ACCT11059- Assignment 1 ZhiFeng Lyu- 12055244

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Assignment#1 ACCT11059-Accounting, Learning and

Online Communication

Student name: ZhiFeng Lyu

Student number:12055244

Lecturer:

Due Date:

ACCT11059- Assignment 1 ZhiFeng Lyu- 12055244

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Step 1

About the Introduction

The introduction of the course ACCT11059 was in a way helping

me understand fully about what accounting was, what I should do to

improve my communication with others, and what I was supposed to

do to catch up with others during this semester’s studying. What was

essential was that I got one point or key concept that mattered, which

was interacting with others in the unit. I used to study everything

subject by myself but seldom interact with others, perhaps I would ask

the others for help when I got stuck with one difficult question.

However, after I read the introduction, I suddenly realized that my

method in the past was wrong and it was not suitable for my present

study at all. One thing I must say was that I have had to learn and

involve a great number of things since I went here and started my new

study life. I remembered what Benjamin Franklin said in the

introduction was “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember,

involve me and I learn”, which made me ruminate on my own.

Also, another concept I learned from the introduction was that

how we thought of learning was influenced greatly on our learning

at university and even our learning in the degree in the end. As far

as I am aware, learning is actually a beautiful and abstract thing that

we need to stick to. I think I should change the way I think about

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what learning is, and how I apply to life with what I learned. It

might be hard for me to change greatly in such a short time, but I am

sure I can make it and learn everything in a new way. Last but not

least, I guess I must develop my communication skills as the Internet

is so convenient that everybody uses it to communicate their thoughts

right now. I realize that business involves not only knowledge but also

communication skills with others. To make accounting decisions

properly, I must improve my own ability and gain adequate

knowledge about business.

Here are my key questions:

1, Did I ever involve with doing anything?

2, What was my study in the university supposed to be?

3, How could I understand accounting properly?

4, What was learning exactly?

Chapter 1

This chapter inspired me about the accounting area to a certain

extent. As I knew little about accounting, I read the chapter more

carefully than I used to do, and it just widened my horizon after

reading. I used to think accountant was a job that was to check the

numbers and calculate dull numbers, and it proved that I was totally

wrong.

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One key concept I get is that accounting is not just about checking

numbers, in fact, it has a great impact in the business area that

makes sense why so many people who are in superior positions in

business own accounting backgrounds. I know little about business,

except the financial crisis and currency policy. Perhaps I used to be a

nerd who would always stare at the books rather than focus on the

financial current situation. Now I have to learn it, in detail. To be

honest, I used to think it might be much easy to learn accounting

(actually it is easier than other subjects).

However, when I began my learning about accounting, I suddenly

found it hard to figure out, like I always had to wonder when, why and

how to distinguish Debit and Credit or so, which was another key

concept I got. I suppose it is going to take me a long time to figure out

debit and credit. Besides, about the equation

‘ASSETS=EQUITY+LIABILILTIES’, I just know it is like that but

I don’t know whether the equity will increase or decrease when assets

and liabilities both change. Nevertheless, I do know one thing well

that is the three types of business entities. What confused me is

double-entry accounting. It is going to drive me crazy. I thought if I

did not find it out, I might hardly catch up with the study afterwards.

All I am aware of about accounting now is that it is actually a kind

like provide us with useful information to help us make right estimates

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or judgements of value. Is that accounting decision making? In

addition, I read about the sentence “Business is always ‘on the

move’”, which in my view, it represented the current situation that

business was changing all the time with the reality.

Here are my key questions:

1, What on earth is double-entry accounting?

2, What is the difference between Revenue and Income?

Step 2

Moodle Profile: https://moodle.cqu.edu.au/user/profile.php?id=57541

Blog Link: Gladysprincess-

https://wordpress.com/plans/gladysprincess.wordpress.com

Welcome Page:

https://wordpress.com/page/gladysprincess.wordpress.com/28

Step3

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My company –Noni B

Background Information

My company is called Noni B and it’s an Australian fashion company,

one of Australia’s most respected fashion retailers for women’s career wear,

bridesmaid dresses, casual wear, evening wear and plus-size fashion.

Founded in 1977, located in Roseberry, New South Wales, Australia, Noni

B has operated 217 stores across Australia. Recently Noni B has

broadened their domestic webshop to offer shipping and service to New

Zealand customers.

For the past 40 years, Noni B has designed clothing for discerning

women aged from 45 to 65 years old. Noni B has been developing its

shopping convenience and service quality in order to get better reputation,

and it does get more loyal customers indeed. The Noni B webshop also

includes the Liz Jordan brand, the designer collection, which offers

sophisticated clothing designed for “moments in time”. Both labels, Noni

B and Liz Jordan, target different customers. What’s more, Noni B buyers

often attend a great number of leading European fashion shows and visit

the global top fabric designers and producers to gather seasonal style

inspiration for the Noni B range. The styles have always been highly

praised by their customers according to the most part of the feedback being

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positive.

Challenges and Opportunities

From 2004 to 2016, Noni B has been constantly improving its brand

quality and service quality for their loyal customers, basing on its fixed

principles which are high quality and best practice manufacturing. It’s

evident that the total revenue showed an increasing trend of 0.1% to $110.5

million during the year of 2016 compared with the gross revenue in 2015

and kept rising smoothly in the period of the recent four years, despite some

slight fluctuations. Total expenses, excluding cost of sales, financing costs

and impairment declined by 1.3% compared to last year which was $73.3

million with the Group starting to see the costs of doing business initiatives

delivering results. In 2017, the business opened 25 new stores nationally

and closed 11 stores ending the year with a retail network of over 220 stores.

It’s of much value to the development and expansion of Noni B as the

Internet reaches almost everywhere. What matters most is that customers

of Noni B have full trust in them and it's of great help to its development

and market expansion. The company has received positive feedback for

several years and this helps the company to produce more satisfying

products.

Nevertheless, challenges also exist. According to the Investor

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Presentation in February 2014, the total revenue of the company got a

decline by 3.0% compared to the statistics last year. The sales revenue

fluctuated smoothly over the past 4 years, between 2009 and 2013 but after

this time revenue fell sharply due to weak consumer demand and reduced

inventory. Sales of the company in January indicated a disappointing

consequence. Although initial sales of its 2014 autumn/winter range were

encouraging, it remained challenging for the company in the women’s

fashion market. Last but not least, Noni B has to keep updating its fashion

style all the time so as to adjust to the constant changing trend of current

fashion. It’s shown in the annual reports of the recent 4 years that the

revenue was not increasing all the time and showed losses between 2013

and 2015. Over that period, Noni B did not create any new styles of

clothing which caused ongoing weak demand from consumers, and its

inventory reduced further. To satisfy consumers and expand its markets,

Noni B still needs to improve the service and production quality as well as

developing new styles to follow fashion trends.

Here’s the Investor Presentation in February 2014:

Investor Presentation in Feb. 2014

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“Our core value is Customer Service above all else.”

-------------------Noni B

Annual Reports of Noni B

Annual report for 2016

Annual report for 2015

Annual report for 2014

Annual report for 2013

Original Understandings and Thoughts

When I got to know my allocated company at first, I was quite relieved

and I felt honoured actually—my company was an Australian company!

Also, the company which was called Noni B was about women’s fashion

and I loved this subject in coincidence. However, it’s hard for me to analyse

the statements due to my limited understanding of Accounting. Therefore,

I looked through its website carefully and analysed its fashion style that

was mainly aimed at women aged from 45 to 65 years. From reading the

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annual report of the recent four years, I found its revenue kept going up

considerably but also fluctuated a bit slightly, and the latest revenue as

shown in 2016 was less than what was in 2013. What’s more, I found my

company paid much attention to the service and product quality for its

customers, aiming at making them satisfied and comfortable about the

products. That’s what a company should basically do and I loved the way

it treated the customers; highly thought of them and made them feel happy.

Key Concepts and Questions

As far as I’m concerned, the most essential parts of the report are the

financial statements and the relevant notes. After comparing the various

data with other reports in recent years, I found out that Noni B’s revenue

had not been increasing constantly. By contrast, it provided information

about the losses by showing the data in parentheses over the past three

years, between 2013 and 2015. As I also read other previous annual reports,

I noticed that the continued revenue indicated a rising tendency and profits

were made for a long time. From my perspective, the work of an accountant

is to provide useful information for the decision maker, and the profit or

loss always influences a lot when making decisions. I think investors need

the information so that they can decide the amount of money to invest and

managers need it so that they can decide what to do next so as to make the

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company operate better and more efficiently. Thus, the statistics shown in

those statements and notes are all of great value to the management.

Another key concept, which is of great interest to me is Noni B’s mission

statement: “Our core value is Customer Service above all else.” It is

obvious for me to see that Noni B always puts the customer service as their

priority and they have been trying to achieve this for years. Indeed, as I

look through the website, I see the feedback of its customers is always

positive and satisfactory, which shows those customers’ loyalty and full

trust to the company. I am quite sure that Noni B is a company that is worth

trusting. In my view, a company that always makes customer service a top

priority, is always successful, and I’m proud of having it as my company.

Finally, I still have some key questions about Noni B that are as following:

Key Questions about Noni B:

1. Why does the company only expand its market to Australia and New

Zealand instead of expanding globally?

2. What will they do in order to improve the sales of their goods?

3. What are their methods to face new challenges in the future?

Additional information about Noni B:

The Noni B Home page is as follows:

http://www.nonib.com.au/

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Video about the latest fashion of Noni B:

NoniB 2016

Articles about its expanding to New Zealand:

https://www.insideretail.com.au/blog/2011/10/28/noni-b-expands-into-nz/

By the way here are three of my favorite blogs:

Luana’s Blogging Home:

One reason I like her blog is I like the way she organises her ideas and

how she thinks. From her blog of “Step 3”, I can see that she organises

her thinking and research result about her company by taking the

sequence of vision and value. In addition, she points out the detailed

steps for “the value of company”, which is easier for us to know about

her company and how she thinks. Let’s take a visit on this blog:

https://luana96blog.wordpress.com

I Am Accounting On It!

I think this blog is pretty interesting and I am sure I can have much fun

reading those blogs created by the author. Recently I have just read all the

blogs and I think the author really has done a deep research about the

company. Now we can all get to know this company in detail and even get

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more information than just looking through the home page after reading

the blog. Strongly recommend:

https://jshazz.wordpress.com/blog?iframe=true&theme_previe

w=true

ACCOUNTING, LEARNING AND ONLINE

COMMUNICATION

This is an amazing blog! (Good job! Montana) I was attracted by

the beautiful web design the first time I visited it and I was quite

interested in reading those great blogs written by her. Logical thinking,

well-organised ideas and interesting words, these three factors make

this blog attractive to read right now. Also, I can see that she must do

enough research and analysis on her company and I like her creative

thinking about her company, which often inspires me. Hopefully it can

also make you feel it like that:

https://montanablogonline.wordpress.com/

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Step 4

Here’s the company spreadsheet of the recent 4 years:

Company Spreadsheet 2017.xls

Step 5

I couldn’t believe it when I finally finished reading Chapter 2 and

Chapter 3. I must say that I gained a lot from these two chapters, not only

the basic elements of accounting but also its meaning and usage. I am

willing to tell you about my reflections and reactions to them after reading.

Chapter 2

From my perspective, Chapter 2 introduced knowledge and key terms

associated with accounting that I had been confused for such a long time,

so I considered it valuable and also interesting because I found so many

“rules of the game”.

One key concept I would like to talk about was Accrual Accounting. I

did not understand it very well at first due to my poor English and my lack

of accounting knowledge. After reading more and thinking about it more,

I thought I might get to know what it was exactly. I could often see all types

of “accrual accounting” in daily life before, but I just did not know what

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they were. In my view, accrual accounting is based on subject judgements

when confirming the income or revenue and it’s hard for me to tell whether

it’s positive or negative because that depends on different situations.

Actually I know accrual accounting is basically about paying cash over a

certain period after purchasing my items. However, if I happen to

calculate this in my everyday life, I may be driven too crazy because I know

very little about it. I think now I only understand its definition but I have

no idea how to calculate it or apply the definition to my real practice.

Perhaps it’s simply because I don’t deeply understand it. I think I have to

practice it more from now on.

I also agree with the GAAP and AASB, which are also key concepts in

the readings. I was pretty sure I had never heard of them before reading

Chapter 2. I learned a bit from IASB, IFRS and knew a little about ACCA.

It's meaningful to me to get to know about GAAP because I was wondering

if there was a general principle for the global accounting. Also, AASB is a

whole new area to me, I had never heard about it before so I read it in detail

and gradually gained a deeper understanding. It might be boring to

remember such accounting rules and codes for others but not for me. On

the contrary, it’s helpful for me to enrich my knowledge about accounting

and also offers me a useful reference. To become an accountant, it’s

necessary to get familiar with these codes and comply to them all the time.

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Here are my key questions while reading:

1. What will happen if accrual accounting doesn’t exist?

2. Will it be infinite fair trade if marginal factors don’t exist?

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 exactly explained my confusion about those four kinds of

financial statements and the relationship between parent company and its

subsidiary company. I think maybe it will include the skills about how to

read those statements and calculate in the following chapters. While

reading, I found the way Richard Loth described about financial statements

was pretty interesting and easy to understand that was “the big plate of

meat and potatoes”.

One key concept that attracted me was Parent Company. I thought it

was the most difficult part to understand while reading the notes of my

company’s annual reports. I used to be confused with the shares and

dividends between parent company and its subsidiaries, and I still didn’t

truly understand what it was about. I might know some basic principles

like “Parent company owns between 51% and 100% of the shares in

subsidiary companies”, however, when it came to practical calculation, I

didn’t know where to start. It might be the reason that I had to take in too

much knowledge about accounting that I even didn’t have time for

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understanding and thinking about every concept. Those concepts like

“Non-controlling interest” often confused me. I think maybe I really need

to spend certain time on studying on it. I believe I won’t forget about the

term “Parent Company” for years.

Another key concept that I was pretty interested in was Ratio. It seems

abstract for me to understand whether in my mother tongue or in English

because I did not do very well in math. I did get the point of “Current Ratio”

which was 2:1 between current assets and current purposes, also the perfect

ratio for now. In my opinion, ratio is of great value because of its usage for

collecting data for industries and average ratios calculated for comparison

purposes. It’s not common to see in the financial statements, however, it

does make a great difference when judging about the present financial

condition or predicting the future financial trend. All types of ratio; I would

like some further time to get to know them in detail.

Here are my key questions while reading:

1. When will the ratio have little influence on the company’s financial

situation?

2. What will happen when a company only gains its equity from

shareholders’ investment?

3. What is the “Net Dividend” for?

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Additional comment:

By the way, I like this quote:

“Price is what you pay; value is what you get.”

-------Warren Buff