Alphabet Accounting Podcast

Welcome to the Alphabet Accounting Podcast – brought to you by Warwick Business School.

Join Professor Lisa Weaver and Associate Professor Jodie Lucas as they take you on an A–Z journey through the essential concepts and terminology used throughout the BSc Accounting & Finance degree.

Each episode unpacks a key word or phrase explaining what it means, why it matters, and how it connects to real-world accounting and financial decision-making. Whether you're a current student, preparing to apply, or just curious about the language of finance, this podcast will help demystify the subject one letter at a time.

To find out more about our BSc Accounting & Finance degree visit: https://www.wbs.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/accounting-and-finance/

In this episode, we will be covering Assets and Amortisation. 

Assets: What is an Asset? We'll be including non-current assets and current asset examples.

Amortisation: We'll explore the definition of Amortisation and how it impacts the accounts and examples of factors which impact the useful estimated life.

In this episode, we will be discussing the Accruals Concept, Accounting Period and Accounting Estimates. 

Accruals Concept: What is meant by this fundamental concept? And we'll provide an example of how this matching concept.

Accounting Period: We discuss what is meant by the Accounting period and what a company can choose as their year-end.

Accounting Estimate: in addition to examples of accruals and amortisation discussed in the podcast, we also give some extra examples of the Accounting Estimates to help you understand that accounting is an exact science.

In this episode, we explain ARGA, Authorised Shared Capital and one of our favourite words, Audit. 

ARGA: Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA), who they are and what ARGA does.

Audit: an overall introduction to what an external audit is and why large companies need an Audit due to the divorce of ownership and management.

Authorised Shared Capital: A distinction is explained between authorised share capital, being the number of shares a company may issue and the actual issued share capital, which is shown on the Statement of Financial Position.

We move on to our next letter, starting things off with Balance Sheet, Biological Assets and Brands. 

Balance Sheet: aka Statement of Financial Position. The statement is briefly explained.

Biological Assets: definition of what is meant by Biological Assets, some examples and an overview of how they are measured.

Brands: definition of Brands, examples of the accounting treatment for purchased and internally generated Brands and link back to A and Amortisation

We have quite a few words on this one, starting with Bad Debts then Big Bath provisions. To round out the episode, we combine discussions on Bank Overdraft and Borrowing Costs.

Bad Debts: definition of Bad Debt, discussion of how this itself is also an accounting estimate and a brief discussion on how companies decide which debts may be irrecoverable on their ledger.

Big Bath Provisions: A definition of provision, and an example of how companies used to be able to use big bath provisions to smooth out the impact on their accounts and how accounting standards changes have now resolved this problem.

Bank Overdraft: What is meant by overdraft, and the difference between having an overdraft facility in place and how you account for an overdraft once it's been utilised?

Borrowing Costs: What are Borrowing Costs, alternative terms used for Borrowing Costs and a brief look at how it is accounted for and presented when shown in the statement of profit or loss account.

In part 1 of our Cs, we have Capital Expenditure (or CapEx for short), Carrying Value and Current Assets. We then explain all things credit with a review of Creditor, Credit Control and Credit Note. To finish off the episode is a bit on Current Ratio. 

In part 2 of Letter C, we unpick what is meant be Cost of Sales, Carried Down/Brought Down and explain what a Contingent Liability and Contingent Asset are. 

In part 3, we begin by decoding the Cash Flow Statement and then understanding why Cash Doesn't Equal Profit. Stay tuned for a speedy exploration of Cash Equivalents and insights into Consolidation and Control. 

In our final episode on C, we look at 4 more words and phrases. We start with a thorough discussion about Corporate Governance before a shorter one on the Companies Act. After that, we look at Confidentiality and then another bigger discussion on what is meant by Creative Accounting.