How can you do well in Principles of Accounts (POA)?

In principles of accounts (POA), there are a few methods to learning it. Some methods rely on the massive brain power that one can have. Some methods rely on the hard way of doing things but yield best results. Others involve trickery to achieve some results though not ideal. 

I will be talking about how one can do well in Principles of Accounts (POA) and how one can adopt some techniques to learning it. Some of the techniques I don’t advocate.  

Method 1 – Memorizing formats, styles of questions and keywords (Strongly not advocated)

One of the methods in learning Principles of Accounts (POA) that I had came across is to memorize! Memorize everything! Income statement, balance sheet format? Memorize! Trade Receivable accounts? Memorize! Just squeeze everything in and pour out everything during exam. After all, Principles of Accounts (POA) is all about memorizing.

In any subjects that you are studying in, there will be memorising work to be done. History, Social Studies… anthing. So, same goes with Principles of Accounts (POA), there will be some form of memory work needed. Yet, to solely relying on memorise everthing, unless you have a big form of elephant memory to do it, it would not serve you good. Moreover, Principles of Accounts (POA) is not the only subject that will be tested during exam right? Trying doing memory work for Principles of Accounts (POA) and before you know it, you would had forgotten what other subjects theories are all about. 

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Method 2 – Remember keywords, and style of questions. Identify them and answer it based on past experience on how I did for the questions previously (No no no, Strongly not advocated)

Memorizing Keywords

Some of my students relied on looking for keywords in questions and the style of the questions to ASSUME the answers that the questions is looking for. Doing that will be digging yourself into the grave. 

Past years GCE POA papers had proven to us that keywords used may not always represent the same meaning. For example, “Receipts from credit customers” and “Payments from credit customers”. At first glance, the keywords identified will be receipts and payments. Students will take the first one as receiving money from credit customers while the payments will be considered a payments to some other parties. Wrong. Both are receiving money from customers. Remembering just the keywords will get you wrong some where along the line.

Memorizing style of questions

To remember the style of questions is another common misconception to learning Principles of Accounts (POA). For instance, students are so used to the table format of allowance for impairment loss on Trade Receivable questions that they no longer is able to answer another other same topic of question if given in sentence form. The point is as long as the structure of the form is not the same structure that you had memorize the question to be, you will get lose and not able to answer it. GG

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Method 3 – Understanding the logic and dynamics of Principles of Accounts (POA) 

Of course, this is the method I strongly advocate. 

In any form of subject learning, this is the best method and knowledge based on understanding stays with you for life. 

By understanding how POA works in terms of its double entries, the logic of how the accounts increase or decrease based on the scenarios, you can then tackle any form of questions. 

For example, the logic of expenses and accrued expense. Common misconception is that the more the company paid for expenses, the lower the expenses should be. Wrong! Expenses records how much the company incurred and not how much the company owes. therefore, the more the company pays for expenses, the higher the expense amount will go. 

Through understanding how accounts works, one can then always be ready to take on Principles of Accounts (POA) questions no matter what how the questions is structured or phrased.

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