Accounting Course Reflection Paper

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The accounting course has been an influence, an exposure, and enrichment in both my personal and professional life. It has helped me understand concepts that I previously looked at in awe with the perception that only accountants could understand. The course has also helped me to overcome the fear of technical accounting concepts and working in the real world of business. Previously, I had taken other courses with accounting concepts, and therefore I was familiar with some of the concepts. In retrospect, I did not really understand their meaning or appreciate their potentials. As a real estate agent involved in buying and selling foreclosed homes, I realized my weakness in aspects of accounting and by enrolling in this class, my aim was to sharpen my knowledge. This course did not disappoint, as I gained considerable knowledge in various aspects some of which I consider most important in my professional and personal life; balance sheet, cost allocation, and critical success factors.

As a summary, a balance sheet shows the company’s assets, liabilities and equality of the shareholders at a specified point of time. From my previous courses, it made sense that a balance sheet was just a statement with two sides balanced out. This is true, but after acquiring the accounting concepts, my view on the balance sheet totally changed. I now know that, a balance sheet is an almanac showing the financial position of the business prepared on an annual basis then compared with the previous year. In particular, I came to a realization that, the real estate values in the balance are listed as marked price rather than historical costs which was unclear before this course. I have always known a balance sheet but I did not realize its wealth of information; this I have learnt through this course. From this, I can establish the financial position of my business at any given time. I would say a balance sheet as an asset, has enriched my life professionally and personally.

As I sit back and reflect on the cost allocation, it reminds of the time I had to seek clarification from classmate on the definition of cost allocation. Before then, I though that cost allocation meant just assigning costs but after a course in accounting this changed. What I got from this was that, cost allocation is an activity that determines the cost of an activity normally divided into two; the resource and activity driver. The resource driver allocate for the quantity of resources contribution associated with the activity cost while the activity driver is associated with the costs incurred in the completion of a specific task or project. For the success of my business, I can now easily incorporate these concepts especially when determining the cost of a project or an activity.

For the most part, the critical success factors have greatly enriched my life at a personal level. Through the critical success factors, I will say I realized to be successful in life in both my personal and societal endeavors. One critical success factor I have always observed is time management. Time is a key factor in day to day life. In such a delicate business, the client has to trust the agent. There is no way the client can trust an agent if the agent lacks discipline and accountability in time management. This commitment has helped me stay focused. Accounting course came through to cement the existing factors whilst instilling new critical success factors which in most part entailed honesty and transparency. With this new blend, I can now foresee the prospect of my business.

With the knowledge, I feel more confident and rejuvenated to take my business to the next level. Understanding critical factors will enable me concentrate in improving important areas and therefore beat competition, understanding the balance sheet will show where my business stand at any given time and cost allocation concepts will come in when determining the cost of activities and foreclosed homes project. I have come to believe that, prior knowledge for accounting is very important in relation to any business venture, be it small or huge. The most significant aspect to accounting is probably that accounting is part of the inner heart of any business. I presume that this was a good experience and my critical thinking skills came in handy.

Elizabeth King Freelance writer at Assignment Writing Service. Music fanatic. Evil thinker. Twitter fanatic. Bacon lover. Avid internet nerd. Hipster-friendly travel geek.