Accounting Reports and Analysis (ARA) is one of the five core subjects in the Bachelor of Commerce. It gives an accountant’s view of how a business should be run and evaluated. It introduces the core components of the reports that businesses must produce and how to interpret them. The first few weeks are very similar to Accounting in high school. Noel Boys is a humorous and logical lecturer. His lectures were enjoyable to listen and made the dense content interesting. I didn’t find that to be the optimal way to watch his lectures as theory plays a large part in the course. Instead, I suggest that you make your own notes paraphrasing the theory. The two assignments were completed on Excel, which was then computer-marked against an answer key. The first assignment was completing a balance sheet and income statement, and the second assignment was analysing a financial report. These were not of a particularly difficult standard. By modelling off the sample illustrations from the lectures, the assignments should be very doable.

Content is not hard and very straightforward (but boring asf). I'm sure Noel had heaps of fun overcomplicating the final exam and using a bunch of unnecessary terms. Just say sales revenue ffs

The concepts of this subject are pretty straight forward. However the way the exam questions is set seems quite different to how the tute questions are

found the exam challenging comparative to the work provided in class

I did this subject as part of the core requisites for the BComm. I did it in Semester 1 2020 which was all online, so that might have had an impact on the delivery of the subject. I did do Accounting Units 1-4 in VCE, and I found the content to be pretty similar, but it was more in-depth and more interesting than high school as it had a more real-world application. The assignments were very clearly organised and it was very clear what had to be done. The exam was quite time-constrained, but it was very clear what had to be done. The lecturer, Noel, makes his best efforts to make the lectures engaging because listening for 2 hours can get quite tedious. Overall, being a compulsory subject, it wasn't bad. I found it to be quite simple to follow already having background knowledge in accounting, but I can imagine it being quite difficult for those with no prior experience.

Topics covered provide an overview of key financial and management accounting concepts and include: the constituent elements of financial statements; recognition, measurement and disclosure issues in the preparation of financial statements; accounting policy choices available to managers for key assets and incentives associated with policy choices; the analysis and interpretation of financial statement data; the use of accounting information within organisations to support managerial planning, control and decision making.

Great subject. Lots to memorize but it then become really useful once you take Intro to Financial Accounting. Tutes are also ran well. Exam isn't too hard. Free textbook is a yay. And don't let me start on Noel Boys... his voice should echo through the clouds and skies and deliver the contents like a god and he should be the announcements you hear on Yarra trams. In conclusion awesome subject, would fail to take again.

Overall a good subject, the only downside is that there’s a lot to memorize. But once you’ve remembered most of the main ideas, the exam is actually not that hard as it doesn’t require much in-depth thinking.

difficult!

Being a BCom major, I had to do ARA without a choice. I found this subject pretty difficult as it is very different from high school accounting. I would highly recommend not to do this subject as a breadth. I was only able to get H2A with a relatively large amount of time spent on revision. Noel tries to make it attractive as possible by making hilarious jokes in the lecture, but the context is pretty damn dry.