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Many schools and teachers of accounting feel the need to use accounting software within the context of teaching. Contrary to other domains, such as that of spreadsheets, where the number of products is limited, there is a multiplicity of solutions in the accounting sector. This variety derives from the fact that businesses have different needs depending on their type and size. The different products on the market are all of a very high standard and your choice will depend on specific requirements.
When choosing accounting software to be added to teaching, it must be taken into account that the context is entirely different to that of a company. The criteria to be used for the assessment must therefore be specific to the teaching sector. This may seem like a trivial argument, but most of the time, even nowadays, the software to be used in teaching is evaluated with the same criteria adopted for selecting a software to be used in a company. Unfortunately, most of the time, this approach will lead to the failure of the introduction of software for training projects. If instead the choice is made on the basis of the specific criteria for teaching, the introduction will be a success.
The criteria set out below are those which, in so many years of working closely with accounting schools and in very different situations, have come to prove efficient. Obviously, each institution and course will have different requirements, that will depend on the age and preparation of the students, the proposed curriculum, the time and the IT structure available. Teachers who are preparing to introduce software in the field of accounting teaching will have to assess the specific needs of their situation.
1. Work on an individual basis
Accounting training, like various other subjects, is divided into a theoretical and a practical part. In practice, each student performs the tasks assigned to him by the teacher and those are generally to set up the Chart of Accounts and recording accounting transactions using the double-entry accounting method.
Students will work on an individual basis, as if they were running their own company. When choosing accounting software to be used for practice by students, it is important to consider that the method of use is completely different from that typically used by a company. In fact, in a company, people access and simultaneously feed the centralized information system. The purpose of accounting solutions is to allow a greater number of people to enter transaction data and to have overall reports for the company. Accounting systems generally require servers, have complex configuration procedures and take up a long time.
Time for class and correction of homework is limited. If the aim is to allow students to practice individually, accounting software which allows students to create individual accounts and transmit them to the teacher quickly and easily, must be considered. Accounting software that needs a long time to set up and configure accounting is not suitable for teaching.
Banana Accounting lends itself very well, from this point of view. Students each own their file, as with Excel. They can easily create a new accounting file or use the one made available by the teacher. They may use a different file for each exercise and work completely independently. When they are done, they can deliver the file to the teacher.
2. Work easily
During training, as much time as possible must be dedicated to teaching the theoretical part and exercising. Software is only suitable for teaching if it is easily understood by students and if it has a short span of learning time. It should be taken into account that students may not use the software on a regular basis and for a long period. If the software is not intuitive and easy-to-use, students will waste time every time they come to use it.
When assessing ease of use, students' level of knowledge of accounting must be taken into consideration. Software that uses logics and terminologies that already presuppose accounting knowledge, are difficult to use for people who are learning.
Banana Accounting is particularly well fitted from this point of view, because it uses a spreadsheet approach and a whole series of measures that allow for its very immediate use. In the early nineties, a group of user interface specialists developed a methodology for creating easy-to-use programs, which still remains a point of reference even for websites and apps.
Banana Accounting was developed based on this approach and meets the ten points listed, thus making it particularly intuitive and easy to use. At a glance, the student sees the data he has entered and what the accounting situation is. Even when you have not used it for a while, it is easy to pick it up again.
3. Experiment
As part of the training, it is necessary to provide students with tools that allow them to be able to experiment and to correct in case of error. Many accounting software, especially those used within larger companies and by a multitude of people, are rigid for security reasons. Once entries are recorded or the Chart of Accounts has been set up, changes can no longer be made. Working this way is hardly suitable for the teaching environment, because students often make mistakes and are forced to insert reversal or correction records each time that occurs, causing time waste and making correction work difficult.
Banana Accounting allows you to experiment. The student can enter the records and display repercussions on the accounting instantly. If you notice that the cash register has a negative value, you will be made aware immediately and can correct it. Banana also allows you to cancel transactions. This working mode is very convenient and much more productive at the same time. For students, recording almost becomes a game. It is also simpler for teachers to correct work done, because there are easily readable and understandable accounts.
4. Understand double-entry accounting
The purpose of teaching accounting is to make students learn the double-entry accounting method, the meaning of debit and credit and how the different operations are recorded. All accounting software are based on the double-entry accounting system, but many of them, especially those intended for people with little accounting knowledge or who contain automated functions, tend to mask the double-entry logic from the user. The program will provide specific dialogues for types of transactions, invoices, collections and payments and it will then be the program that automatically creates and inserts the records in an internal journal. In various programs, the option for entering accounting records is available only for special situations or may not allow for interactivity.
If the program is to be used in a training environment, it is therefore necessary to ascertain that the function of inserting the recordings allows students to practice freely and remains very functional.
In this regard, Banana Accounting is optimal because the entry of the transaction takes place in a table, as in the traditional double-entry accounting method. The columns are those that occur typically when carrying out accounting exercises, including date, description, debit account, credit account and amount. Direct registrations (such as Cash Register to Bank) are entered on one line, or those that affect several accounts are registered on multiple lines, exactly as you do when you are taught at school. Accounts are updated instantly by the program and the updated balances are displayed. This allows the student to understand if the operation has the intended effect. If the debit and credit transactions do not square, a warning message with the difference is displayed. This approach allows students to refine their accounting technique. The other important advantage is that the accounting techniques manuals, with their exercises and solutions designed to be carried out with pen and paper, remain perfectly valid.
5. Exclude automations for tax compliance
The purpose of accounting solutions is to facilitate tax compliance. The insertion dialogues therefore provide specific elements to encode everything needed to automate the declarations. In accounting training, the automation aspect is not very important, indeed at the beginning of the training course, it can even be a barrier that will render the software's use more difficult.
When students are taught about how VAT works for example, they are asked to do the calculations manually and record the different elements separately. Only after learning about those accounting mechanisms, is the use of automated functions for VAT management explained.
If accounting training is aimed at learning the theoretical bases, it would be useful to have programs that allow for excluding the functions that are not needed and to provide concise Chart of Accounts, so as to make their use easier for students. This possibility is not provided by programs that have been designed to cater for use in the business sector. Keeping this in mind, Banana Accounting was also developed to adapt to the needs of those who must learn or keep accounting simple. It allows you to create accounting files with only the specific features you need. You can work with files that provide very concise Chart of Accounts without VAT management or other features. The program is also suitable for beginners. Several schools in German use Banana Accounting is used to teach accounting from the age of 13, this is because it is possible to create files with very simple Chart of Accounts and with the only columns that are needed.
6. Install the software on a student's device
Schools initially introduced the use of accounting software in teaching, thanks to the availability of computer rooms. However, computer rooms are not always made available and require continuous management. Very often, students are not familiar with the specific operating system and must be trained. The best experiences are to be found where the student can install and use the accounting software directly on his laptop. This offers greater flexibility of use and it will allow students to practice at home and the school and teachers do not have to spend time to manage the infrastructure. Another advantage of the installation on their own computer is that it allows students to work even if they do not have a network connection.
Not all accounting software is designed to run on student computers as well as when there is no internet connection. So, when assessing the software solution it is essential to consider the technical infrastructure available at the school and the means that the students have. The more complex the management of the software, the more difficult it is for the school to introduce the use of the software. Banana Accounting significantly reduces complexity, because students can install the software on their device and use it for free for an unlimited time. The free version allows you to work on as many double-entry accounting files as you need, with a maximum of 70 registrations per file. This limit has proven to be more than enough, because when you do an exercise you generally create a new file. Banana Accounting is made available for every operating system, including Android and iOS mobile devices. By now all students, in every part of the world, have smartphones, that are ever more performing, at their disposal, and with high resolution screens. When doing accounting, it is obviously preferable to have a laptop, but the possibility of using it on tablets or mobile phones also opens up new opportunities in the teaching field, as it allows for the democratization of the use of accounting software for all students. The version of Banana Accounting for mobile devices is now almost in line with the desktop version and further improvements will occur in the near future.
7. Understand a software's logic
The introduction of accounting software as part of training also aims at preparing students for the use of software as such, so that when they enter the labour market, they already are familiar with using IT systems. Each accounting program has its own specifications, but the calculation logic is substantially the same. It is a bit like when you learn to drive a car, the student who has learned to use one accounting software will have much less difficulty when using another one.
With this regard, it is important to consider that accounting software does not apply the accounting equation in it’s typical form of Debit = Credit, but as Debit -Credit = 0. This change may appear as minimal, but it has very important logical and practical implications. In manual accounting, the amounts in debit and credit are always positive and are arranged in separate columns. Computers use a single column instead, and the debit amounts are positive, while the credit amounts are negative. This structure allows programs to save space as well as to accomplish operations rapidly. Understanding the data structure and the logic used by the programs to calculate the balances, create account cards and prepare the balance sheet and the income statement will make it easier to use other programs.
It will depend largely on the study curriculum, but fundamentally the accounting software should also allow you to understand all the available potential of a company, and not only to deal with accounting and printing financial statements, but also allow you to keep a check on customers and suppliers, manage depreciable assets, create invoices and use the block chain for security.
In the assessment, it will be useful to consider whether the software allows students to easily understand how it works. There are programs that tend to hide complexities from the user or that offer only a limited number of features. Other programs, on the other hand, are very articulate, offer multiple possibilities, but they are also complex and difficult to use. Banana Accounting offers an excellent compromise and includes all the main features, while maintaining ease of use. The various operations, including the issue of invoices, are managed within the Transaction table. Data security is guaranteed by the block chain method. The display of data is identical to the one used internally by the program so that it is made easier to understand how accounting software "reasons".
8. Planning, executing, checking
To carry an activity to it’s successful conclusion, you must first plan it, then implement and constantly check how the execution proceeds and make the necessary adjustments. This fully consolidated methodology, is widely used in the management of projects of all kinds and in business management. With digitization, data arrives from other sources in digital form, which will be integrated into the accounting system. The data entry activity decreases and instead the necessity to overview the execution and to have a general view of the company increases. The accountant tends to become a person, who no longer prepares reports only, but participates in strategic decisions and business planning. The accounting training curriculum therefore tends to give importance to planning and controlling aspects.
In many companies, financial forecasts are still made with electronic spreadsheets. This represents an important expenditure of time, which requires holding separate lessons on the topics. It is a major advantage for teachers to be able to use the same software to teach accounting, budgets and financial planning.
Banana Accounting provides an advanced financial forecasting system based on accounting. The same Chart of Accounts is used to prepare budgets also also for planning via the double-entry method. Thus, you dispose of a complete and coherent vision of the past, present and future. Teaching and learning to prepare financial and liquidity plans is made much easier.
Banana Accounting is easily integrated into Excel and also includes its own programming environment, which allows users to develop their own data extraction and presentation applications. Accounting students can easily learn the concepts of data structuring and programming.
9. Integrate software into an e-learning platform
In the training field, schools are increasingly equipping themselves with digital systems that facilitate contacts and collaboration between teachers and students. They range from the use of file sharing systems such as Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive, to comprehensive e-learning systems, which allow teachers and students to manage digital content in support of class work. Teachers use them to make lecture notes and exercises available and students then upload the tasks to be accomplished.
When choosing the accounting software to be used for teaching, it is equally necessary to consider how it integrates with tools currently available as well as projected future ones. Ever more accounting software are being developed on cloud platforms. For companies, these solutions can be convenient, but in the context of teaching it can create a problem, because students and teachers do not have control over the data. It can also render it difficult to ascertain who did the exercise and keep proof of the work done.
Similarly to Excel, Banana Accounting saves accounting data in a single file that can be stored locally, in the cloud or sent by email. This system is highly compatible with collaborative and e-learning platforms. The teacher can prepare examples and accounting models and easily make them available to the class. After completing their homework, students can simply make the accounting file available to the teacher and once the teacher has corrected the task, he can return it to the student with his or her observations. When these exercises are used to give marks which which are used to establish whether a student passes the exams, this approach allows for keeping the work done by students
10. Access your software free of charge
Financial cost is also an important element. Most schools have no financial means available for purchasing accounting software. Then there will be the question of IT infrastructure management. Having classrooms equipped or installing centralized software entails management costs that must be taken into consideration. Another aspect to deal with is the possible need to have a constant internet connection. It often happens that areas of the school are difficult to serve with WiFi networks. Maintaining a high and constant connection quality may entail significant costs.
The best solution from this point of view is certainly to offer students the opportunity to install the accounting software directly on their mobile phone. However, not all software allows for local use. In this matter, Banana Accounting is one of the best solutions, because it allows students to equip themselves with accounting software and use it for educational purposes at no cost.