Here at The Back Room, we believe that profound and holistic development is essential for individuals who want to explore more and expand their knowledge and add value to their learnings and experiences throughout their career.
The Back Room proudly introduces its first ever exclusive project by the Training and Development Department lead by Miguel Paulo Serrano: the Masterclass for April 2019.
Financial Reporting and Taxation for BPO Clients
The Masterclass was created for accountants who want to learn more about Financial Reporting and Taxation for BPO Clients and how Xero and other cloud accounting systems are used in their businesses. For accountants with a growth mindset who never settle for limited expertise and education, the Masterclass will help them continue their professional growth with the 40 CPD units provided once completed.
First ever exclusive project
For P4500 worth of five Saturday sessions, the coverage of the Masterclass is inclusive of:
- New Zealand Accounting and Taxation
- Xero
- CCH Workpapers
- Annual Accounts Prepping and Drafting Process, Theories and Reconciliations
These lessons are the same as the onboard training at The Back Room.
Attendees are required to complete five sessions as the prepared module is designed to be a complete set of the training material. 40-unit CPD certificates then will be distributed to the attendees as they tackle the systems and techniques used in Financial Reporting and Taxation for BPO Clients.
Masterclass overview
19 attendees, consisting of accountants from different backgrounds – audit, private companies and BPOs – joined the Masterclass from day one (30 March 2019) to day five (27 April 2019).
Here we’ve listed all the highlights from the five Saturday sessions with the attendees giving their one hundred percent active participation with volunteers on each day.
Day one – all about Xero
The first day was an introduction to Xero. Topics such as familiarising with the Xero Interface, understanding how automatic bank feeds work, learning the day to day bookkeeping techniques using Xero, knowing some basic to advanced Xero troubleshooting and procedures, were thoroughly discussed.
Day two – what is prepping?
For the second day Miguel discussed the Prepping Process and the steps involved, Prepping Xero Settings and Report Templates and a little background on New Zealand Accounting and Taxation.
Day three – workpaper basics
On the third day, the attendees were enlightened with topics on how the CCH workpaper works, like setting up the workpaper, Bank, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable and Stock on Hand workpapers, Entertainment and Home Office Expense workpapers and Interest, Dividend Income workpapers, and Wages Reconciliation.
Day four – fixed assets
The topics Miguel discussed for day four included Fixed Asset Reconciliation: GL vs Registry, Purchase and Disposal of Assets, Depreciation, Loss on Disposal, Depreciation Recovery and Capital Gains, Loans and Hire Purchase and FBT Reimbursement.
Day five – taxes
The masterclass ended with topics related to taxation including GST reconciliation, Terminal Tax vs. Provisional Tax, Shareholder Salaries, and Imputation Credits plus a quick recap about all the topics discussed since day one.
Online comprehensive exam
After the final discussion, the attendees were given an exclusive online comprehensive exam that covered all the topics and lessons tackled from the first day up to the last day. It was produced online for the attendees to answer the questions in the easiest and more convenient way, and for the Masterclass associates to accumulate faster and more accurate results.
The online exam serves as a baseline to show how well the attendees understand all the major points and how effectively they will apply the learnings they’ve had so far.
The results, awardees and participants
After the online comprehensive examination, results were out. Seven attendees got above a 60% score over the comprehensive exam. Four attendees nailed it and were awarded Top of the Class – each of them getting a 75% score, which was the highest of the batch!
The top four attendees were Henelyn Guaro, Arianne Jane Morano, Leona Mae Arguelles and KatriziaSicat. Warmest congratulations to these awesome women who effectively applied all their learnings in the Masterclass.
Feedback from the Masterclass
It is, without a doubt, a month of learnings and explorations in NZ Accounting. It’s definitely an action packed and intense batch for the year where the attendees have to complete all the sessions to keep on track with the correlative discussions. We asked some of our awesome attendees to share what they have experienced and learned with the Masterclass.
We have gathered feedback from the attendees and listed down some of their comments and recommendations about the Masterclass.
Describe your experience over the entire learning program
How was facilitator able to help you over the entire program?
Of course, the survey wouldn’t be complete without feedback from two of our top four awardees for Masterclass April 2019. We asked five interview questions to Arianne and Leona:
How was your experience with the Masterclass?
How does it feel to be in the top four?
What was the most challenging part of the Masterclass for you?
What was the biggest and most important thing you have learned and how would this help you?
How did the exam help you apply the knowledge that you learned from the Masterclass?
From Arianne Jane Morano
- The Masterclass was a good experience overall. The topics proved to be a whole new environment for me, a newbie to the BPO industry, but the way the speaker presented them made learning easier and more fun. Kudos to Sir Migs!
- Getting recognized was unexpected. While taking the exam, I felt like there were questions I should know the answer to if only I read up a little more, so being told I got a high score was surprising to me. Nevertheless, it was rewarding.
- The most challenging part for me was perhaps when we were learning to fill in the workpapers. As I didn’t have a laptop, it was a bit harder to follow.
- I think the most important thing I learned is to open my mind to new approaches to accounting, and to be flexible. I had to keep reminding myself that I’m dealing with accounting standards from the other side of the world.
- The exam was tricky in that it tested your understanding of the concepts, not just your memory. We had to use the concept learned and apply it situationally.
From Leona Mae Arguelles
- They were the most productive five Saturdays of my life. It was not the typical seminar that an accountant could ever attend. And to be honest, after the first Saturday, I really felt the excitement of attending the next Saturdays. We really needed to attend the five sessions as the discussions were connected with each topic. But it’s all worth it and will definitely make you a great NZ accountant because of this training!
- It was surprising as the assessment exam was very tricky. The questions were tackled well, it’s just that the questions and the choices were tricky where you have to read each word carefully before answering.
- It was late when I realised that I should have taken notes. Glad that one of my friends attended the class too and she took down notes.
- I learned that NZ Accounting and Taxation is way easier than Australian (where my current client is) and in the Philippines. Or maybe it was just tackled comprehensively and as simple as possible.
- The exam contains the main point of each topic that was discussed during the Masterclass. The exam also serves as a review of what was discussed.
Creating skilled professionals
As the first batch for Masterclass April 2019 has finally ended we want to congratulate and thank all the attendees who completed the five sessions and received their 40 CPD units and participated until the last day of the Masterclass.
The Training and Development Department carried out a successful project and did a great job with the first batch. The Back Room is planning to resume the Masterclass by October-November this year, targeting CPA board passers this time.
Here’s a summary video to boost up your enthusiasm and interest in joining our second batch of Masterclass 2019.