[donnychristal]

i am so sick of listening to the ‘highlight’ lecture for couple of hours and being confused of all the concepts.

what’s the best way to get a grasp of the governmental accounting part???

FAR - 75
AUD - 64/71
BEC - 85

[jbarwick]

What don't you understand about governmental? Giving examples as it will be easier to offer help.

Journey Started - January 2015
FAR - 4/2015 - Passed
AUD - 7/2015 - Passed
BEC - 8/2015 - Passed
REG - 11/12/2015 - Passed

[jschrei2]

Well, I learned governmental accounting by actually working in government so maybe I'm not the best person to ask, but for areas that I was struggling with, I found it best to work MCQ's like it's you job. Just pound them until you can't stand it anymore. Also, not only understand why the correct answer is correct, but why the other answers are incorrect. Governmental really is a different ballgame. I would say just try your best and understand that you're probably not going to be an expert in governmental, but you do need a general understanding. I will say however, that it did seem like I had quite a few governmental questions when I took FAR (lucky for me!). Just hang in there, hopefully it will “click” eventually.

FAR- 88
REG- 88
AUD- 93
BEC-86

[LongShot]

I had the “advantage” of working for state govt before taking FAR (it helped with the test, but set my career back years), so I'm not sure how much help I can be. Just understand that government accounting is not real accounting and it will never make sense. A=L+SE is not true in government-there's no such thing as SE and there's also no such thing as profit (as far as accounting records are concerned anyway). My best advice would be to approach it like you're probably approaching IFRS-learn what's different. Assume everything's normal GAAP and just learn the exceptions and terminology. It sucks, sure, but that's probably the best way to go about it.

FAR - 75
AUD - 72; 87
REG - 64; 74; 84
BEC - 88

Done!!

[donnychristal]

Thanks guys! The area I am struggling the most now is the classification of funds. and also all those restricted nonrestricted fund balance.

One quick question here is: the expendable interest and principal is said to be put in special revenue fund. but isnt that supposed to be in debit service fund? just so confused.

FAR - 75
AUD - 64/71
BEC - 85

[quittingcpa2013]

Expendable trust funds for public are special revenue funds for which interest and principal may be expended. <– this was one of the changes due to GASB 34

“Debt service funds are required only when legally mandated and/or when resources are being accumulated for general long-term debt principal and interest payments maturing in future years”

Governmental Accounting is pretty confusing but I guess that's because the government is pretty confused.

[Anonymous]

For FAR, I put all the different funds and how they can be reported on flashcards and then set them up on the floor in order.

It really helped to see everything differently and really pumped up my understanding of Govt/NFP.

[Author]

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