What Accountancy Students Must Know

If you are not in an accountancy job or have an accountancy qualification you probably don’t know much about the accountancy profession. However if you are a student interested in gaining an insight into this profession, this article will give you the introduction to accountancy.

Accountancy is one of the oldest established professions. Employer’s world over look for accountancy qualifications for a huge range of jobs, so career prospects are excellent. Yes you heard me right! Just check your daily tabloid; you would agree with me that there are many graduate jobs in accountancy almost on daily basis. I would proudly say that there is probably no better entry to high paying jobs in business than spending a few years in a school of accountancy.

Accountancy is one of the most flexible professions I know. You can study accountancy at any age in your career and still make it to the top and you do not necessarily need a strong academic background to get accountancy qualification.

You can study accountancy flexibly at almost every level of your accountancy profession. So whether you take a career break or work full time you can still continue studying and complete your accountancy qualification.

The changing roles of accountants and the misinformation and lack of accurate information about what accounting is and what accountants do contribute to the inaccurate and often negative perceptions people have of accountancy and accountants. You should bear in mind that there are different specialism in accountancy there are different areas of accountancy and professional bodies. My simple advice is to first decide which area of accountancy you wish to go for at an early stage.

Research through the following professional bodies websites and find out what they do, look carefully at their syllabus, their entry requirements, membership and examination fees. This will help you decide where your own career interests can be served.

Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (ICAI) established accountancy body and voice of accountancy profession in Ireland.

Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) provides insight to the global accountancy and finance profession.

Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) is another global body for professional accountants.

Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) is a professional body of management accountants.

The Chartered Institute of public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) is a leading accountancy body for the public services.

The Association of International Accountants (AIA) An international accountancy and accountancy examining body in the UK

Lately, most international students became certified accountants rather than chartered accountants, the reason is simple the body that administers the certified qualification, the association of chartered certified accountants ACCA, is the biggest professional body operating internationally with examination centers in 140 countries. This coverage makes the ACCA qualification very accessible to international students but the situation slowly changing.

Here are the three things you must do correctly before you choose the right accountancy program.

1.       Think about the sort of accountant you want to be.

2.       Consider the various routes to qualification. You can do a degree in accounting and finance that would give you exemptions from some parts of the professional examinations.

3.       Look thoroughly through the materials on the professional accountancy bodies websites.

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Top Secret of Total Asset Management Control

The world over, very few asset managers are more concerned with proper asset management practices or finding the right asset management tools to track fixed assets for the purposes of financial accounting. 

In any given business or organization only two asset management extremes can be attained, and these are proper asset management practices and poor asset management practices.  But like a hunter, you have to learn how to hunt and never leave it to probability in order to make a good kill.

Asset management, broadly defined, refers to any system whereby things that are of value to an entity or group are monitored and maintained. 

Yet, many entities fail to realize the factor that is critical to proper fixed asset management in any business. “the practice of managing the whole life cycle of assets”

May this article help you understand the disadvantage of using a spreadsheet for asset control? Indeed, the very fact that you are reading this article suggests that you want to get off your spreadsheets or out of an out dated asset management software to make your life of fixed asset accounting enjoyable.

Firstly, spreadsheets lack audit trials and asset history tracking, secondly, your spreadsheet has no robust reporting unless you are a genius in spreadsheet manipulation.

Thirdly, you can not attach any other information on your fixed assets and most importantly, is the failure to integrate with other fixed asset solutions such as handheld computers.

Asset management software is the fastest way to manage fixed assets. Asset management software intergrates best asset tracking practices. Today, fixed asset managers in leading organizations depend on asset software to track everything from laptops and computer equipment to furniture and vehicles.

Online Education in Zambia- Courses ,Colleges and Universities

Nowadays, to get access to education, you don’t have to spend several years in college and million of Kwachas on tuition fees. ALISON provides free online learning to users in Zambia. It is usually worrying and sometimes interesting to listen to the counts of desperate situations of “failures” in accounting field.

It would appear like there is a just cause to fail to pursue accounting courses.
There are normally “good” reasons or justifications for not pursuing any accounting course just like there are very good reasons to pursue any other course.

A person who was freezing or feeling very cold throughout the night would blame the bad weather for the cold, little will there be blame on not having enough blanket cover for the very long night.

In case of student’s failure to pursue accounting courses, blame is likely to be pushed on lack of universities offering online accounting courses in their area, difficult subjects such as auditing, cost accounting included in accounting courses

Rarely will there be blame on lack of self commitment to studies, interest in accounting and lack of good course study materials.

Accounting is a vibrant and rapidly expanding field. Many students now pursue accounting courses online in colleges and universities. There are many open universities such as The Zambian Open University (ZAOU) located in the suburb of Villa Elizabetha offering online courses that allow students to learn during their spare time and at their own pace.The benefits of studying by distance learning in Zambia are many and varied. The opportunity to work alongside studies, the flexibility to fit studies around other activities and more.

Generally, accounting courses give students an understanding of the real world of business and help develop analytical and problem solving skills required to manage business operations.

If you are looking to start a career in business, accounting is the right field for you. There are many free online courses for non accountants. Taking this online accounting course will help you begin to develop knowledge and skills necessary to become a successful accountant.

Software Accounting Advice.Com Privacy Policy

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Solve Complex Asset Tracking Problems Using Simple Tools

Prosperity Agencies understands the need to achieve accurate Tracking of Assets. The primary purpose of physical inventory in asset management is

 "To establish a current, accurate baseline of existing capital assets, accurate insurance payments, depreciation schedules, tax, compliance reporting and a host of other financial considerations.”

In order to provide legal compliance, safety assurance and the effective management of fixed assets, every business must know “What assets they currently have, where those assets are located and how those assets are changing over time.”

The company celebrates the fact that its asset tracking services using RFID label tags and associated asset tracking technologies will serve Zambian Businesses millions of dollars a year and play a very critical role in addressing these asset management requirements.

Just look at the transport sector, with the cost of tyres exceeding millions of Kwachas, large fleets of buses and trucks in Zambia spend many millions of dollars on tyres alone. To most consumers, one tyre is virtually indistinguishable from another, save for the manufacturers name on the side wall as a result; expensive tyres easily get stolen or replaced with old ones when the vehicle is on a trip or even within the parking yard.

Inventory tracking is chaos, but today, technology has closed that gap, and industries from cattle ranching to asset tracking to fleet owners eager to track their fleet tyres have already put it into use-Radio Frequency Identification or RFID.

Through the use of simple asset tracking technologies available today fleets can dramatically solve even the most challenging inventory tracking tasks and decrease tyre-spending resulting in large cost reduction, increase vehicle and driver safety, slow down the depletion of natural resources and decrease pollution, all from a single effort - professional asset management.

RFID tags embedded in a tyre or a barcode tag affixed to the side wall can be a very powerful tyre tracking tool. It will deter theft and help minimize tyre substitution.

The era of hand writing on assets and using spreadsheets to control assets, is over for complex, asset intensive business units in Zambia. It is vital that companies begin using auto identification technology based on barcode and RFID technology to extract value, and to extend the useful and safe life of assets today, tomorrow and in future.

However, it’s believed that most companies in Zambia are at least many years away from deploying similar asset tracking systems in their asset management programs.

About Prosperity Agencies

Prosperity Agencies provides comprehensive Asset Tagging and Verification services, the objective of which is to help organizations create accurate and verified records of capital assets with significantly more details than the existing financial systems are able to provide. Since 2010, a major focus of the company’s development is the provision of asset tracking solutions based on Barcode and RFID technology supplying tags, on site tagging and data collection and asset management systems implementation. 

Prosperity Agencies is ready to actively cooperate for the development of the asset tracking market in Zambia and implementation of new and interesting asset tracking ideas, participate in joint asset management projects with Zambian asset management system integrators.

The Future of Smart Cards in Zambia

For many of us, smart cards are now part of our daily lives. We rely on their technology to gain access to our office buildings and access and pay for utility services. But as smart card technology continues to evolve, there are still some more interesting new applications in the pipeline.

A case in point: The Zambia Electricity supply corporation ZESCO was experiencing repeated problem of accumulative electricity bills by most customers. The company introduced prepaid meters using smart card technology and the rest is history.

Another new and interesting use of smart card technology will soon be found within the Ndola City. The local authority was also struggling to effectively manage parking in the central business area in order to maximize revenue collection. The existing system of parking attendants alone was vulnerable to pilferage.

Under the partnership with city parking solutions, which would be launched in the city, if successful, motorists will see the first ever digital parking meters in Zambia. Motorists will simply purchase a city parking card pre-loaded with credit. After parking, the driver will insert the parking card in the smart card reader. The card reader verifies that there is sufficient money on that card, and when the driver selects the desired parking time, the money is deducted from the card.

Undoubtedly, this initiative is the first of its kind in Zambia. It will not only make vehicle parking more convenient and efficient but it will significantly improve the revenue collection and accounting at the local authority.

The scope for technology to improve asset management, asset trucking and access control to deter theft, drive operational efficiencies is virtually unbounded. It seems likely that the potential for technology to help us just do that in Zambia is limited only by our own imagination.

Prosperity Agencies is already working with some major utility companies in Zambia that are keen to leverage the benefits of Bar Code asset tags to increase efficiency and asset traceability with Barcode Labeling and Asset Management Software.

Merchant Accounts-Why You Need One

For years it’s seemed that while everyone acknowledges the importance of merchant account services, nobody except possibly merchant service providers- actually boldly talk about it. Part of this is because most bloggers hate to read on something they don’t really understand and are reluctant to comment.

If you are just trying to figure out the importance of merchant accounts, just read on you will find out the real reason why you really need it for your business.

Credit cards have become a preferred method of payment in today’s market, making a merchant account essential for any serious online entrepreneur. Sadly, however, too many websufers end up frustrated by the fact that they can not buy their favorite goodies online just because they don’t have a credit card. This is a feeling I personally had to deal with for a long time.

Undoubtedly, the banking and financial system world over has undergone a process of modernization and streamlining. The regulatory frameworks have been strengthened and dealings in the financial market are now facilitated by automated merchant services. Customers now enjoy ATM/Point of sale facilities from any ATM and merchant banks.

The evolution towards large financial conglomerates with integrated merchant banking service development is slowly blurring the hassle of queues in banks and delay in clearing of electronic payments. On the other hand more still needs to be done. The hassle of opening an account in the bank, with the demand of documentation involved and also the bureaucracy in financial institutions is also another challenge.

In this day and age, receiving payments online is of great importance to any online business. These benefits have made it easier for small businesses to grow and compete competitively with large organizations. Yet, the most common use of merchant services to date is customers using their credit card or debit cards in person to pay for goods and services.

I must mention that, accepting credit cards online is a risky proposition. Fraud rates are substantially higher when compared to traditional retail establishments. Nevertheless, a merchant account is an extremely flexible tool for those who are informed but like I said, you need to be more careful to determine which credit card processing solution is best for your business among the many merchant account choices available.

That is why sometimes choosing a third party merchant account provider like Google checkout is the obvious choice. A third party merchant account provider can give your business the ability to accept debit and credit cards in payment of goods and services in a matter of seconds eliminating the monthly fees. Interestingly, some merchant account providers do not charges any set up fee as well. The only time a merchant will incur a fee is when they accept payment via credit card.

With a credit card processing service on your website, you can increase your sales, flexibility and give your customers many payment options. Surely you have nothing to lose, and only time and money to gain.