What are the basic difficulties in accounting?

1. The boss’s treat and the accounting subject

The accounting subject is the first accounting premise or accounting assumption, which stipulates the spatial scope of accounting. In teaching, it is not difficult to make students memorize this concept mechanically, but it is not easy to make them truly understand the meaning of accounting entity assumptions. If you give an example, students can quickly understand the true meaning of accounting entity assumptions.

For example, if students work as accountants in a sole proprietorship of a private enterprise after graduation, one day, suppose that the boss has relatives coming to his house, and the boss invites them to a restaurant for a meal, which costs 1,000 yuan. The boss brings you the invoice and asks you to reimburse it, and also explains the real reason for the meal. At this time, do you think this expense should be reimbursed? Regardless of the identity of the boss, this expense cannot be reimbursed. Why? This is because this expense has nothing to do with the enterprise or its operation and management, which means it does not meet the accounting entity assumptions. therefore. As far as an enterprise is concerned, the real meaning of the accounting entity assumption is that only those businesses that are related to the enterprise or its operation and management are within the scope of the enterprise's accounting.

2. Tangshan Earthquake and Going Concern

The second premise or assumption of accounting is going concern. Why is there a going concern assumption? What is the true meaning of the going concern assumption? Generally, it is difficult for students to understand it just by explaining it in textbooks.

I remember that after the Tangshan earthquake in July 1976, almost all parts of the country were preparing for earthquakes. Because there may be an earthquake. In the earthquake, we don’t know who will die and who will survive. In this way, many people feel that it is very likely that they will not be able to survive in the foreseeable future, and naturally they are not in the mood to work and live normally. Therefore, in order to live a good life in the "remaining" time, I ate all the delicious food at home. I was reluctant to eat meat at ordinary times. During that period, I bought meat almost every day. Some people wake up in the middle of the night and want to eat a meal because an earthquake may happen at any time and they cannot starve to death. What does this mean? This means that if a person can no longer survive in the foreseeable future, he or she will not be able to work and live in a normal way.

The same is true for corporate accounting. If a company cannot continue to operate in the foreseeable future, it cannot use normal accounting methods for accounting. The accounting methods we learn are normal accounting methods that are used under the premise that the company can continue to operate in the foreseeable future. If a company faces bankruptcy or liquidation, it must use abnormal accounting methods. This abnormal accounting method is called "bankruptcy liquidation accounting."

3. Rural blind dates and accounting equations

When learning accounting equations, if the examples of rural blind dates in the past are used to introduce them, students will quickly become interested in and understand them. .

More than 20 years ago, especially before the reform and opening up, the vast majority of rural young people relied on matchmakers to find partners. If the young man and woman are relatively far apart and unfamiliar with each other, both parties should look at the photos first. If the matchmaker is satisfied with the person in the photo and the situation introduced by the matchmaker, especially the man's, is acceptable, the woman's mother will ask the matchmaker to take the mother and daughter to the man's home for a blind date. The purpose of the blind date is first to see what the boy looks like, and secondly to see what the other person's house is like. To a large extent, the success of a blind date depends on whether the house is satisfactory to the woman's mother. If the man has three large tile-roofed houses, and he did not borrow a penny or only borrowed a small amount of foreign debt to build the house, then the house will be considered passed. And if the woman's mother inquires and finds out that the man spent a total of 10,000 yuan to build these three large tile-roofed houses, but borrowed 9,000 yuan in foreign debt, then the "marriage" is over. Maybe the woman's mother has never studied accounting, but in her mind, the accounting equation is very clear. That is, the man’s assets are 10,000 yuan, his liabilities are 9,000 yuan, and the remaining owner’s equity is 1,000 yuan. With such a high asset-liability ratio, how could she marry her precious daughter to him?

In fact, the same is true for companies, but companies have more types of assets and more channels and methods of liabilities. The content of owner's equity is more than one item, but it always conforms to the basic equation of "Assets = Liabilities + Owners' Equity" or "Assets - Liabilities = Owners' Equity".

4. Pharmacy drawers and accounting accounts

In explaining accounting subjects and accounting accounts, pharmacy drawers and their labels can be used to help students understand their functions and relationships.

Anyone who has been to a Chinese medicine dispensary will be deeply impressed by the fact that there are many drawers behind the counter of the Chinese medicine dispensary, and the drawers are all labeled. Why do traditional Chinese medicine pharmacies have so many drawers? They are for classifying medicinal materials. What does the label on the drawer say? What is written on the label is the name of the medicinal materials. If there are no drawers and the medicinal materials are piled up randomly without classification, it will be very troublesome to find the medicinal materials: if there are only drawers with no labels and no medicine names written on them, then you will not know what medicines are in the drawer. The same is true for finding the required medicinal materials. Very troublesome. In accounting, the purpose of setting accounting subjects and accounting accounts is similar to setting up drawers and labels on the drawers in a traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy. Accounting accounts are like drawers, which are used to classify and "display" accounting information. The accounting subjects are like the labels on the drawer, which indicate the name of the accounting information. If there are only accounting subjects but no accounting accounts, it is just like a traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy that only has labels of medicine names but no drawers. Accounting information cannot be classified and "placed"; if there are only accounting accounts but no accounting subjects, it is just like a traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy. Just like a label with only a drawer but no drug name, it is impossible to know what accounting information is "placed" in the accounting account.

5. Wife Beauty and Double-Entry Accounting

For new accounting students, it is not easy to understand double-entry accounting when they start to learn it.

Previously, there was a humorous cartoon published in an accounting magazine. It told the story of a family in daily life. In order to grasp the amount and structure of the family's expenditures, they used the double-entry accounting method to record the family's expenses. daily expenses. Every time an expense occurs, the wife must record it in the family account book. For example, if you buy 20 kilograms of rice and spend 40 yuan, the record is: the cash account decreases by 40 yuan, and the food expenditure increases by 40 yuan; if you buy a women's coat with a credit card and costs 1,000 yuan, the record is: the bank deposit account decreases by 1,000 yuan. , clothing expenditure increased by 40 yuan. One day, my wife spent 150 yuan on cosmetics. Because she had just started accounting, she had not yet set up a corresponding account for the cosmetics. So the wife asked her husband what kind of account should be opened. The husband thought for a while and said, let’s open a "maintenance expense" account!

Use the humorous cartoon above to illustrate the principle and function of double-entry accounting. It enables students to master double-entry accounting very quickly and is very impressive. 6. Retirement Accounting and Bookkeeping Symbols

Before my country’s accounting system reform in 1992, corporate accounting used three double-entry bookkeeping methods: increase and decrease accounting, receipt and payment accounting, and debit and credit accounting. A considerable number of accountants only know one of these accounting methods throughout their lives.

Once, when a retired accountant who only knew how to add and subtract bookkeeping was "discussing" accounting issues with the author, he said that there is nothing difficult about the debit and credit bookkeeping method. Debit means increase. , the lender said it would be reduced, and the author was noncommittal after hearing this. However, this story is often used in teaching by the author. The author tells students that the old accountant was half right and half wrong. He was right about the asset and expense accounts, but wrong about the liabilities, owners' equity, income, and profit accounts. Or rather the opposite.

So, why do debits indicate an increase in assets and expense accounts, while credits indicate an increase in liabilities, owner's equity, income, and profit accounts? That's because assets and expenses (if expenses are in accounting, etc.) If the equation changes to a positive sign, it must be moved to the left) The account is on the left side of the accounting equation, and the debit side is on the left side of the account. The elements on the left side of the account that represent the increase are also the elements on the left side of the accounting equation: liabilities, owners' equity , income, and profit accounts are on the right side of the accounting equation, and the credit is on the right side of the account. The factors that increase on the right side of the account are also the elements on the right side of the accounting equation.

7. Extraordinary Men and Women and Extraordinary Loss

There used to be a TV station with a "Extraordinary Men and Women" column. Some unmarried young men and women could go on a blind date in front of hundreds of millions of TV viewers. If there was no one of the opposite sex, The embarrassment and shame of being attracted to oneself, or being attracted to the other person while the other person is not attracted to oneself, is not something that ordinary people can bear. Thinking of this, we really understand why this program is named "Extraordinary Man and Woman". It is impossible for normal men and women to participate in this program. Only abnormal men and women have the courage to participate in this program.

This example is most appropriate to illustrate the "extraordinary loss" in the "non-operating expenses" in the accounting account. What is "extraordinary loss"? "Extraordinary loss" refers to abnormal loss. The "extraordinary" here definitely does not mean the adverb "very" or "ten" in general, but "abnormal" or "not normal". " means. In accounting, normal losses belong to expenses, and extraordinary losses belong to "non-operating expenses." The true meaning of "extraordinary losses" is losses that may not necessarily occur during the operation and management of an enterprise, and are not necessarily related to the operation and management of the enterprise.

8. Ant Moving and Account Carryover

In the teaching of basic accounting, the carryover between relevant accounts may be one of the biggest difficulties in the process of preparing accounting entries.

Carrying over between accounts is actually like ants moving. To move from their old home to a new home, ants must move their food and "use" from their old home to their new home. The transfer between accounts is to move the amount on the "old account" to the "new account". When carrying forward, first empty the old account so that the balance in the old account is zero, and then move the amount to the new account. The accounting entries for carry forward are made according to this idea: to make the balance of the old account zero, it must be recorded in the opposite direction of the balance of the old account before the carry forward. If the balance is on the debit side, it is transferred from the credit side; The credit side is transferred from the debit side. As for which party the new account will be recorded in, it will be determined according to the rule that if there is a debit, there must be a credit. For example, when carrying forward, the old account will be debited and the new account will be credited; the old account will be debited and the new account will be debited.