Week 3 Tutorials and Activities 3/26 - 4/1/2012

[George Lewter]

Part 1 - Continue studying Tutorials 3-6.

Retake the quizzes until you have  a good handle on them.

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Part 2 - Analyze and Record Joe Potter's Transactions

Attached is an Excel Workbook with 2 worksheets.  The first is a list of transactions and the accounts affected by those transactions.  The second has a list of detail accounts and T accounts set up for each. The T accounts have the existing transactions listed.

Your first task for the week is to verify that the entries are correct and then confirm that the totaled transactions will balance when brought back to the accounting equation.

On Thursday evening I will add new entries to the list of transactions and you will spread them to their  T accounts and recheck the balances after you've finished. We will discuss this in our chat session on Sunday

For those of you who do not have Excel, I have converted the file to pdf format so you can print it out and fill it in by hand.  If you copy the Excel file to to your computer, I believe you can open and work on it online, using a google docs spreadsheet. It would be great if one of you could do that and then reply with the steps to do that. 

 

I know it will be very foolish to have a chat session next Sunday, but we are known to be foolhardy sometimes.

Note the 2 files place here on Monday have been removed and replaced with these two updated and improved versions. If you use excel or google docs the T accounts will automatically recalculate their balances. The Account numbers are now expanded to give you room to add your own account numbers in the appropriate range.

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Note as of Friday evening 3/30/2012 11:10 EDT the files attached below (C6P group corrected trxs) have the transactions through number 17 all clarified, corrected and balanced to the accounting equation which is included as a final page. This would be the best version to use to complete the transactions listed for the week without having to search for the errors that I made in the earlier versions.  :-) You might have to create a T-account to accomodate one of the transactions. If you are using Excel or google docs, just copy the whole range of an appropriate T-account and paste it to a blank area of the page.  Then change the account number, account name, and delete any existing transactions.  Test with a couple debits and credits to make sure the formulas are working correctly.

[George Lewter]

Google docs is a free online application that works very much like Microsoft Office.  You need to set up a google ID for yourself (It works for many google processes and can be used to sign in to third party online activities as well.) Once you have your ID, just go to the google docs home page and click the 'Create' button, then the Spreadsheet icon.  Once the blank spreadsheet grid is displayed click the 'File' menu then 'Import'. With the 'Create new' spreadsheet radio button selected click the 'Choose file' button.  Navigate to the excel file you want to open and click 'Open'.  The file will open in the online application and is completely usable.  It saves every change you make, and is available to you from anywhere where you have an internet connection. Totally cool!

[Troy Bungart]

George you'er the best!

Thanks for taking the time and making it easy for me to understand.

I am reading and rereading, I am determined to complete this and understand it.

Thanks,

Troy

[George Lewter]

Don't let all of the work involved in what we have already done along with the work of posting to journals, then general ledger scare you.  You don't have to do all that with a computer accounting system. Most entries will only be made once by hand to get a transaction into the system. Some will just involve verifying  which accounts the computer should debit or credit as it imports new kinds of transactions directly from bank accounts or from uploaded statements.

[George Lewter]

You may find the T-accounts a very easy way to consolidate activity for one account at a time.

[Troy Bungart]

What a brain cruncher. If I had only known what I was getting into I would have stayed in my corner!

[George Lewter]

Have no fear.  It is going to get a lot easier when we start using the accounting software. And you will know what is happening behind the curtain.

[George Lewter]

Attached are the ending files for this week's exercises.  The chat session that discusses the exercise is listed as a separate discussion. Those who participated had a good grasp of debiting and crediting transactions to the proper accounts.