Final Finance Report: Week 8 Personal Development Plan Analysis

This report reflects on the author's experience in a finance course, focusing on personal development and the application of financial principles. The author discusses the evolution of their understanding of financial reporting, including the importance of financial statements, the impact of IFRS, and the distinction between financial and management accounting. The report highlights the application of financial concepts like the time value of money in personal finance, with examples related to insurance, rental contracts, and loan options. Furthermore, the author outlines how they intend to apply the course's theoretical knowledge in their professional life, emphasizing the importance of ethical behavior, teamwork, and key skills such as time management and report writing. The report concludes with a note of gratitude and an optimistic outlook on the future career advancements that the course will facilitate.

Week 8: Personal Development Plan: Part 4: Final submission
I am highly honoured to reflect my overall experience of the course. I feel that the
management of financial resources from the first week until the final week has provided me
with crucial insights on the standards and requirements of financial reporting. Since I find
this course as highly challenging, it has contented me a lot. Previously, I used to think that
only two systems of rules were inherent in order to control the financial outcome reporting
procedure of an operator (Gitman, Juchau and Flanagan 2015). The initial system is a unique
accounting set outlining the way the accountants maintain and report financial statements to
cope up with the prevailing regulations. In addition, these statements include profit and loss
statement, statement of cash flow and statement of financial position (Eiteman, Stonehill and
Moffett 2016). Hence, I have learnt that the financial regulations are designed for helping the
stakeholders in making decisions so that assets, liabilities and their related values could be
identified clearly. This has changed my previous thoughts regarding the financial statements
that they only provide monetary information about the business organisations.
Before signing up for the course, I was in doubt how the financial statements help in
anticipating the future performance of an organisation, as only previous information is
provided by them. Now, I have learnt that despite providing useful information for the
decision-makers, certain crucial information is not mentioned in the financial statements.
They include current demand in the market, progresses in technology, raw material cost,
subsidies, moves of the rivals and natural acts (Maimbo and Melecky 2014).
This course has helped me in resolving my issues that I had previously between
financial accounting and management accounting. Henceforth, at the economic entity level,
the classification of the system of accounting is made in the form of internal, external as well
as tax accounting (Grant 2016). Now, I can estimate that a day might come when the

“Securities and Exchange Commission” might make it mandatory or voluntary for the US
public firms to prepare their financial statements in accordance with IFRS. I have learnt that
the growing IFRS acceptance in the global nations has helped in raising the knowledge of the
accountants and the preparers and auditors of the financial reports about the new rules
(Fischer 2015). However, these new IFRS rules have impacted the other professional areas as
well like valuation professionals and actuaries appointed by the management to enable in
gauging distinct assets as well as liabilities. This makes it necessary for the industrial sectors
and professional bodies to assimilate IFRS into their publications, training materials, testing
and programs related to certification. Moreover, I think the inclusion of IFRS in college and
university syllabuses will prove valuable for the students. Hence, textbooks mentioning IFRS
need to be circulated in all colleges and universities in the upcoming years (MacLennan
2017).
When I joined the course, I have sound familiarity regarding the way of distinguishing
and defining opportunity cost, relevant cost and outlay cost. By the end of this course, I have
gained a clear overview of the way of distinguishing between fixed cost and variable cost and
the advantages of defining the interrelation among cost, profit and volume. In addition, I have
developed an effective vision on the way of assuming break-even point for few activities
along with taking into account the break-even point for certain activity. Moreover, I have
accumulated effective knowledge of enterprise resource planning system and its working
procedures for eradicating the multiple system issues including financial as well as non-
financial data.
The experience and knowledge that I have accumulated by the end of this week will
make valuable contributions in my professional career and personal finances. When it comes
to personal finance, there is frequent use of the time value of money concept. The area that is
most significant to me in terms of personal finance is insurance. The maturity value of any

insurance policy after a stipulated timeframe is to be discounted effectively to the current
value so that the total receipts and payments could be found (Megginson and Whitaker 2017).
Generally, without discounting the absolute values, high profits are deemed to be observed in
the insurance contracts. Another example that I can use is the building that is taken on rent
and the payment structures vary. There are some rental contracts needing additional prepaid
payments; however, the periodical rents are lower. Under these circumstances, the current
value of future benefits is to be calculated arising out from all the contracts and accordingly,
the option fetching the greater current value is to be chosen. Finally, I would like to shed light
on the personal financing model related to loan option. It is evident that different banks
provide loans to the customers with different rates of interests, instalment amounts and
prepaid costs (Osadchy and Akhmetshin 2015). In order to decide the selection base, the time
value of money could be utilised for computing the cash flows of the provided loan options.
The option having the minimal initial investment should be selected.
However, a question often takes place for a student after completing his/her course to
implement the theoretical knowledge learned in the workplace where he/she is or will be
employed. I think I could not be counted out of this fact as well. This course has helped me to
learn a series of steps, which is helpful for applying theoretical knowledge to my current
organisation. Firstly, I will identify the business practices and operations in my organisation
having relevance with the course contents. Accordingly, I will attempt to identify the various
concepts, doctrines and regulations taught in the course that could be enforced within my
organisation. This will help me in gaining an overview of the differences associated with the
practices related to real business scenario and course contents. After obtaining such
knowledge, I will discuss the identified gaps with my immediate supervisors and department
managers and finally, the implemented outcomes would be compared with the desired
outcomes.

Another aspect that I have learned from this module is related to culture and ethics.
Previously, I believed that an organisation has several employees belonging to different
cultures and backgrounds; however, I do not have previous experience of working in groups.
In this course, I have worked in a group of four people including me, Dan North, Herman
Wagner and Nick Bolton. I have learned how teamwork actually takes place between people
of different nations and cultures. All of my group members are extremely helpful and
cooperating, since I found no issues at all to complete the case studies to be completed as a
group. We have shared responsibilities together and despite staying at a distance, no
problems are encountered at all. This will help me in my current organisation to work in
collaboration with the cross-border employees for completing any project assigned to us.
Ethics is another significant aspect that is crucial for any business organisation to
operate in the market (Shah 2017). For instance, this course has helped me to learn with the
help of ethical behaviour and corporate social responsibility; a business could enjoy
considerable benefits. It could draw the customers towards the products and hence, sales
revenue and profit could be boosted. In addition, I have learnt that the staffs could be retained
in the business by minimising their turnover rate with the help of proper ethical behaviour;
thereby, resulting in increased business productivity.
This course has helped me a lot in improving my key skills that include time
management, report writing and others. Timely submission of the tasks allotted per week is
mandatory in this course and failing to do the same would minimise a grade than the actual
obtained. This has helped me in learning that timely submission of projects in an organisation
is crucial as well, whereas, in opposition, it could lead to additional drainage of money and
lower amount of income (Walliman 2017). I have learned how to write business report by
assessing the feedbacks provided by our respected instructor regarding the collaboration and

initial responses. This has helped me in brushing in my writing skills and I can apply them in
my workplace to benefit the same.
Finally, I could say that my working group and virtual meeting room has helped me in
developing teamwork experience. All of my group members are extremely helpful and
cooperating, since I found no issues at all to complete the case studies to be completed as a
group. We have shared responsibilities together and despite staying at a distance, no
problems are encountered at all. This will help me in my current organisation to work in
collaboration with the cross-border employees for completing any project assigned to us. Last
but not the least, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Vangelis Tsiligiris, without
whom I would not have been able to gather the knowledge as of now. This course is going to
help me in excelling in my future career advancements.

References:
Eiteman, D.K., Stonehill, A.I. and Moffett, M.H., 2016. Multinational business finance.
Pearson Higher Ed.
Fischer, F., 2015. From Theory to Practice. Readings in Planning Theory, 348.
Gitman, L.J., Juchau, R. and Flanagan, J., 2015. Principles of managerial finance. Pearson
Higher Education AU.
Grant, R.M., 2016. Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition. John Wiley &
Sons.
MacLennan, N., 2017. Coaching and mentoring. Routledge.
Maimbo, S.M. and Melecky, M., 2014. Financial sector policy in practice: benchmarking
financial sector strategies around the world. The World Bank.
Megginson, D. and Whitaker, V., 2017. Continuing professional development. Kogan Page
Publishers.
Osadchy, E.A. and Akhmetshin, E.M., 2015. Development of the financial control system in
the company in crisis. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 6(5), p.390.
Shah, S., 2017. Comprehensive Personal Financial Planning (PFP) Process: An Empirical
Study. Anvesha, 10(2), pp.22-30.
Walliman, N., 2017. Research methods: The basics. Routledge.