Hi

I hope things are going well. And I trust you are settling into our unit this term.

For people who studied ACCT11059 Accounting, Learning & Online Communication last term, you should find the adjustment to ACCT11081 Introductory Financial Accounting to be relatively smooth.

Also, quite a few people in our unit will not have studied ACCT11059 Accounting, Learning & Online Communication last term. You will find you will need to make a few adjustments. You will need to set up your blog (and your personal profile on Moodle). How to do this is set out in the Assignment on page 1. And you can see my tips on writing KCQs (Key Concepts and Questions), which might be a help for your ASS Step 1. Also, here are my answers to a few Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). I will add to this list of FAQs as we progress through the term.

For those who studied ACCT11059 last term, you can used your existing blog in our unit this term. And you should be reasonably familar with the way the unit is designed and delivered.

This we week, we had our unit’s first interactive lecture at Wed 9.00am – 10.30am. You can also view the video of the lecture, which will be posted in Moodle (Echo 360) by noon each Wednesday.

In our lecture, we reviewed some key concepts we had previously studied: proprietorship concept; accrual accounting; and the extended fundamental accounting equation. We then reviewed and further developed our definition of the five key elements of accounting: assets, liabilities, equity, revenue and expenses.

One of the things we discovered is that the five elements of accounting defined in the Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting are assets, liablities, equity, income and expenses. So income, not revenue, is defined in the Conceptual Framework as one of the five elements. We saw in the lecture that Income is defined as:

‘increases in economic benefits during the accounting period in the form of inflows or enhancements of assets or decreases of liabilities that result in increases in equity, other than those relating to contributions from equity participants.’

And this is very similar to our definition of Revenue we used in ACCT11059:

‘additions to equity as a result of increases to assets or reductions in liabilities of a firm (other than those relating to transactions between a firm and its equity owners)’.

We also saw that Revenue is defined in accounting standard AASB 118 Revenue as:

‘the gross inflow of economic benefits during the period arising in the course of the ordinary activities of an entity when those inflows result in increases in equity other than increases in relation to contributions from equity participants.’

So we saw Revenue is more tightly defined (compared to Income) to only include inflow of economic benefits arising in the ordinary course of the activities of our firms; whereas income can also include all increases in economic benefits, including those arising not in the course of the firm’s ordinary activities.

Also, you will see that Revenue is defined as the gross inflow of economic benefits; so we cannot net any expenses against revenue. However, there is no such limitation for income; so, if they wish, firms can show net gains that are not in the course of its ordinary activities.

We also reviewed our Moodle site and the assessments for our unit.

And we saw that our first piece of assessment is ASS Step 1 that is due by 11.00am Saturday 15 July.

If you wish, you can Zoom into the interactive lectures; this way you can participate in the classes live, wherever you are in Australia. Also, you can Zoom into three tutorials: Mackay (Maria) – Wed 10.30am-12noon; Rockhampton (Martin) – 2.00pm-3.30pm; and Cairns (Karen) – Thurs 6.30pm-8.00pm. Starting in Week 2, we will also record the Mackay tutorial (with Maria) and it will be available in Echo 360 in Moodle each week.

Unfortunately, we had a few technical difficulties with using Zoom in the tutorials this week; but we expect the Zoom tutorials will be working fine from next week.

We have about 150 students in our unit this term; with about one-third being distance students. Of the 100 students studying with us at one of our ten locations this term, about 50 came to class this week.

Here are people in our class in Sydney this week (Peter Zhang is the tutor):

And at Bundaberg (John McGrath is the tutor):

And at Rockhampton (where I am the tutor):

For those at Cairns, your class is on Thursday evening.

So much of our learning is moving online now, as we prefer to study in a way that is flexible and personal, and fits in with the rest of our lives. We are happy to support your learning in whatever way we can; and, in particular, to support you to interact with others from across Australia in our unit, as you learn with and from each other.

There was an interesting article from a lecturer at a university who found he had no students attend his unit’s class in the first week this term. We are happy for you to attend class as you wish; and to support you online with your learning about the (possibly) exciting world of accounting.

Regards

Martin

13 July