I was extremely pleased in August to find out that I had passed my Corporate Reporting exam. Out of the exams I have done to date, I found this to be the hardest subject. Not because it was technically challenging or involved complicated mathematics, but because of the volume of material that needs to be learned. More importantly knowing the information was not sufficient you need to know how to apply it to different situations.
At fundamental level I had taken the UK paper on Financial reporting, needing to know the UK standards because the organisation I work for still uses the UK Accounting standards. I became aware however that many companies/organisation now use the international accounting standards, with more all the time adopting these standards. Even the UK Government from next year will be following the International standards.
The switch from UK to International luckily was not too difficult. Essentially many of the standards are the same or very similar. After all the UK standards are based on the international ones. The standards however have different titles and the numbers do not correspond. I recommend buying a book aimed at students which lists the standards and explains them in simple terms. The books aimed at qualified accountants can be a bit daunting because of the breadth of material they cover therefore a student version is more helpful.
A large part of the course involves preparing group accounts. Unlike the exam at fundamental level, the focus is on deciding how to treat a number of technical issues rather than just preparing financial statements from given information. Certainly in the exam it’s important to work through the question carefully and not spend too long on any part you are unable to do. For example I did not know how to treat one particular area so I just put down my assumptions about how the item had been treated and got on with the rest of the question. On balancing my Statement of Financial Position I was £34 million out! While if I produced a SFP like that at work I would probably shortly be leaving my job, for an exam you just need to move on.
As usual I recommend you practice lots of past papers. It’s a good way to learn the material and frequently it provides deeper knowledge of the subject than text book and classes alone are able to. This is a difficult paper to pass but for many accountants it is the most important subject. Putting in the time and gaining a good knowledge of the standards will be important for your career in accounting.
Thanks a lot >.<"
I really don't know how to tackle my P2 International variant due to the revised IFRS 3.
Posted by: Jack | 07 October 2009 at 03:43