ACCT20002: Intermediate Financial Accounting

20% midsemester exam, 10% tutorial preparation, participation and attendance, 70% final exam

Hmmmm, so

Intermediate Financial Accounting (IFA2), at the time of writing, is probably regarded as the hardest subject in the Accounting major. Coming into the subject, I was definitely nervous because so so so many people say its nigh impossible and in comparison to IFA1, it is just in a whole other galaxy.

Now for background, I didn’t take accounting in VCE and so the only background of debits and credits I had was IFA1 – which I didn’t take too seriously and you can probably find my past score somewhere in my posts. IFA2 prides itself on being a ‘true’ accounting subject in that it focuses almost purely on debits and credits in general journal entries and consolidation worksheets. The first few weeks of the course really mind boggled me because I had entirely forgotten what accounting was and it was a harsh reality check. Noel Boys was our lecturer (and I’ll elaborate on him soon) and he said in the opening lecture that he assumes 100% knowledge of IFA and ARA. This is quite daunting, however the first lecture sort of covers what he means – like he presumes we already know the Conceptual Framework (that ‘assets are resources controlled by blah blah past event blah blah future economic benefits’ and all that), in addition to reporting regulations. However, the lecture covers it all and this is where most students lose marks in the mid semester test. The first lecture is huuuuuuge, and it contains a lot of just plain definitions of things like auditor’s report and all this crap – most people pass it over assuming it’s just sort of catch up from ARA/IFA, make sure you learn it!

So to make this review as readable as possible, I’m going to break it up. I’ll start with lectures. As said above, the first lecture was huge. I’d advise studying it pretty heavily, even in comparison to the weeks after that – most people don’t study it because it’s the first week and it contains admin stuff. IFA2 goes through things like cost versus revaluation model for PPE after acquisition, income taxes and foreign currency transactions & translations. This stuff is actually quite full on and takes a fair bit of study each week to keep up to date. At week 7, however, you are met with a whole new beast; consolidations. This topic spans 3 weeks and forms 30% of the final exam. Everyone I knew said consolidations is really the hardest thing in the subject; but I felt as if it would only be difficult if you fell behind. It really takes your understanding and uses it in a completely different way. Note though, I think consolidations has been made easier than previous years and so it’s not as much of a beast as it was. The lectures themselves are decently long. Noel Boys though, is the best lecturer I’ve had at Uni 100%. He is the funniest person and honestly just a whiz. If you have the choice of deciding between Sem 1 and 2, choose the semester with Boys.

The tutorials have set questions from the textbook as practice. These questions are often much harder than the questions in the tutorial and the exam and they often require you to do things that aren’t required in IFA2. The questions for the tutorial are uploaded on LMS but the numbers aren’t filled out so you can’t do them beforehand – so the only option you have for practice beforehand is to do the textbook. That being said, I did all of them and they do create a solid understanding and coming in to the tutorial you can really grasp what the key points your tutor is saying. I think there’s 5% marks dedicated to that whole participation thing – easy to do, do it. There’s another 5% dedicated to assessable tests on WileyPlus throughout the semester – again, easy enough to do so do it.

The mid-semester test I’d say is by far the hardest part of IFA2. The average in our semester was 48% if I remember correctly. I don’t really have any advice to give, but it really packs in the content. It goes for an hour and has 30 questions (again, if I remember correctly) and really requires you to apply knowledge. I’d suggest reviewing EVERY SINGLE SLIDE and make sure you can understand things.

Finally, the exam. We were provided with 4 practice exams which helped consolidate understanding but don’t really reflect the actual exam itself. The exam is a mix of theory and application which is interesting as there isn’t often much theory throughout the semester – it kind of requires your extrapolation. I don’t think the exam was necessarily that hard but it definitely contained some tricks. As an example, I scored 65% on the mid sem, but ~85% on the final exam. That kind of reflects the difference in difficulty.

Yes

Noel Boys

Yes, 4

4.5 Out of 5

Yeah I'd say get it. It contains all tutorial questions and some of the chapters are actually useful

1 2-hour lecture and 1 1-hour tutorial per week

2016 Semester 2

TBA

1hr mid sem test (20%), tutorial participation (10%), 3hr exam (70%)

Another semester = another accounting subject review by yours truly. And for the first time on Atarnotes, here’s a review for IFA2 yay.

So where oh where do I even begin with IFA2? I would think the lecturer, who is also the subject coordinator, asked herself the exact same question before teaching the subject. There are so many separate topics in the subject but they all focus on every student’s favourite part about accounting: debits and credits, yep that’s right double entry accounting from IFA1 is back with a bang. If you thought IFA1 was hard, or even if you thought it was easy, IFA2 will make you want to pull your hair out.

IFA2 is a subject that proves you don’t get tested much on how well you understand something, but how well you’ve memorised something. Particularly when you get to deferred tax worksheets and consolidations, you can reach the end of the semester and you’ll only know which entries to do because you’ve done it repeatedly so many times, not because you actually know what you’re doing.

The lecturer Jagjit, she does the best she can with a subject that students don’t tend to enjoy. She clearly is passionate about accounting and also has a sense of humour that makes listening to lectures somewhat bearable. Be sure to listen attentively and take notes when she goes through lecture examples, understanding those examples along with tute questions are essential as exam questions will be similar.

IFA2 is generally accepted as the hardest accounting subject at the undergrad level, and while I cannot accurately confirm that since I haven’t taken any third year accounting subjects yet, my tutor did tell us that IFA2 is normally the subject that decides for students whether accounting is for them or not. Hence I would recommend this subject for anyone seriously considering a career in accounting (especially audit), because the ‘boring’ side of accounting and understanding accounting standards is basically this subject.

I don’t want to make this subject seem like a completely terrible subject because it’s not, it’s just a bit exhausting on the brain with all the entries you need to remember, which I guess is why this review hasn’t been as lively as my past reviews... my brain is still sleepy zzz.

Yes, with screen capture

Jagjit Kaur

They posted four with solutions on LMS

3 out of 5

Financial Reporting 1st edition, the ebook is recommended since its way cheaper especially if you buy online from the publisher which is what I did

1 x 2hr lecture and 1 x 1hr tutorial a week

2015, semester 2

TBA