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Interesting Lectures and Seminars

Discussion on Awareness and Measurement
"Practical Accounting Workshop"

Mr. Tetsuya Sakamaki
2nd year student at the Graduate School of Accounting

Corporate accounting expresses a business's economic activities in numerical values and words and has the role of reporting the results of the business's activities to concerned parties such as stock holders and investors. However when businesses try to make their operating situation look better by doctoring the contents of reports, in some cases the accounting is fraudulent, and investors along with others suffer great losses. Why is it that these kinds of incidents occur? There are many reasons, but one reason is that a quality of corporate accounting is that in it subjective decisions such as "estimates" and "assessments" are unavoidable. Therefore, in order to ensure the processes of making these types of decisions are specified, corporate accounting standards that serve as a method for accurately calculating and reporting the operating results of business, along with financial auditing standards that guarantee the accuracy of reported information, have been established in Japan.

However because practical accounting is becoming more complex with each passing day, difficult cases involving these kinds of decisions that could not have been foreseen when the Japanese accounting standards were created appear frequently in actual companies. In this workshop, we discuss themes based on many examples of this kind of "gray area" in small groups that change with every discussion. In order to clarify the stance of various opinions, participants are given roles such as business executive, auditing CPA, or analyst, making this an extremely realistic lecture that requires responsible opinions.

The participants become familiar with the practices and customs of businesses, and the lecture is also a place where the ability to think required as businessperson is forged by the critiques and sharp revelations of Professor Mochinaga, who participates in the front-lines of financial auditing. He covers topics from the nature of capital markets and financial administration to the Japanese revitalization theory. Also, the lecture provides peace of mind in knowing that we have prepared in advance for the thought process required when we graduate students of accounting actually work as accounting specialists in the future.

(Offered by WASEDA WEEKLY)