: https://www.itvplc.com/). It defines itself: “as an integrated producer broadcaster (IPB), creates, owns and distributes high-quality content on multiple platforms globally. We also continue to diversify our business through the opportunities presented from consumers ’ willingness to pay for great content and to engage with ITV as a trusted brand.”

From reading the companies annual report, I am very curious on how they prepare to go forward with their business due to the substantial losses as of the global pandemic. With significant decreases in their profit, it will be quite the undertaking to come back from the previous years losses. For the past assessments I have done through this degree where I have been given a company, it has always been one that is related to alcohol or alcohol dispensary. This change to a media based company is a welcome change.

From my browsing of other blogs, there are a few standouts for myself. Those being Monal Ghosal (https://monalghosal.wordpress.com/), Sarah Eden (https://acct1159saraheden.wordpress.com/) and Uyen Tran (https://kimtran.accountants/)

The reasoning behind these three is quite simple, all of them are beautifully laid out with simple navigation making it a very pleasant experience to browse. Additionally the content that they put out is phenomenally put together, the way each of them chooses to write up about their own company makes it just that much nicer to read.

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AND HOW THIS DIFFERS FROM ACCT11059. BULLSHIT TALK ABOUT TALKING TO SOMEONE ABOUT IT

Anpario Plc is a producer and distributor of high-performance natural feed additives for animal health, hygiene and nutrition on an international scale. The company is based in England with multiple subsidiaries based in other countries such as America and Brazil. It is only a recently formed company as it used to be separated over three different companies which are Kiotechagil (formerly named Agil), Optivite and Meriden Animal Health. Agil was originally formed back in 1936 and the purpose of the company was to use their understanding of controlling microbial contamination and fermentation to improve their silage additives. Anpario Plc acquired Kiotechagil in 2006 and uses its microbial contamination and fermentation in a majority of their acid products. Optivite was the pioneer in the development of Omega 3 formulations in the egg laying industry. It was founded in 1987 and became one of the most formidable companies in the United Kingdom’s independent animal nutrition companies. It was obtained by Anpario Plc in 2009. Finally, Meriden Animal Health vision was to create natural products with extreme quality. It was the first company to produce a natural phytogenic product in the UK market. In 2012, it was purchased by Anpario Plc and create the company it is today.

Link to Anpario’s site: Anpario Plc

Whilst reading through their annual report for 2016 a few things came to mind that I couldn’t find the answer to. I personally could not find any history of Anpario before their first acquisition of Kiotechagil in 2006. Other than that, the financial statements were extremely easy to comprehend and I personally had no confusion understanding them. An interesting point I found through the financial report is the below average revenue compared to usual in the Middle East as of the political turmoil. This is intriguing as how the political warfare between countries can affect more than just the people inside the countries but also affect any stakeholders of the country, such as Anpario in this case and want to expand their market.

Anpario’s Annual Report: Anpario Annual Report 2016

Finding additional information on Anpario Plc was easier than expected which I was happy about. I found a news article about the pressure Anpario will be facing within the current market for natural food additives in the UK.  In the market of 2013, the want for natural food additives is not there as they want. Although through this they were able to make 20% gross profit overall for the year which was very surprising for them after the trouble they had.

News article: Anpario Article

Finally, comparing Anpario Plc to my company in ACCt11059 Distil Plc. From my experience with both of these companies, Distil Plc was extremely harder to find any information compared to Anpario Plc. The reasoning I would believe that is because Distil Plc has been rejuvenated a multitude of times and had changed its goals and decisions whilst Anpario Plc hasn’t changed its goals or decisions from the start of their formation. This helped as finding any history was extremely easy as they just traced it back from the beginning whilst Distil Plc changed multiple time and therefore the history of the whole company has changed a multitude of times. Talking about this with other students in my class, I was the only one who was happy with their new company compared to the last company they had in ACCT11059 whilst they all found theirs more difficult to work with.

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Whilst doing my income statements on my bank statements I found out that I spend too much money on food. Other than that I personally found it easy and enjoyable which was great as I usually stress over assignments so it was a great change.

My chart of accounts is just income and expenses which are categorized by an account number of 1 and 2 respectively. Looking through it all I found out that I transfer a lot of money from my savings to my personal account and vice versa as the majority of my transactions were made up of transfer debits or transfers credit. My chart of accounts look a lot different from the example because of the limited variety of transaction that I have made in the current time period.

With my chart of accounts, I could change it by making it vastly more diverse by separating my general living expenses in to more descriptive accounts such as separating fuel from groceries and Subway from Woolworths. The benefit of this is to give a greater description of my balance sheet and income statement to give a greater explanation of my financial accounts.

Analysing my income statement showed that I should save more money than I currently do as only having an average 33% profit/loss is not a great record to hold. The actual action of going through my transaction and recording them to my financial statements has been extremely useful. I can easily see the benefits of doing this for your own accounts even without a business to see where a loss in money could be coming from and see where you could ease off from.

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Through my journey doing my trial balance I had a lot of troubles as for some reason I just couldn’t understand to make it work. When I first finished my trial balance it was out by around 20,000,000 and that is obviously not a good sign. I tried looking around and I cannot finish it as nothing I did could fix it, and for even watching Maria’s videos multiple time but I couldn’t get it done. When I went and asked a friend in my class he was able to fix it quickly which was great and was a great stress release.

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1.4 Three Things To Memorise:

Increase in an asset is a debit, Assets +Expenses = Equity + Revenue + Liabilities, Left Hand side are Debits and Right Hand side are Credits.

Finishing off Study guide chapter 1 all I could think about in my head were these three rules to accounting. This may be as I automatically started the challenge and wrote each down 5 times as soon as I had read all the first chapter. It is already surprising how easy it is now to recite these without referring to the study guide or my book where I wrote them down. I will 100% be keeping this up for the whole challenge and may even add it as a learning technique for other important concepts.

I was not surprised when I saw that the last section of the first chapter was about how we should not just do rote learning an, fully absorb and engage into the subject we are learning as I know this is probably the most important (and Martin’s favourite) thing to drill into us. Rote learning is very useful in the education system or any that requires a one-point test to determine your outcome but it is not useful when it comes to when we need to use and develop that skill in the workforce or even just in day to day lives. The video linked in the study guide, the TEDx Talks by Dr. John Zubizarreta was extremely good for backing my statement in which rote learning is not needed and should not be supported by the education system. Dr. Zubizarreta explained that through his 35+ years of teaching that he believes and endorses the method of teaching through creative and interactive learning and how the benefits of teaching these ways are easily visible with the students.

Following on from finishing up on Chapter 1 of the Study guide and continue onto Chapter 2 into which Martin starts talking about something that I am much more familiar with, GST. From my current knowledge of it, GST is the Goods and Services Tax for Australia which is at current of writing that 10%. It’s key role, as most taxes is to increase profits for the government to be able to redistribute it into the country through infrastructure or technology. In this section, I learnt how GST affects a company and how that varies from the individual. The first one is the one that I briefly explained above, GST collected. GST collected is, the GST a firm has collected from its customers on behalf of the government and thus the firm ‘owes’ this amount to the government. Secondly is GST paid, this one I have never heard of before and is basically the GST a firm has paid to its suppliers on goods and services supplied to the firm by its suppliers. The difference between this one and the GST collected is that the company can be repaid by the government as usually GST is paid by the final customer of the product, and as a company is the middle man from the supplier to the customer it does not need to pay it. Finally, the last GST which I have also never heard of before is GST payments/refunds which means it is payments of GST by the firm to the government, where GST collected by the firm exceeds GST paid by the firm; and refunds of GST received by the firm from the government, where GST paid by the firm exceeds GST collected by the firm. I wasn’t surprised that companies had different GST to the individuals but was when they had multiple affecting them. I thought that it would just be the generic GST just accustomed to work with a company, like GST collected but did not expect GST paid and GST payments/refunds to be a thing and affecting companies. This made me think of how other things that affect the individual would be impacted different for companies?

Finally, nearing the end of the second chapter of the study guide Martin links a video of how an accounting software can be used in today’s accounting and how it differs from what we have been learning of journals and ledgers. The software program that was chosen was Xero and I was so surprised with how easy it made everything look. With just a few buttons the software allowed the you to fully complete the bank reconciliations within a few minutes from what usually would had to be waited months to do. It just fascinates me how technology has improved over the years and can affect and help increase efficiency in so many aspects of professional work such as ones as old as accounting to just day to day life.

In conclusion, this chapter was very eye opening with so many of its aspects. Personally, I was most impressed how GST can greatly differ from the individual paying extra for their daily products to companies who have multiple distinct types of GST to start with and must deal with. Overall this chapter has been very helpful and will be a reference point when I start on my following assignments.

 

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Assignment Step 1:

 

Introduction:

Back to the interesting, ever changing study guide from ACCT11059. In that course, I learnt so much about what an accountant is and how far it differed from my original perspective of them. It was not a bunch of nerdy people sitting in a small cubicle with an abacus sliding it along to solve numbers for companies but a vast and extremely fascinating subject with a world of opportunities in which you can take and use the skill. Within this course I will be able to see an even greater view of the world of accounting and expand my knowledge of this amazing profession.

1.1 Keeping records:

At the start of 1.1 ‘Keeping records’ Martin has been very smart and put down four points on how reading this study guide could benefit us. The first point is very generic as it is obviously going to give extra points along the way as it is defined as an assessment piece. But these little assessments are a significant help to the overall assignment, as they may seem to be simple and easy marks but add up to increase your overall mark. It is extremely helpful as it helped me in ACCT11059 to be able to achieve an extremely high credit, being only 5 marks off a distinction. As a first-time university student, I was very pleased with this outcome. Also added in this point is Peerwise, which is one of the most useful tools available in learning for this course. Its strengths lie in its ability to increase your understanding of the readings and give an easy and straightforward way to check your understanding of the concepts of the current work.

With the study guide being permanently available on Moodle the ability to go online and download the guide enabling you to access the study guide at any time without needing the use of the internet, it really helps you move along the course because of its easy accessibility. As Martin mentioned, it is basically like talking to your unit coordinator about the subject we are studying and being able to ask any questions for Martin to answer so you can gain a better understanding of the overall subject which is accounting.

The third point is one I know very well as I am an avid reader although of the fiction type. With all the books I have read over my lifetime, I have been able to learn a multitude of things. From the culture of modern Britain to the rules and regulations of Ancient Greece, all of which I would not have known if I never opened those few pages. This can also be said for this study guide as it opens us to the world of accounting and all the benefits it can give us for our future careers and just life in general.

Finally, the last point, which could be argued to be the most significant of them all. Reading makes you more attractive to the opposite sex which I can believe full heartedly because as an avid reader I really hope it’s true so it can benefit in my future endeavours with women, (professional and social). With the professional side, I can perceive that reading books from a female perspective or just a quality book such as Percy Jackson could easily instigate a conversation which may lead to a more professional conversation which will increase your networking and help you out with further projects you may make. With the social side…well maybe not the place to write about that.

1.2 Two sides of everything and 1.3 Five elements of accounting:

 

With these following two subjects that I read in the study guide I couldn’t think of any key concepts and questions which I did not explore and answer within my last course of ACCT11059 as we went extremely indepth with credits and debits, accounting equation, the five elements of accounting and a multitude of other accounting theories and practises. Although it is always to review concepts, theories and practises of accounting.

After reading the required chapters for the course I felt that I missed learning about this subject from last term. The points Martin made about the benefits of reading the study guide were more useful than expected as it really nailed home the benefits of these assignments and the ability that they can edge you that little more towards your goal, be that a HD, a greater understanding of accounting in general or a greater understanding on how to talk to the opposite sex. From all of this I cannot wait to expand my knowledge of accounting even further to advance my professionalism within the career.

ASS#2 Step 3

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