What are assets, liabilities and capital ?

Assets

The assets are the resources possessed by the firm. These resources can be classified as non-current and current called Fixed Assets and Current Assets. The fixed assets are the assets purchased for retention by an entity and not held for resale in the normal course of trading, for example, business building, furniture and motor vehicle. The remaining assets that are not considered as fixed assets are current assets, for example, bank, debtor and inventory.

Capital

Capital is the supplies of resources by the owner of the business.

Liabilities

Liabilities are all the claims on the business by the parties other than owner of the business (outsiders). Those liabilities payable within next twelve months of the balance sheet date is called Current Liabilities, for example, trade creditors. Those liabilities payable more than next twelve months of the balance sheet date is called Long-Term Liabilities or Deferred Liabilities, for example, long-term loan.

Common Mistakes for Accounting Students during Learning Process

From my teaching experience, I notice that most of the LCCI’s students have some common study mistakes through out their learning process:

• Students always forget about basic principles. Students shall not forget about basic principles like double entry system because these core concepts will be applied through out the whole subject.
• Students tend to treat each chapter as separate. Each chapter in accounting subject shall not be treated as separate because they are interrelated. For instance, you will not able to understand financial statement’s concept without knowing double entry system, journals, ledgers and trial balance.
• Students try to remember format in detail form. Students shall remember in broad form because we just human being, we are not able to remember too many things. For example, net sales minus cost of sales will get gross profit, then minus expenses to get net profit. We just remember this broad format for income statement. What is called by net sales, cost of sales and expenses, you just need to understand only.
• Students lack of ability to follow the questions’ stories. Students shall train themselves to answer questions according to the stories by using appropriate principles, concepts and formats. You may obtain difference answer because of changing a few words. For example, if the same question but only change the words from “straight line method to depreciate machinery” to “reducing balance method to depreciate machinery”, the answer will become difference already.