Importance of Financial Reporting

Question: Describe about the Importance of Financial Reporting? Answer: I expected the course on financial reporting to be a challenging one considering the reviews from seniors particularly because I had limited exposure to a background in the subject. However, considering the importance of financial reporting as an academic discipline and the crucial role it could play in my career, I decided to approach this subject with a lot of interest. An initial couple of lectures were fine in their content, and I would fairly understand the proceedings in the lecture. I also went through the additional learning materials provided to supplement the understanding and this approach was immensely helpful in the first couple of weeks. However, the topic on lease accounting was particularly difficult even though in the lecture it seemed like a topic that is not that difficult as the classification between operational and finance lease were driven by certain core principles. But, the practical application of these concepts was particularly problematic which was compoun ded with the addition of the relevant entries in the books of account of lessor and lessee. I really got panicked and referred to all the relevant material available on the online portal. Despite going through the tutorials, I faced a plethora of doubts and had to take help from my fellow students who were more comfortable with the subject. This helped me immensely to develop an understanding of the lease accounting and also made it evident that the only way to excel in the course is to enhance the fundamental understanding of the concepts rather than mugging up as it is not advisable since the essence does not lie in knowing the relevant accounting standards but in their application in real time. As a result, to enhance my understanding of subject, I started going through the content to be taught in the next lecture beforehand. This was immensely helpful especially with regards to complex topics particularly regarding business combinations where most of my classmates faced severe problems. However, I was able to manage that without much issue. Additionally, group study was also immensely helpful in clarification of the concepts since various doubts were raised that e nhanced the overall clarity of the topic. However, one issue that was faced was with regards to the practical examples and application based problems that were limited. Ideally, for complex topics such as lease, business combinations more time should have been devoted to precise application especially considering my kinaesthetic learning style whereby I tend to focus more on case study methodology. I aim to extend the learning during the course to my future professional endeavours by focusing more on concept clarity as it provides a solid foundation on which additional knowledge could be gained with relative ease. Without concept clarity, additional efforts are largely unproductive. Hence, during my professional career, I intend to emphasise on various training for conceptual clarity along with peer to peer learning on the job. Further, it may be recommended that more focus in the course should be given to the application of accounting norms using case study pedagogy along with more doubt clearing sessions to enable the weaker students to cope up in a better manner.