A truly successful accountant in the business world has certain characteristics. The accountant who has all the characteristics listed below is rare, but most truly successful accountants have many, if not most, of these characteristics.

In terms of Expertise:
Technical Aspects: Knows accounting principles, accounting standards as well as taxation related to the location.
Management Aspects: Knows the principles and techniques of business management and administration. Ability to provide tactical information to increase efficiency and productivity.
Language: Speaks well and writes well. Spells accurately and has good grammar. This is essentially needed for financial reports.

Personal Characteristics
Dress: Dresses for success, wearing conservative, formal clothing. Polished shoes.
Personal image: Well groomed, clean. Moderate length or short hair, clean fingernails.
Integrity: An accountant sells two things: time and integrity. Has high personal standards of honesty and lives by the organization's high standards. Personal life is consistent with working life's standards.
Confidence: Has self-confidence but is not overbearing. Relaxed.
Service orientation: Always looking to serve others and help solve their problems.
Office/workspace: Neat, organized, inviting. Comfortable.
Personal hygiene: No smell, no bad breath. Good posture. Moderate, pleasant voice. No loud or expansive gestures. Looks healthy and full of energy. Is not sleepy or bored on the job.
Attitude: Positive. Willing to work. Excited to solve problems.
Pleasant personality: Gets along with everyone, including difficult personalities.

Disciplined Resource Management
Money: Not extravagant with company funds or personal funds. Personal finances are in order to create trust.
Time: Uses time effectively and efficiently. This is absolutely essential. Accountants sell their time; expertise and knowledge help, but there must be time to use it. Those who are not good time managers will not be successful accountants.

Etiquette
Sends thank-you notes.
Introduces people.
Uses common courtesy at all times.
Punctual; does not make others wait. Shows time management.
Knows when to stand up in respect of others. Be assertive.
Able to manage meetings and end them gracefully on time.
Attends to details; merticulous.

I may not have all the attributes but I am working on it. In terms of expertise, I am not there yet and I would work hard towards it and this is the area I would on through my ACCA course and hopefully in a temporary job that I could do during my vacation or something.

Labels: accountancy, accountant in business, accounting, business accounting, career, grooming, management accountancy, managerial accounting

Morale

Morale is a term primarily used from a military context, to denote the state of mind or spirit of group, particularly regarding discipline and confidence. It can also be related to satifasfaction, since low morale implies a state of dissatisfaction.

How do we look for signs of low morales? Here are some indications:
1. Low productivity maybe a sign of low morale but this may be due to other problems which hold a higher weightage.
2. High labour turnover may also be aign but do take into the account of the age structure of the workforce and other actors in natural wastage. Low turnover does not also neccsarily mean high morale; they may stay due to lack of other job opportunities in the job market.

There are many theories behind morale and two such theories are Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Herzberg's two-factor theory.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow's hierarchy of needs depicts a pyramid which shows physiological needs as the bottom role followed by safety followed by social followed by ego and then self actualisation. At any one moment, one need is dominant and remains dominant until satisfied. Once satisfied, it is no longer a motivator and will then be replaced by a higher order need not yet satisfied. Every individual needs are different and a manager needs to identify subordinate's needs and provide the means to satisfy this needs. Take for an example a prostitute especially one that comes from a very poor family: Her main hierarchy of needs according to Maslow's would be to satisfy her physiological needs, to get her own shelter, food and earn money. No woman would wanted to sell their body unless that woman is insane. In order for the woman to sell them is when they are desperate for moeny and could not obtain it in any other ways and therefore, they sell tehir body.
However, there are criticisms to this theory. It is not the complete answer to motivate employees and satisfaction of needs are not the only factor, others like group allegiance, attitudes towards managers may exert stronger motivation. Some people may have very low aspirations, hence no motivation and hierachy of needs may not be applicable to creative people like musicians and artists.

Herzberg's two factor theory
Ferderick Herzberg revealed two distinct sets of factors: those who created satisfaction known as motivator factors and those who create dissatisfaction known as hygiene or maintenance factors. Herzberg also highlighted two basic needs of individuals:
1. The need to avoid unpleasantness. Hygiene factors satisfy this need.
2. The need for personal growth and fulfillment. Motivator factors satisfy this need.

Althought Herberg's model is simple and accesible, it has been critised on a number of grounds.
1. Empirical verifictaion and measuremtn of the claim that motivator factors increase productivity have been hard to find.
2. The research findings are context specific.
3. The original study was based on an inadequately small sample size to draw conclusion.

Hope that you would find this article useful.
More on Accounting in Business.
More on Management Accounting.

Labels: accountancy, accountant in business, accounting, business accounting

It was an insightful day yesterday as I attended my F1 course on motivation and performance. In time to come, if I entered into the corporate world or assume any leadership role, this lesson could be the most useful lesson I ever attended. Therefore, I decided to share with you some of the things I learned during this lesson.

Many would ask: Why motivate people? Have we not pay them enough? A recent survey conducted and published on a local newspaper had suggested that Singaporeans are not motivated by pay to work. They seeked opportunities and personal development and assume more managerial roles. This is what motivates Singaporeans. Singaporeans are no longer contented with a fat pay check, they wanted more. How we give them? This is why this lesson is important to me.

A well trained, experienced but unmotivated individual is unlikely to be committed to his job, doing only the bare minimum. Likewise, a young and enthusiastic trainee may learn very fast and produce a return on the organisation's investment quickly initially but would lose steam or leave the organisation if he felt unmotivated. I also had an experience with my present organisation whereby everyone wanted to leave because they felt unmotivated. Everyone is only looking forward for their next pay check and they would just do the bare minimum leaving those who are motivated their left over work. Soon, the motivated ones became unmotivated and do just the bare minimum and this became a deadly cycle. Although, every now and then, the organisation would have fresh trainees and recruits, they would have a high labour turnover which is not healthily at all. Therefore, it is in the manager's best interests to have a good motivation throughout a company, from sales office to the production line. With motivation, your staff will definitely be more productive and committed, making fewer mistakes and convey a more positive and enthusiastic air to customers.

There are three keys areas for using motivation as a tool to get work done. They are:
1. Giving employees freedom to achieve an objective. (NOT MY PRESENT ORGANISATION) Let them learn and grow from their job experiences. Guide them in the right direction but do not interfere in the way they are doing or carry out the tasks. I love my previous superiors. They allowed me to do what I wanted to do like studying for my ACCA, sleeping if I am tired or anything as long as I completed the jobs they needed me to do. They also would like interfere with the way I do things but most importantly if I did a mistake, they would guide me instead of scolding or treating me like shit like my current organisation did.
2. Recognition and genuine appreciation for good work done. (DEFINITELY NOT MY PRESENT ORGANISATION) Many companies took for granted that employees getting a good job done is a right as they paid them to do so. What companies do not see is that employees took overtime, skip lunches or breaks just to do a report for their bosses. If the bosses do not appreciate that, the employee may think why should I skip lunch or breaks and do overtime and instead may just do the bare minimum which is happening to all companies, including mine. My previous superior would buy somethings like cookies or anything and he would just gave it to us, making us feel appreciated and definitely, we would not screwed up. I would do just the bare minimum in my current organisation because I do not feel appreciated. From day one, I got this feeling that we are crap and they wanted to kick us to a curb. Definitely not good for my heart so I started to ignore a lot of things and not to care so much, unlike my previous organisation which I loved to help.
3. Good interpersonal relations. (CONFIRM PLUS GUARANTEE WITH WARANTEE NOT MY PRESENT ORGANISATION) From day one, I did not had a good relationships which anyone in the current organisation. I started not to care and I hated each and everyone of them. I still do though although I was just good at conceding them.

This is why up till now, I still hate my organisation. Back to the topic....

Understanding Motivation
Motivation is ' a decision making process through which the individual chooses the desired outcomes and sets in motion the behaviour appropriate to aquire them. This is a definition by Huczynski and Buchenan. In pratice motivation are used in many different contexts. Here are some:
1. Desirable goals and outcomes. (money, power or friendship)
2. The mental process of choosing desired outcomes, deciding how to go to them and setting in motion the required behaviours. This is like internet marketing, you choose your niche areas and your techniques (Search Engine Optimazation, social networking) to increase traffic and you kept doing it.
3. The social process by which other people motivate us to behave in the ways they wish. Motivation in the sense usually applies to the attempts of organisations to get workers to put in more effort.

Motivation is about getting the extra level of commitment and performance from employees, over and above mere compliance with rules and procedures. If individuals are motivated, by one means or another, they might work more efficiently or produce a better quality of work.

More on Accounting in Business.
More on Management Accounting.

Labels: accountancy, accountant in business, accounting, business accounting, career, management accountancy, managerial accounting

Despite writing articles about what I am learning, I realise I had never write the clear introduction about the course I am studying for.

Why ACCA?
Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, better known as ACCA, is the global body for professional accountants. ACCA is the largest and fastest-growing global professional accountancy body with 115,000 members and 296,000 students and affiliates – up over 40% in the last five years. Every eight minutes, somewhere in the world, someone registers to study with ACCA. Besides in the coporate world, if you want to sent accounting documents, financial reports and taxes declaration reports, you would need either an accounting degree in NUS or NTU(not SIM, maybe SMU) or an ACCA certificate to certified that you can be a fully qualified accountant to practise accounting. People who do partial accounting (accounting and finance), finance and business would not be able to sign documents or submit reports related to submit to the government. One of my friends had a degree (masters) in finance and although she held a managerial position and had many years of experience in accounting, she was not able to sign documents and submit reports to the government in her name. Her pay was also shorted as compared to someone similar to her but with an ACCA qualification since she was not able to do the following task. Therefore, for people who wanted a career in finance whether banking or investment, I suggested that you take accounting because it would be really useful to you and please, do not take accounting and something else because it is not a full degree in accounting unless the course states that it is a double degree.

The Registration Part.
There are three ways that you can sign up for the course. Firstly, depending on your training centres, you can sign up at the training centres itself. For my school, FTMS global, you can just sign up at the counter by filling your application form and producing the necessary education documents. The second and most common one is to go to Aljunied and visit ICPAS office at the SAA training centre area. Similarly, you filled in the form and produce relevant documents and they would do the rest. This is the most common approach since ICPAS will directly do your application and submit it to ACCA where else other training centres may also do that but they may also pass it to ICPAS to do the registration for them which may delay the process part of your application. Lastly, you may also register online at http://accaglobal.com/ but do be mindful that you would now have to submit your related education documents yourselves and ACCA would not be responsible if your relevant documents does not go to them which is a hassle as you would have to submit your relevant education documents again and again if they do not receive them. This would delay your registration process. ( I still had not get my ACCA student membership.)

The Requirements
Firstly, you would need to be at least of an age of 18.
Secondly, you need to have a qualification of at least 5 'O' levels or 2 'A' levels with a minimum pass in your English at 'O' level or a degree.
Thirdly, another to qualify for the ACCA is by enrolling in CAT course which takes at least 2 years to complete which I find to be a little time consuming.
Fourthly, have a lot of patience as the process takes a lot of time. I had been waiting for my membership since January and had not received my membership yet.

Thoughts and Feelings
I had no background in accounting at all. In the beginning, it was really tough for me. I could not comprehend what accounting is all about but I learned. Whatever course you are in, you must be an active learner. Be really proactive in your learning. I emailed questions to my lecturers if I had doubts on certain topics. I rasied questions during lecture if I do not know what to do. I listend to podcasts of people from the accounting world. I talked to people in this trade. I lived, breathed and sleeped with accounting. What sparked off as an interest had evolved into a passion and I began to appreciate the accounting standards that I had learned. There is so much thing needed to be learned in accounting and sometimes, you would be caught in a situation whereby you would be overloaded with information. Most of the times, I would just taped my lecturer's lessons and listened to them again and again so that I had a better understanding of the topic. I had also decided that should I orded, I would either take more modules or started to learn the accounting trade by working in an accounting firm.

Labels: accountancy, accounting

It is sometimes really hard to know what the person is thinking. Besides, I have the tendency to making a conclusion from the first impression, therefore, I tend to give other people a chance or a benefit of a doubt. Start my bitching: I had communications issues with this one particular guy. From the beginning of the day, he had been rubbing me the wrong way. Firstly when I went to the room, he was like why are you, why can't you just help to do some stuff? Why can't you take your initiative. The tone sucks and he was practically yelling. Is it my fault that I did not help him? Am I obliged to help him in the first place? I would have help him if he did not yell at me like that. I was like ok, fine, I just do it. The next thing, we went back to the room. I told him, I had to go somewhere to do our stuff. He was like no and no and no. He was yelling and I was like: ok, he said need to ask the person-in-charge and I was ok, I ask the person-in-charge but you no need to yell and make a big fuss over it. So I went to tell the person-in-charge and he was fine and that settled everything. I did not what the hell is wrong with him? He seemed to be upset over almost everything. My sergant and I agreed that he acted like he is the big boss down here. Fine, I went up to do my stuff. Then, I had a call which I thought was him but it was not. He asked me where I was. Me, being the bitchy one, would say why should I tell you? I said that and hang up. I already had issues with him when I told him where I was before, he gave me that stupid tone that why should I know? Go and tell your your superior la. After that when I came back, he shouted, yelled at me and I apologised. My Sergeant wanted to step in but guess what happened. He yelled back, ' Excuse me Sergeant....' I was pissed. I literally wanted to punch his face. If it is Yong Xiang, he would have shouted back and created the lastest whoohaa. ( I should have done that because I am the bitchiest one) Immediately, I retorted and said to him, 'why you treated him this way, if you have issues with me, you settle with me, not treat him this way.' My superior came in and he yelled back and go and eat your lunch. My Sergeant was pissed. He told me that if it is outside, he would have yelled back and scolded the person. I felt very bad because there he was trying to help me settle issues with that stupid person but he was being attacked just like Yong Xiang and Sergant Sim incident. I completely if not suppressed myself and asked him. At first, he was avoiding the issues with me. I had to dig and dig and dig until he finally opened up to the underlying issues with me. I mean if he had issues with me, he could have told me and not be so unhappy about it. Am I that unapproachable? Maybe because I am too bitchy, that's why! I told him about the previous incident what happened regarding Stanley but what the hell, I was over and done with that person. He was like linking the past to the present. I was like I am doing my job and if you want me to do something, I would have done it. RIGHT?????? But come to think about it, I really can suppress myself from being too crazy and of course bitchy. He said that other people feels that I am mean to him. I asked him do you think I am mean to you? he said no, because he thought we are friends. I asked him again do you think I am mean to you? He said no again. I asked him the final time. He said yes. (FINALLY!) I hated him from not being honest with me. He cared about how other people feel about me treating him vs me treating others? HUH?!?!?! I treated everyone the same and I did how I feel and bitched if I am angry. I can be very mean (BITCHY!) if I am angry and that's me what. However, at the end of the day, I would not be angry over a thing very long and then I would be nice t you all over again. I would say hi and bye to him. You asked for mutual respect. Have I not give you that? I did not yell at you like you did to me. I did what I was told. Isn't that called mutual respect?? Even if you yelled at me for asking too much questions, have I even said anything. Iwas like ok about it but right then, I did not see the things eye to eye. He was crazy. Anyway, I did told him that he must be honest with me. I did not knwo what went through his head. He obviously cared about how people feel about him. He was really very sensitive and I thought he maybe in the end trapped in the office politics forever which was meaningless to me. I hated it and I always dismiss them as rubbish. Anyway, from now on, I would try my best not to hurt this sensitive new age, egotistic guy from the ancient world. Anyway, I managed to hug my dearest friend from my previous organisation and I am happy about it! SHOUTOUTS TO THEM!!! Those are the people that I cared about deeply and always would. They asked me about my new organisation and my course. I told them the lastest things and happenings and I also told them I still do not like my organisation. It was like they did care about me more than the people that I recently worked with. I think that even the incik forget that I got night classes at all but my dearest ex s ir still asked me if I was coping well with my course and asked me if there is anyway he could help. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH MYCURRENT ORGANISATION?? Still hated the place. Whoohooo! End of BITCHING!

I am tired, really tired. You can see that I am still up at 1am blogging. Anyway, here is my summary for today's lecture.

1. Why a need for regulation?
- separation of ownership and management
- limited liability status
- economic power
2. Objectives for General Purpose Financial Statements (GPFS)
- financial position
- performance
- cash flow position
3. Components of financial statements
- Balance Sheet
- Income Statement
- Statement if changes in Equity
- Cashflow statements
- notes to account
4. Format for IAS1.
Revenue XX
Cost of Sales (XX)
Gross Profit XX
Other Income XX
Distribution Expense (XX)
Admin Expense (XX)
Finance Cost (XX)
Profit before tax XX
tax (XX)
Net Profit XX
5. Finance Cost are basically interest payables.

That's all for now!!!

Labels: accountancy, accountant in business, accounting, business accounting, financial accountancy, financial accounting

You do not know what really happen. My website does not work anymore.... I am about to give up on my fashion store very soon because it does not work like how I wanted it to word. I deleted everything in my file manager but when you visit my website, there is still some content to it. I was so frustrated and mad over it and I felt that I needed a breather and got out of the e buiness for ahiwle because it is not going to work anymore. That's all for now! I still pay like $200 dollars for the web hosting that is really bad. One, it may have a lot of functions and many spaces but you may not neccssary need them. Second, you may end up getting frustarted if you are not internet savy enough. Third, I am just not ready to do stuff like this. Haizzzzz. Get back to my studying !!!

In my previous post, I did mentioned about the three main issues to team building: team identity, solidarity and commitment. Today, I shall blog on solidarity and commitment. Solidarity in laymen terms is called cohesion and loyalty. Without cohesion and loyalty, the team could not exercise synergy meaning working together to give a bigger output as compared to the total output should the people working separately. The lack of solidarity also means that people will not be as heavily involved and committed to their work. Therefore, it is essential that the team leader should seek revenues to build up team solidarity through the following steps:
1. Expressing solidarity.
2. Encouraging interpersonal relationships although the purpose is to ensure work gets done.
3. Dealing with conflict through open discussions.
4. Controlling competition to prevent bianess.
5. Encouraging some competition.

Most often, getting people to be fully committed in their work is the most difficult process. It involves a range of leaders activity (setting clear objectives, allowing active participation, giving feedback, formal and informal communication , offering positive reinforcement and the championing the success of the team.) that are either very time consuming or difficult to implement. In the case of giving feedback could sometimes hurt someone so emotionally that even a grown up man could cry for hours before bucking up and move on. If the team leader do not communicate well with the team workers, it may lead to unwanted office politics, suspicions or even speculations of lay offs. Therefore, it is crucial of the team leader to step up and carry out the range of leaders activity. (setting clear objectives, allowing active participation, giving feedback, formal and informal communication , offering positive reinforcement and the championing the success of the team.)

However, being too cohesive can be a problem. This may run the risk of group think which result in making irresponsible decisions and conflict with other groups in the organisations. Group think is a dangerous problem because the group may be too complacent and deter constructive changes to their teams which is detrimental. A team should always constantly seek outside idea and feedback, welcome self-criticism and disagreement to improve themselves which can then benefit others. One of the classic example is Mas Selamat incident whereby the 'guards' are too complacent about his job and this result into many recalls, activations of ops team and many OTs to find Mas Selamat. Such actions are irresponsible and should be severely dealt with. Because of this, several man power, resources were wasted and still, Mas Selamat is still at large which is dangerous to Singapore's security.

There should also be quantitative and qualitative assessment on team effectiveness and introduction of rewards to the effective teams. This could be done through profit sharing, gainsharing schemes and employee share option.

I was really tired today. I drooled on my bus trip to the train station (saliva dripping on my pants). I also had many occassions of weakening knees during my train trips to night classes because I was really tired and dozed off while doing nothing. I still do not like my organisation and I still have the perspectives of the organisation from the very first impression.

Labels: accountancy, accountant in business, accounting, business accounting

This is my take on sales variance.
Sales Variance = Price Variance + Volume Variance
Price Variance = (Actual Margin * Actual Units) - (Standard Margin * Standard Units)
Actual Margin = Actual Selling Price - Standard Full Cost (Absorption Costing)
Standard Margin = Standard Selling Price - Standard Full Cost (Absorption Costing)

For Marginal Costing:
Actual Margin = Actual Selling Price - Total Variable Cost
Standard Margin = Standard Selling Price - Total Variable Cost

Operating Statement
Budget Profit -
Add/Less:
Sales Margin Variance
Price-
Volume-
Profit before Cost Variances-
Add/Less:
Cost Variances-
EG. Material Variance-
Labour Variance-
Actual Profit-

There are only two difference between Absorption Costing and Marginal Costing Variance Analysis.
1. Sales Volume Variance: AC use normal costing but MC use contribution margin.
2. Marginal Costing only report fixed overheads as expenditure variance.

Labels: accountancy, accounting, management accountancy, managerial accounting, standard costing

I swear to god that I will kill myself! The website that I have done up for my fashion online store is gone....... everysingle thing is gone....... not even the information about anything..........i was really upset and I had build a traffic of over 60 of people worth of traffic,....... It is really upseting..... I had to start from scratch and do my stuff all over again........HAIZZZ!!!

I really wanted to change the template of the blog but I could not. I started doing it since 5pm and until now, it only get worse....... I think I will have to settle for the status quo for now. I had not been studying this week so, I may have to play the catch up game as soon as possible so that I could get my grades for my ACCA course. I do not want to fail in something just because I do not put in time and effort in it. Although, right now, time is really precious and time is so limited in one day. I wish it was 30 hour instead. I could sleep for 8 hours and then carry on studying for 10 hours even. To make up for lost time, I take some drastic measures. It might be ridiculous to some of you here.

1. I recorded my lecturer's lesson using my mp3 player.
2. I listened to them during the time of travel.
3. I intended to listen to them secretly during my working time, maybe during my lunch time.
4. I downloaded a few podcast related to accounting such as frauds and all that.
5. I intended to wake up one hour early to revise my ACCA course.
6. I intended to think only about ACCA during my work and not about the girls that I met.
7. I intended not to speak to anyone that will affect me negatively and tried to get out of the conversation so that they can affect themselves negatively. (you know who you are!)
8. I intended not to let any conversation to affect me on the way I'm studying. (Some may think I am crazy which is quite true).
9. I intended to do all my homework and revision by next, next week and find time to let me study.
10. I intended not to care about the work in my workplace and just think about my accounting.

My friend's relative just passed away (Kee Boon) so I decided to send condolences and regards to him although he seemed to be happy about it. Maybe because he get two days of leave. Maybe I am wrong that he was putting a brave front. My Sergeant said that I had a habit of taking people based on my first impression. Yes, this is true, really true and I started to give myself to give people a benefit of the doubt so that I might find them in a different light but this did not change what I viewed my workplace as it is in the first place. I totally hated the place still and thank you for the incidents that happened to me to support my case~! I shall not said anything lest someone back stabbed me (which they always do!).

Standard Costing is a technique which predetermined estimates of the cost of products and services which compares with the actual cost incurred. It is a planned or budgeted cost expressed on a per unit basis.

The purpose of Standard Costing is as follows:
1. Act as a control device through variance accounting to highlight the deviations from plans so that necessary actions can be taken.
2. Motivates employees to achieve the standard targets.
3. It may be used for valuing ending stocks and cost of goods sold.
4. Standard cost could be used in development of budgets.
5. Standard cost is predicted future cost, which can be used to support decision making. (ie. price decision)

Next......
Variance Analysis
This involves the comparison between the standard and actual.

The purpose of Variance Analysis is:
1. Used for control purposes.
2. Useful only is acted upon on a timely basis.
3. Variance identified must meet needs of management.

Now, we look at the different types of variances:

Direct Material Variance
DM Variance = D M Price Variance + D M Usage Variance
The DM variances indicate whether the material used have been bought at the right price of whether the correct amounts have been used.

Direct Labour Variance
DL Total Variance = Rate Variance + Idle Time + Efficiency Variance
The DL variances indicate the quality of the workers used, whether they are fully optimised or they are doing the job correctly.

Overhead Variances
OH Variances = Variable OH Variances + Fixed OH Variances

Variable OH V = Expenditure OH V + Efficiency OH V
Expenditure Variance simply means under/ over absorbed variable OH
Efficiency Variance is a measure of additional variable overhead saving cost saved or incurred as a result of the efficiency of the labour force.

Fixed O H Varience
F. OH V = Expenditure Variance + Volume Variance
Expenditure Variance = Actual F. OH - Budgeted F. OH
Volume Variance = Budgeted F. OH = (Fixed Overhead Absorption rate * Standard Hours Allowed)
Expediture Variance simply mean whether the services are economical and saving in cost will be incurred or not.

Labels: accountancy, accounting, management accountancy, managerial accounting, standard costing

It was such a tiring, long day. I sat for a total of about 6 hours worth of lecture on management accounting. I learned a lot from the lecture but it was not very easy to concentrate on the lessons and I almost fell asleep midway through the lecture.

Anyway...

Fixed Budget is mainly used in the planning stage to define the broad objectives of management. Flexible budget, on the other hand is prepared for the volume of activity actually achieved, in other words the controlling stage. The reason why we had flexible budget is because for most of the time, the level of activities differ and as a result, the fixed budget differs by a lot from the actual result. For instance, in an event when the actual production doubled as compared to fixed budget, the variable cost for the production also doubled and the difference between the variable cost differed by a lot. When the fixed budget is brought to the higher management to compare with the actual results, the management will ask why the budget and actual differ by so much, making an assumption that the total actual production should be the same as budgeted production and held someone liable for it which would be the production manager since he is in charge of the production. This is not fair to the production manager, hence, we should introduce flexible budget during the controlling stage.

Next....

Steps in the preparation of the flexible budgets:

1. Analyse all the cost into fixed and variable category
2. Break up semi-variable cost into fixed & variable cost if necessary using high-low method.
3. Flexible the variable cost and do not flex the fixed cost.
4. Prepare the Flexible Budget also known as Performance Statement.

Labels: accountancy, accounting, budget, management accountancy, managerial accounting

In accounting, there will bound to be errors and many errors.
In this topic, the lecturer classified errors into two different parts- One that affects the trial balance and one that does not.
The one that does not affect the trial balance is further classified into seven different categories:
1. Errors of Omission (complete omissions): ie. Cash sales for $100 is completely omitted.
2. Errors of Commision: correct amount is involved but in the wrong person account. (ie. K. Green Vs G. Green (confusion in personal a/c)
3. Errors of Principle: confusion bwteen revenue and captial expenditure. (ie. repairs to motor van a/c was put into motor van a/c)
4. Compensating Errors: erros which cancel out each other. ie sales and purchase overcast by $200.
5. Errors of original entry: Original figure was in correct but double entry is observed.
6. Complete reversal: ie. 200 paid to Williams (supplier) which Cr William, Dr Bank.
7. Transposition Error: Wrong sequence of individual chracters which a number was entered. (ie. 142 ->124, 89-> 98)

The other errors will not balance trial balance. They are classified into three categories:
1. In correct additions in any one a/c. (overcast/ under cast)
2. Making an entry on only one side of the a/c meaning one entry or a single entry has taken place.
3. Entering a different amount on debit than the credit. These means keying the a different figure for either debit or credit.

Errors which will not balance trial balance can by corrected using journal entries. Otherwise, a suspense account can be opened which is later cleared by a journal entry.
A suspense account can also be used not only to correct some errors, it can also be opened when an entry does not known where to post the amount. When the mystery is solved, the account will then be close and the correct amount will be posted using a journal entry.
A point to note that suspense account are only temporary accounts. They should not exist when it comes to drawing up a finance statements at the end of the accounting period.

However, based on the ACCA lecture book, they classfied both errors that affect and not affect the trial balance into five different categories:

1. Errors of transposition: Wrong sequence of individual chracters which a number was entered. (ie. 142 ->124, 89-> 98)
2. Errors of Omission: failing to record a transaction at all, or making a debit or credit entry but not the corresponding double entry.
3. Errors of principle: making an double entry in the belief that the transaction is correctly entered but subsequently found out that the entry breaks the 'rules' of accounting principle or concept.
4. Errors of Commission: bookkeeper makes a mistake in carrying out his or her task of recording transactions in the accounts.
5. Compensating Errors are errors which are coincidentally, equal and opposite to one another.

Notice that there is a distinction between the meanings of each errors as stated between the textbook and my lecturer's lessons. There is no hard or fast rules in defining the errors but the concept of correction of errors remain the same and the accounting principle still applied. However, a point ot note is that the distinctions between the meaning of errors as stated between the textbook and my lecturer's lessons will mean different sets of accounting applications. The texbook did not differentiate between the errors that affect and not affect the trial balance, therefore, you need to distinguish that before you introduce a journal entry or a suspense account followed by a journal entry.

Labels: accountancy, accounting, financial accountancy, financial accounting

Team

A team has joint objectives and accountability. It is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach which they hold mutually accountable.

Team working

They are used for organising work, controlling activities, generating ideas, decision making and pooling of knowledge. However, they may not be suitable for all jobs and people may not come together as a team to meet the objectives and purpose. They can also delay decision making and might be at the expense of other aspects of performance. They restrict creativity due to norms, group think and there might be personality clashes and political infighting which I think my current workplace is good at. To elaborate on personality clashes and political infighting, it means that people want to rebut or refute you just because of the fact that they do not like you. Take my example like in the previous post, I was targeted because they did not like me at all or because we just came down here not knowing a lot of things. I was also targeted for new jobs because of me being the most junior.

Group think- Irving Jams
A group can be so dynamic and strong to the point where they became blinkered to outside information and feedback and its decision making processes are dangerously distorted. My lecturer illustrated about a political party in Singapore (you know who) that is so dynamic and strong that they do not listen to the voice of the citizens. He quoted that a political party said to point whereby if you want to have a view on policy making, you should join the politics. This phenomenon is known as group think and it could be deadly dangerous. What if the whole political party is made out of elitist which was so strong and dynamic, the policies would cater to the elitist, leaving those poor, hungry to suffer and fend for themselves. Group think is dangerous as it would resist criticisms, contradiction and new information. It also pressure the member to toe the line, instill a sense of invulnerability and tendency to stereotype all outsiders as competitors and enemies.

Multi-disciplinary teams contain people from different departments but a multi-skilled team contain people with more than one skill. Multi-disciplinary teams increase worker's awareness of their overall objectives and targets, aid co-ordination and help to generate solutions to problems. Multi-skilled team on the other hand introduces flexibility to the skills available and in time when one person is down, the other person can take over. This is what my working organisation is trying to do, creating a multi-skilled team from different disciplinaries so that we can be maximised fully, learning every one's trade. By the time I learned finished their trade, I would have ORDed and said goodbye to them. What I learned from my previous course will be relearned and what I do not learn, I have to learn now. So by the time I orded, I would have learned and do like............. My point is this, if you want to form a multi-skilled team, you should have started a course that is multi-skilled, not pooling people from multi disciplinary teams. I think that my organisation failed to understand the difference between multi-disciplinary and multi-skilled and leads to lots and lots of unnecessary confusion.

Virtual Teams
Virtual teams and teams that are not physically there but they do information sharing through Information and Communications Technology.

Team Roles: R Meredith Belbin.
Belbin's theory insisted that a distinction needs to be made between a team (process) role(interaction) and a functional role(technical skills and knowledge). Both are as important. According to his theory, the steps in team building must be firstly, articulating the purpose followed by selecting team membership and lastly, deciding the 'style'. There are nine types of styles: plant, resource investigator (me), co-ordinator, shaper, monitor, evaluator (me), team worker (me), implementer, completer and specialist. However, they are not fixed and can occupy different roles. It should also be recognised that individuals will be naturally incline towards some roles than others, individuals adopt one or two team roles more consistently and might be more successful in certain roles.

Belbin's complementary roles
Team roles Vs Functional role.
Assessment:
Who is playing which role and analyse the frequency and type of individual members' contributions to group discussions and interactions.

Neil Rackham and Terry Morgan
Neil Rackham and Terry Morgan introduce types of contributions. Positive contributions include proposing, building, supporting, seeking information(my ex boss of superiors), giving information and disagreeing. Negative contributions include attacking, defending(my work place's seniors), blocking(my workplace) or difficulty stating, open behaviour and shutting out(my workplace). Essential positive contributions include bring in behavior (my workplace), testing understanding(my ex boss of superiors)(my workplace) and summarising. I remember a time during the NE week whereby we are given a show to watch and I contribute that about the culture. Maybe I did not state and explain properly and further but I felt I was being attacked by the other people because every single one of them in my team used that opportunity to said that that is not a good idea. At that point, I wanted to argue back but being rank conscious, I decided not to rebut and not to say anything anymore. I felt that my point was really invalid. I still remember myself saying promoting Singapore's culture and they were like I do not think you thought it through enough and they were like how can you promote a culture where by there is maid abuse and that regulars become insurance sellers and such a sad story. In the end, what I meant was not that kind of Singapore's culture but rather our dialect, our religion and so on. It was something that really shocked me and I understood the part of attacking and shutting out ideas.

Development of the team:
Step 1: Forming- guarding and suspicions
Step 2: Storming- Begin contributions
Step 3: Norming- ie. Punctuality
Step 4: Performing

Other Stages: Dorming and Mourning/adjourning (ME!!!!)

I do not really like the part about norming because for me, I would not compromise to situations and I had a story behind it. The norms and the vibes that my current working place give me had been negative so far. Sometimes, I do feel that I was being attacked by them because of the way they speak and sometimes, I feel that they treat me like shit and wanted to kick me around. They are like constantly shouting and yelling like lunatics. They just literally attacked a person without giving a thought whether the words they said hurt people's feelings. As much as it is easy to work with me, it is also very difficult to pull me out because if I did not feel like I belong here, I would not give a very positive attitude towards work. That's how I feel. I would be very crude, blunt and obnoxious.

Anyway back to the topic:
Team Building will have three main issues: team identity, team solidarity and shared objectives.
Team Identity will include name, badge and uniform, self image mythology and a separate space.
Team solidarity: Expressing loyalty, encouraging relationships, dealing with conflict, controlling competition and encouraging it.

Labels: accountancy, accountant in business, accounting, business accounting

Today was pretty much on the same topic as last week but in comparison to last week's topic, this week's was much more focused. Basically, the lecturer continued with the role theory: role ambiguity, role incompatibility, role signs and role models. Role ambiguity and incompatibility were very similar in their elements; they were all talking about superior being good friends with their employees. They were different in their concept. Role ambiguity talked about employees do not know their limits and incompatibility talked about the restraints when the employer want to carry out punishments with their 'good friends'. The next part of the lecture talked about groups at work. The attributes of a group will comprise of three elements: a sense of identity, loyalty and acceptance and the purpose and leadership. He also covers the reasons and the trend with groups which include preference for small networks, the ned to belong, familiarity, common rank, attractiveness of an activity, resources offered to groups, power, formal directives and informal groups such as cliques. He went on to talk about huamn behavior being different in groups, offering synergy as being positive and negative. The next thing would be the individual contributions vs group contributions. After that, he went on with the key components of griup process which include stages of group development, role differentiation, communication and interaction, task and maintenance and decision making.

Labels: accountancy, accountant in business, accounting, business accounting

Today, I went into the lecture pretty exhausted as I was walking really fast so that I could get to the lecture on time. The lecturer talked about the Break Even Chart which is Revenue Vs Units graph. the line that passes through the origin is known as the total revenue line and the other line is the total cost line. The two lines intersect at the break even point and the break even revenue respectively. The region above the break even point is the profitable region and the region blow the break even point is called the region of loss. the total cost line will cut at the y intercept. The value is the fixed cost. Next, he talked about the profit and volume chart which he elaborate on based on the chart, where to find the total CM , the profit and the fixed cost. The line is also called the CM line which gradient gives the CM per unit.

The rest of the evening, he talked about the budget. The budget is to plan and control. Plan is set up of target and control is to ensure that targets are achieved.
He went on to talked about the benefits of budgeting:
- Forces the organistaion to plan and improve coordination in the organisation.
- Provides a framework for Respoinsibility Accounting (CENTRES)
- Improves communication
- Improves control
- Improves motivation & promotes goal congruence
- Integration of Budgets makes better cash and working capital management.

Budget Period:
short: 1 year
long: 5 years

Goal congruence is when organisational, departmental and individual objectives made to coincide.

He went on to talk about the steps in budgeting and empahasizes on the preparation of functional and master budgets.

Sales budget -> Production Budget -> (D.M, D.L, OH Budget) -> Admin Budget -> (from here on is master budget but not master budget process!) Cash Budget -> Forecast, P & L and B.S Budget.

Labels: accountancy, accounting, budget, management accountancy, managerial accounting

Today, I went to search for audio products that were free for download with regards to accounting but to my disappointment, there were none. There are so many e books on accounting and guides and worksheet that really helps me to overcome some questions and problems but there are none whereby I can listen to, learning new knowledge and stuff thatc an aid me to become to a good accountant.... nevermind, shall try my luck and I might post some links so that you guys can save the hassle in finding them........... I always have a 'no touch' policy. If you do not touch me, I would not touch you. I mean if the superiors were mad, they should not use anything to hit you even if they are only papers but today, an uneventful thing happened that shocked me. ( The superior is a nice person by the way) It did not happen to me by the way. I would not said what happened but to me, as much as you were angry with anyone, you should not have even touch the person. I would be mad if anyone would to use anything to touch me or even laid a finger of me. I would take it as a personal attack. As much as you are angry, you can yell at a person or punish him but you should not laid a finger on him. That is my take on punishments but I guessed being in a whole new environment had new set of rules I guessed. I just hoped that I would not undergo the trauma anymore.....

Labels: accountancy, accounting

You have no idea what happen just now. My sis upon eating chocolates flared up. I didn't know she, like me had really bad skin allergies problems. I think she is allergic to chocolates or something related to it. Her face became really red and she became all bruises and swollen all over her body. Her face was filled with measles like spots. When I saw her, I literally went out of my mind. She needed a doctor quick and my dad actually rushed her to the nearest clinic but it was opened so they had to collect other documents which I helped too and they rushed off to somewhere where my sis's conditions can be diagnosed and remedied. She scared the hell out of me! She even said that she could see spots in her eyes. Wished her well on her recovery and next time, DON'T eat so much chocolates! They were not back here and it started to really worry me....... I hoped she would be alright.........

1. Define Inventories as per IAS 2.
- Inventories must be valued at the lower of cost and NRV.

2. Make a ledger accounting for Inventories
- Closing Inventories: Dr Inventory a/c, Cr Trading a/c
- Opening Inventories: Dr Trading a/c, Cr Inventory a/c

3. Define Cost and NRV as applied to inventory.
- Cost: purchase (import duties, trade discounts) + cost of conversion (DL + DM + production OH) + other costs (inwards cost)
- NRV: Amount fall below cost due to damaged, obsolete or cost of completion increased to make a sale. SP - cost to completion - cost to make a sale.

4. Determine Cost of Sales.
- When inventories are sold,
a. The carrying amount is recognised as an expense in the period in which related revenue is recognised.
b. The amount of any write-down of inventories to NRV and all losses of inventories are recognised as an expense in the period the write downs or loss occurs.
c. The amount of any reversal write-down of inventories, arising from an increase in NRV, is recognised as a reduction in the amount of inventories recognised as an expense in the period in which reversal occurs.

5. Define fixed and variable production overheads
- Fixed production overheads are indirect cost of production that remain relatively constant regardless if the volume of production (ie. factory management and administration)
- Variable production overheads are indirect cost of production that vary directly or indirectly with the volume of production (ie. indrect materials and labour)

6. Distinguish between perpetual and periodic inventory.
- Perpetual inventory system updates inventory accounts after each purchase or sale.
- Periodic inventory system records inventory purchase or sale in "Purchases" account.

Labels: accountancy, accounting, financial accountancy, financial accounting

Today, the lecturer is a little fast and I was literally fed with information after information with no time to reflect or evaluate. Hence, for many sub topics, it was not focused. Never mind about that, here is the summary of the lecture.

1.Definition of a limited liability company.
- shareholders enjoy a limited liability.

2. Types: Private or Public Limited.

3. Key factors of companies:
- separate legal entity
- separation of ownership & management
- limited liability
- formality

4. Companies Finance
Equity
- Ordinary Shares
- Preference Shares (non equity)
- Differed Shares
Debt
- Debenture (Bonds)

5. Issue Price
par value (nominal -> share capital) + share premium = issue price

6. market price of a share = price earning ratio * earnings per share

7. Financial Statements (internal and external uses)

8. Dividends in terms of cash and bonus (script issues)

9. Rights Shares: Shares sold to existing shareholders at a price cheaper than market price of a share.

10. Bonuses Shares: Shares given to existing shareholders by using reserves.

11. Reserves:
- revenue reserve (from profit)
- capital reserve (gain) (ie. share premium)

12. Types of Share Capital
- authorised: maximum capital a company can raise
- issued: portion of authorised that has been sold to investors.
- called in: amount already collected.
- paid in share capital: money already collected or paid by shareholders.

I am still not so sure about the IAS 2 so I probably have to revise on that.

Labels: accountancy, accountant in business, accounting, business accounting, financial accountancy, financial accounting

Today, I learned about contingencies and events after Balance Sheet, this is the summary:

IAS 10: Events after B.S Date

1. The events are events that occur after the B.S date but will affect the financial statement that has already been authorised for issue.

2. Types of events that is taken into account under IAS 10 are adjusting events (debtor closing down a business) and non adjusting events (fire, flood)

3. Dividends: Proposed dividends should not be recognised as a liability but shown as a not to F.S.. Notice that I stated proposed meaning that it has not been confirmed.

4. Disclosure must include:
a. nature of event
b. estimate of the financial effect or a statement that such an estimate cannot be made.

IAS 37: Provisions & Contingencies

1. A provision is a liability of uncertain timing or amount.

2. A liability is an obligation of entity to transfer economic benefits as a result of past transactions or past events.

3. Contingent Liability: A possible obligation that arises from past events and whose existence will be confirmed only by occurence or non-occurence of one or more uncertain future events not wholly within the entity's control. (example: pending legal suit)

4. Contingent Asset

5. Virtually certain (more than 95%): C.L- provision, C.A-recognise
Probable (50% to 95%): C.L- provision, C.A- Note
Possible (5% to 50%): C.L- Note, C.A- No disclosure
Remote (less than 5%): C.L-No disclosure, C.A- No disclosure

6. Disclosure by Nature:
- nature of contingency
- uncertain factors
- estimate of finacial effect or statement that it cannot be estimated

Double Entry for Provision will be to Cr Provision a/c as it is a contra assest account.

Labels: accountancy, accounting, financial accountancy, financial accounting

Personality is the way of thinking, feeling and behaving with relations to the environment.

Personality develops from self-image and personality development.

Personality traits are impluses and personality types reflect the psychological preferences of the individual.

Myers Briggs Type Inventory

-Provide a shared language
-Aid to understand areas of difference
-Encourage to appreciate diversity

Managing Personality
Compatibility with the task, the systems and management culture of organisation and other personalities in the team.

When dealing with incompatibilities, we can restore compatibility, achieve a compromise, remove the incompatible personality.

Perception
The context
The nature of the stimuli
Internal factors
Fear or Trauma

Managing Perception
-Consider whether you might be misinterpreting the situation.
-Consider whether others might be misinterpreting the situation or interpreting it differently from you.
-When tackling a task or a problem get the people involved to define the situation as they see it.
-Be aware of the most common clashes of perception at work: Manager and Staff, Work culture, race, sex and religion beliefs.

Attitudes
Knowledge, beliefs or disbeliefs, perceptions
Feelings and desires
Volition, will or intention to perform an action

Attitudes to work and at work.

Intelligence: analytic, spatial, practical, inter-personal

EQ

Role Theory
People behave in any situation according to other people's expectation of how they should behave in that situation.

Role Theory
Role Set
Role Ambiguity
Role Incompatibility

That's all!! Life sucks even more today. I experienced my first ever official office politics in army. I overheard Stanley conversation with Ah Pa. Stanley told Ah Pa, 'why you do the work? Dump everything to the newbies(us but we are not newbies) la!' To me, this is like bullying and I hate him! BITCH!!!!! I literally blew off my mind. I wanted to kill him right now seriously. I cursed that he would meet the worst boss ever when he went for his first job and that he would be cursed with a weak health and poor marriage, his wife left him and a job that will make him lose his limbs and *#$%!@*&%^% . If you saw this, Stanley, please remember that I will always hate you and if I become your boss, I will make hell for you!!! This is how I feel as for now. Life will get worse here, I knew it from the first day.
However, I am glad that I only have ten months to my ORD! Could not stand this kind of stupid nonsenses!

In today's lesson, I learned about:

Ashridge Management College Model

Tells/ Autocratic: manager makes all decision and employees must obey without questions

Sells/ Persuasive: manager still makes the decision, employees have to be motivated to accept them in order to carry out properly.

Consults: manager confers with subordinates and takes their views into account but had the final say.

Joins: Leader and followers make the decisions on the basis of consensus.

Blake and Mouton's Managerial Grid

X axis: Job Concern

Y axis: People Concern

Limitations:

- Assumption that 9.9 is the most desirable but may not be applicable to some mangerial contexts.

- Oversimplification.

- Organisational context and culture, technology and other 'givens'.

- It may not be useable in pratice by managers.

- It does not consider all the variables that contribute to operation of effective leadership.

a. Manager's personality (inflexibility)
b. Demands of task, technology, organisation culture and manager's constrain
c. Consistency

Huczynski and Buchanan
Contingency Approach

Gillen (leadership) suggests using more than one style.

FE Fiedler found out that people become leaders partly because of their attributs and situation.

Psychologically Distant Managers (PDMs)

Psychologically Close Managers (PCMs)

John Adair Action-Centred Leadership
Planning, Evaluating, Briefing, Motivating, Setting an Example, Controlling and Organising.

Bennis differentiate between management and leadership. Manager administers and maintains while the leader innovates, focuses on people and inspires trust, holding a long term view.

Heifetz Dispersed Leadership distingushes between exercise of 'leadership' and exercise of 'authority'.

Labels: accountancy, accountant in business, accounting, business accounting

Labels: accountancy, accounting, management accountancy, managerial accounting

(a) Define environmental forces in terms of political, legal, economic, social and technological factors.

The environment is everything that surrounds an organisation, physically and socially. They can be examined in two ways- global/local and general/task (macro/micro). Macro environment covers all factors influencing the organisations indirectly. Micro includes areas that have a direct impact on the organisation.

The environment is a source of uncertainty and can be assessed in two axes: simplicity/complexity , stability/dynamism. Checklist: simple and stable- low uncertainty complex and stable- low to moderate uncertainty simple and unstable- moderate to high uncertainty complex and unstable- high uncertainty

(b) Explain how the political system and government policy affect the organisation.

Government policy influences the economic environment, the framework of laws, industry structure and certain operational issues. This is through capital expansion, demand, divestment and rationalisation, emerging industries, entry barriers and competition.

Political environment affects the firm through legal framework, taking a particular stance on an issue of direct relevance to the business and it overall conduct to the business.

Legal environments factors includes contract, agency, tort, criminal law, company law, employment law, health and safety, data protection, marketing and sales, environment laws, tax laws.

(c) Describe the sources of legal authority, including supra-national bodies, national and regional government.

European Union and World Trade Organisation.

(d) Employment Protection.

All forms of termination of employment must be treated with great care. Retirement- ban ageism in recruitment.

Resignation- exit interniew and period of notice.

Dismissal- entitlement of a written statement of reasons for dismissal.

Wrongful Dismissal - breaches the contract of employment.

Unfair Dismissal - legal impediment or other reason like employees married to a competitor is approved. Others like unfair selection for redundancy, membership and involvement in trade union, pregnancy, insisting on documented payslips and employment particulars, carrying out certain activities in connection with health and safety at work are automatically unfair dismissal.

Incompetence or misconduct.

Disciplinary procedures Redundancy- employer has ceased to carry on the business or the employee ceased to carry out work of a particular kind. However, compensation is legal entitlement.

Equal Opportunities.

(e) How the law promotes and protects health and safety in workplace.

An employer has legal obligations under UK and EU law.

Health and Safety at Work Act 1975.

An employee who is injured as a result of either the employer's failure to take reasonable care or a breach of statotory duty can sue.

Accidents resulting in death, major injury or more than three days off work for the victim must be notified to the Health and Safety Executive.

(f) Identify the principles of data protection and security.

1. Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and in particular shall not be process unless:
a. At least one of the conditions in 2 is met.
b. In case of sensitive personal data, at least one of the conditions in 3 is also met.

2. Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful pruposes, and shall not be futher processed in any manner incompatible with the purpose of those purposes.

3. Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose or purposes for which they are processed.

4. Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.

5. Personal data processed for any purpose(s) shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose(s).

6. Personal data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects under this Act.

7. Appropriate teachnical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data.

8. Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level or protection for the rights and freedom of subjects in relation to the processing of personal data.

Labels: accountancy, accountant in business, accounting, business accounting

(a) Define environmental forces in terms of political, legal, economic, social and technological factors.

The environment is everything that surrounds an organisation, physically and socially. They can be examined in two ways- global/local and general/task (macro/micro). Macro environment covers all factors influencing the organisations indirectly. Micro includes areas that have a direct impact on the organisation.
The environment is a source of uncertainty and can be assessed in two axes: simplicity/complexity , stability/dynamism.

Checklist:
simple and stable- low uncertainty
complex and stable- low to moderate uncertainty
simple and unstable- moderate to high uncertainty
complex and unstable- high uncertainty

(b) Explain how the political system and government policy affect the organisation.

Government policy influences the economic environment, the framework of laws, industry structure and certain operational issues. This is through capital expansion, demand, divestment and rationalisation, emerging industries, entry barriers and competition.

Political environment affects the firm through legal framework, taking a particular stance on an issue of direct relevance to the business and it overall conduct to the business.

Legal environments factors includes contract, agency, tort, criminal law, company law, employment law, health and safety, data protection, marketing and sales, environment laws, tax laws.

(c) Describe the sources of legal authority, including supra-national bodies, national and regional government.

European Union and World Trade Organisation.

(d) Employment Protection.

All forms of termination of employment must be treated with great care.

Retirement- ban ageism in recruitment.

Resignation- exit interniew and period of notice.

Dismissal- entitlement of a written statement of reasons for dismissal.

Wrongful Dismissal - breaches the contract of employment.

Unfair Dismissal - legal impediment or other reason like employees married to a competitor is approved. Others like unfair selection for redundancy, membership and involvement in trade union, pregnancy, insisting on documented payslips and employment particulars, carrying out certain activities in connection with health and safety at work are automatically unfair dismissal.

Incompetence or misconduct.

Disciplinary procedures

Redundancy- employer has ceased to carry on the business or the employee ceased to carry out work of a particular kind. However, compensation is legal entitlement.

Equal Opportunities.

(e) How the law promotes and protects health and safety in workplace.

An employer has legal obligations under UK and EU law.
Health and Safety at Work Act 1975.

An employee who is injured as a result of either the employer's failure to take reasonable care or a breach of statotory duty can sue.

Accidents resulting in death, major injury or more than three days off work for the victim must be notified to the Health and Safety Executive.

(f) Identify the principles of data protection and security.

1. Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and in particular shall not be process unless:

a. At least one of the conditions in 2 is met.
b. In case of sensitive personal data, at least one of the conditions in 3 is also met.

2. Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful pruposes, and shall not be futher processed in any manner incompatible with the purpose of those purposes.

3. Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose or purposes for which they are processed.

4. Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.

5. Personal data processed for any purpose(s) shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose(s).

6. Personal data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects under this Act.

7. Appropriate teachnical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data.

8. Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level or protection for the rights and freedom of subjects in relation to the processing of personal data.

A nice cool picture from flickr.com . I had not been studying at all. The inner me said that I should do it later and today, I just said I don't want to study. I am tired and I need to rest from study. I decided not to study. I needed to find time to study, like sneaking in my textbook during break times or anything like that. The lecture notes from my lecturer are great but they are not exactly what I needed to learn. I think that the ACCA textbook are essential and I am able to learn better from it than with my lecturer's notes. Anyway, for those of you who do not know about my e-commersite it is http://fashionforadam.com . The website sells jewellery boxes, necklaces, shirts and caps. Visit it if you have the time and if you like it, purchase them. You can also feedback to me about anything and I will try to improve the website the most humanly possible way. Thanks!

A lot of interesting things happened today. I came to know that my F1 lecturer was a former major in Tengah Airbase. We chatted for awhile, getting to know him better. He was a major at one time and BRG general Gary Ang was a junior officer then. He decided not to puruse his air force career and went outside to help out his friend in the law firm. However, time was not right at that moment when the property prices slumped and his friend's firm deals with mainly contracts related to it. Therefore, he went on to teach and had been teaching since then. He is a nice guy and he would help whenever his students requested anything. By the way, did I mention he has a daughter that study in UK? Another bizaree thing happened. One of my classmates confessed that he is a transexual. He has an identity crisis but the strange thing is he is attracted to girls. He want to be a girl and he is attracted to girls. He want to do an operation that remove his masculinity and has already take female hormones pills. I am worried for him. From my perspectives, I think he is confused. I think that he thinks that I am inside a woman's body because he does not appear to be masculine. BIG MISTAKE! I think he is just confused by what is going on in his life and when depression sets in, that is where the confusion gets deeper and deeper. I am not a fan of transexual because I believe that a person should be comfortable with his own body and his own identity. Nevertheless, I maybe wrong regarding the confusion part and applaud him for his courage by coming out of his closet and be comfortable about his own 'identity'. I know that for him, it will not be an easy ride and he will have many reprecussions along the way. Nevertheless, I support him and on his decision in being someone that he thinks he is. I just hoped that he will clear his messed up life and get it all together.

With regards to anyone who want to know about my army life, I am currently at a different place from my workplace. I honestly could not adapt to it. It is different from my previous workplace and there is a lot of confusion and conflicts between everyone. I feel like I did not belong there at all. I know it is a change that I need to adapt to, a change that will make me a better person, a change that will help me to communicate to others but it is a bit hard. As for my night classes, it was still okie just that I need to do lots and lots of revision. My target is to finish half of my f1 and f3 book by this week. It is possible just that I need to concentrate really hard. My attention span is kind of draining and I hardly have a good night sleep every single day due to my night classes and my e-commerce site. However, I know it is for a great cause and for a good reason that I am doing it and hopefully life will get better. My current incik isn't very supportive of my night classes and it is hard if you have people who aren't that supportive of you. I missed my previous superiors dearly because they have been supportive of me and stand by me all this while in my night classes. I also missed some of my friends who I care deeply for, that I laughed to, talked to and hugged with. I missed the familiar places that I belong to and the presence of people that are used to be around me except maybe for two person. I know it will turn out this way when we are been transferred here and there and I know that night lessons will be tiring and taxing on me. However, I know it was for my future and my career and my business. I know that accountancy will aid and help me in my further venture in business so definitely, I will not stop there. Part of the other reason is that I am already in my fourth month now. Hopefully, life will turn around and become better for me!

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Alvin Ang
20 SAA'08 NTU'09

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▪ passed F4 and F8
▪ passed F5, F6, F7 and F9
▪ enter Big four
▪ attained ACCA

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