Choince of the Profession of an Accountant

Why did you pick major in accounting?

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My passion from a long time ago has always been in the business field. When you look around, it is undeniable that the world of business plays a critical role concerning providing goods and services that enhance the quality of life and the sustenance of humanity. For one to succeed in the business world, it is critical that he or she acquires the basic skills to run or manage a business. This is especially more important in todays world where competition has become stiff, and the only businesses that are excelling are those that are well managed and those that are strategically positioned to make the best of the current markets.

This forms one of the reasons why I developed a passion in pursuing a business related course. At the onset of the semester, I made a decision to pursue a major in business administration. From my basic understanding, this was the best course to pursue if anyone plans on engaging in the business field and more specifically participating in the management role. However, another reason why I had settled on business administration was to run away from mathematics and any complex arithmetic calculations. While I have a passion for business, I do not perform exemplary when it comes to maths, and this explains why I had initially opted for a course that I thought had minimal or no arithmetic calculations at all.

During my first lecture, the professor issued us with an insightful speech advising on how the future looks like for those who would stick with business administration. This speech was an eye opener to me as I understood more on what the course entailed. Contrary to my expectations that business administration does not entail maths, I was shocked to learn that this major indeed has many maths classes. However, after finishing the first class with my accounting professor, I had changed my mind and opted to pursue accounting as my major. I went straight to the school administration and immediately changed my major to accounting.

There are some reasons why I opted to change from business administration major to accounting major. First, pursuing accounting provides me with an opportunity to work in the business world in different capacities. By pursuing accounting, I can either be an accountant, a finance officer, a tax accountant, a chief accounting officer, a management accountant, and an auditor among other positions. From this list, it is evident that accounting provides one with many options to select from. Besides, similar to how important other departments within an organization are, the accounting department leads as the most critical functions of an organization. A companys management is only able to make informed decisions regarding the companys operations based on the data presented by its accounting function (Weil, Roman, Katherine and Jennifer 2). This is because accounting entails the recording, analysis and presentation of financial information in a form that can enhance and inform decision making. Through its accounting department, an organization can develop budgets, control costs, evaluate pricing strategies, calculate tax liabilities, and determine its profitability among other critical aspects of the organization.

While the outcome of taking this class requires that I get grade B as a minimum or risk being kicked out of school, I have struggled with the class this semester. Nevertheless, I have learned not to give up on this course and plan to take up taxation with my current professor when I come back in summer.

What topic stood out to you and how it will help you in the future?

From the accounting class this semester, there are some topics that stood out for me and which I believe will have an immense impact in the future. Some of these topics include accounting for partnership, current liability, payroll and shareholders equity.

Accounting for partnerships stood out as an interesting topic as this taught us how bookkeeping is mainly done as well as how the profits and losses are shared among partners. Partnerships are common forms of business ownerships where two or more individuals join hands to do business. In this form of business, the partnerships contribute either equal or different share of capital and share profits and losses at a predetermined ratio. From this topic, I got the chance to learn how the accounting for such a form of business ownership is done especially with regards to preparation of financial statements, partners current accounts as well as the accounting entries in the case of exit or admission of a new partner. I believe this topic will be of immense help in the future if I get a chance to handle the accounting work of a partnership.

Another topic that stood out for me in this class was accounting for shareholders equity. This is mainly related to companies that sell out their share capital in the form of common stock or preference stock to the shareholders. From this topic, I came to learn of how shareholders equity is accounted for ranging from the issuance of common stock, buying of treasury stock, calculating earnings per share, ordinary and preferential dividends among others. This topic will thus be of importance in the future when handling any accounting work for a corporation.

The next topic related to accounting for current liabilities. Current liabilities refers to those obligations that an organization is expected to settle within a span of less than one year. While it is important that the organization keeps a record of its assets, it is also important that records of the organizations liabilities are also kept. From this topic, I learned of how to record current liabilities on the ledger by crediting an increase and debiting a decrease in the current liabilities. Accounting for current liabilities is important as this helps an organization to evaluate the level of debt that the company has as well in comparison to the current assets. With this knowledge, I believe I am better equipped to record current liabilities in the future as well as determine the liquidity of an organization.

The last topic that I found fascinating was the preparation of payroll. For any organization that has employees, payroll preparation is critical as this helps in determining the salary payable to the employees as well as all the relevant statutory and non-statutory deductions. The preparation of a payroll is also critical as this facilitates the generation of the employees payslips. With the knowledge and understanding of what a payroll is and how it is prepared, I believe this will be instrumental in the future when I get the chance to prepare an actual payroll of a given company.

Work cited

Weil, Roman L., Katherine Schipper, and Jennifer Francis. Financial accounting: an introduction to concepts, methods and uses. Cengage Learning, 2013.