The functions of management accountants have long been established both in practice and in accounting literature. And management accountants have in all fairness lived up to expectations when I come to delivering n their promises. However, it has become glaring and clear before our eyes that accounting as a profession has caught the disruptive bug […]
What is Social Business? Addressing a Social Problem Unlocks Hidden Gems in Social Media Age
What is Social Business? Addressing a Social Problem Unlocks Hidden Gems in Social Media Age A social business is any entity that is created to by design to solve real life social problems. The business be of any structure and size but must have the goals and objectives of fixing social dislocations. All social businesses […]
What is Incomplete Record? | Small Business Accountants Nightmare, Master Single Entry Accounting
Small business accountants that are not well grounded in working with incomplete records or single-entry bookkeeping usually always disappoint their clients. It is not that individual business owners do not appreciate the importance of accounting, they simply do not have the expertise of finance people and this is causing a lot of nightmare for accountants. […]
What is Financial Communication?
It has long been established that accountants are communicators or at least should be leaders in business communications. However, I have seen on many occasions where accountants fail to communicate properly. No matter how good an idea is or how good one is, nothing gets done without the right kind of communication. Hence, the major […]
What is Depreciation in Accounting? | Types, Uses and Methods of Depreciation
There is no single equipment that does not suffer from wear and tear as time passes. It will not be in line with accounting ethics and completely wrong for accountants not to take the wear and tear suffered by company’s assets at the time of preparing the financial statement. Tangible Non-Current Assets (NCA) like buildings, […]
Double Entry Procedure | How to Record Business Transactions in Accounting
The financial statements are produced at the end of the period as it will be silly and impracticable to produce a financial statement each time a transaction is made. However, every transaction must be recorded and is recorded as they take place. The recording usually starts from the journal entry, then the ledger, then all […]
Accounting Adjustments | when and how to make accounting adjustments
The whole essence of getting involved in the accounting process is to produce valuable, speedy and accurate accounting information that the end users of accounting information can rely on for economic decision making. To do this, business transaction information is captured on the fly – you will agree that doing things on the fly will […]
Application of Effective tax rate to employee income | how to correctly tax employee income using Effective Tax Rate
There are always some grey areas in every profession. Taxation in the field of accounting happens to be one area where interpretations and applications of the provisions of the Finance Act / Tax Laws. Understanding the application of effective tax rate to employee income is an important forensic accounting skill that you will never regret […]
Digital Finance Powered by Fintech | Challenges and Opportunities for Banks
What is digital finance? Digital finance is an umbrella of the many products that Fintech companies are launching into the financial ecosystem all in the bid to fully decentralize financial services. Digital finance includes but not limited to; smart financial software, easy to access financial business models, mobile financial inclusion, flexible customer relationships that is […]
Internal Control vs Internal Audit | Similarities and Differences between Internal Audit and Internal Control
In a bid to be part of the month long celebration of Internal auditors globally in this month of May, I recently attended a function where I was asked to give an impromptu talk clearly stating the difference between internal control and internal audit. It was then that I realized that I struggled to provide […]
Sample of Internal Audit Charter with Free Downloadable Attachment
I decided to share this sample of internal audit charter as part of my way of giving back to the society in this month of May – my month of birth. Feel free to adopt this free internal audit charter and use it in your audit engagement as desired. The content of this article can […]
What is an Accounting Standard? Uses and Importance of Accounting Standards
To properly answer the question ‘what is an accounting standard?’ in such a way that managers from and those from non-financial background can understand it, we need to firstly refresh our mind on the importance of accounting. You can refer to the linked article above for full article on the importance of accounting. I will […]
Strategy Map Excel Template for Small Businesses
In this article is attached an excel strategy map template designed by hybrid accountant for small business owners and modern business managers. I am basically writing this article just to share the template with readers of my accounting blog – so pardon the brevity of this article. Download the strategy map excel template here What […]
Qualities of a good company | Seven (7) Soft Business Valuation Aspects
Business valuation is not all about the figures in the financial statements as many people erroneously think. My many years of experience in business analysis has taught me that it is some times more important to look out for qualities of a good company while at the same time applying proven business valuation techniques. In […]
What is journal entry? | How to make a journal entry | Meaning, Uses and Fundamentals
Journal entries are the foundational building block that makes accounting what it is today – the language of business. Business managers are faced with tough decisions on a daily basis ranging from making long term capital investment to making recurring operational expenses. Without journal entries, getting the information to aid decision makers perform their jobs […]
Audit process | What is analytical procedure in audit?
Audit is all about giving opinion that is backed up by relevant adequate audit evidence. Sufficient audit evidence doesn’t just appear out of thin air; analytical procedure is one of the many veritable audit evidence gathering techniques that an auditor uses. Analytical procedure is a type of substantive procedure that auditors carry out during the […]
What is ISO 27001? | Information Security Management guide for small businesses and Fintech Startups
As a careered Internal Auditor and an IS/IT auditor, I can tell you with high level of assurance that many Fintech start-ups fail because of so many reasons but one of the main reasons for Fintech start-ups failure is the fact that they take their information security management responsibilities very lightly. Most people that are […]
How to select and design test of controls in internal auditing
An organization should have controls in place that operates with the sole aim of preventing, detecting and correcting accounting misstatements caused by either accounting fraud or errors. It is our job as internal auditors to test those controls in order for us to make recommendations for improvements. Business organizations make significant investments into setting up […]
Studying accountancy can take you far | just be a future ready accountant
This article is written to not only give assurance to students who are planning to study accountancy but to also provide some tips of what they must do to stand out from the crowd. I overheard two teenagers during the just concluded Easter holidays having conversation about what course to study at the university and […]
How to perform AIS Audit | Accounting information systems auditing Basics
I have been getting a lot of requests from my readers and followers asking questions on how to audit an AIS (Accounting Information Systems). In my continuous bid to share knowledge from my many years of experience in accounting, finance, internal audit, systems development and IT/IS audit, I have decided to compile the various answers […]
Bank reconciliation using Microsoft Excel IF function and COUNTIF function formulas
Bank reconciliation using Microsoft Excel IF function and COUNTIF function formulas How to perform bank reconciliation using Microsoft excel IF function and COUNTIF function formulas in order to improve efficiency is the theme of this post. I have written an earlier piece on the fundamentals of bank reconciliation statement. However, a lot of forensic accountants […]