Study on the Construction of Multi-functional Comprehensive Accounting Laborator

（School of Management,Yulin University, Yulin, Shaanxi, 719000）

Abstract. Accounting is a course which emphasizes the theory and the practice. The problems of college accounting in training teaching are mainly caused by the accounting laboratory to some extent. Therefore, the construction of multi-functional comprehensive accounting laboratory is of great significance. The multi-functional comprehensive accounting laboratory should include the basic laboratory, the intermediate laboratory and the advanced laboratory those three levels of laboratory. The mode of accounting training is also changed. Finally, the specific steps of the multi-functional comprehensive accounting laboratory’s construction are also proposed in this paper.

Key words: Multi-functional,comprehensive,accounting laboratory, training

1 The existing problems of college accounting

training teaching

1.1 The disjunction of accounting theoretical teaching and accounting actual business or practical cases

It can be described outstandingly in two aspects: for the teaching materials, the financial accounting textbooks are taken as the example, in which the accounting standards are basically explained or described. The background, the experience, the steps, the process and the adopted certificates of accounting business are not introduced. For the teaching methods, the “indoctrination” teaching method is employed. The case teaching and the modern means are seldom adopted to reproduce the real scene of business processes. The ability of analyzing and solving problems of students cannot be well cultivated.

1.2 The disjunction of the hardware facilities and the software facilities in accounting laboratory

Currently, most colleges cannot well understand the construction standards and the teaching functions of accounting laboratory. They only emphasize the investment of hardware and ignore the investment of software. At the same time, the practical information is single, small and simple so that the construction of accounting laboratory has hovered at a low level position for many years. What’s more, the purpose of constructing the laboratory in some colleges is to cope with the teaching assessment of the Ministry of Education. These laboratory resources will be seldom used after being assessed.

1.3 The disjunction of accounting manual simulation experiments and accounting computerization experiments

At present, the accounting manual laboratory and the accounting computerization laboratory have been set in most colleges. However, the non-connection two-wire mode has been employed in the curriculum. The accounting software data used by accounting computerization has nothing to do with the manual simulation data. The manual experimental results cannot be further verified through the computers. The organic contact and the cross-validation of them cannot be reflected.

1.4 Lack of practice bases and standardized management tools in the off-campus internship

With the increase of school enrollment, most colleges have adopted the method that the students will find the internship units by themselves and the guidance teachers will guide them. The relevant departments of internship units and the accounting departments are responsible for the practice activities of students. They will give the specific guidance and supervision to the students according to the internship requirements of school. When the internship is finished, the internship units will provide the internship reviews and the internship performance. Afterwards, these reviews will be sent to the guidance teachers who can give the results by a certain percentage.

1.5 The laboratories cannot be shared

The relevant majors or the relevant disciplines have respectively set up the laboratories. These laboratories are not communicated and they are disjointed. On the one hand, the accounting manual practice is disjointed with the experiments of financial management, auditing and tax planning. The ability of students to handle the accounting work cannot be fully exercised. On the other hand, the accounting computerization courses only involve with the simulation training of financial software, which are disjointed with the important application courses such as the computerized financial management and the computer auditing, etc.

2 Basic functions of multi-functional comprehensive accounting laboratory

The multi-functional comprehensive accounting experimental projects rely on the construction of laboratories with various functions. The following functional laboratories should be contained:

2.1 Basic laboratory

The basic laboratories include the manual simulation laboratory, the computerized laboratory, the auditing laboratory, the cost accounting laboratory and the corporate management decision-making center laboratory. The training project refers to the validation experiments in basic courses. The training purpose is to establish the laboratories with the basic skills and the basic technical operations. The purpose of experiments is to make the students master the professional skills so as to achieve the basic requirements of professional quality: they should understand the processing operation of manual documents, account books and reports; they should be familiar with the training mode accounting software and obtain the software application certificate; they should learn to use the software to deal with the actual business; they should master the auditing processes and the basic operations; they should be familiar with the corporate finance and the fund management; they should experience the application of bank-enterprise interlink (centralized management of funds) and the remote reimbursement center management.

2.2 Intermediate laboratory

The intermediate laboratory includes the ERP sandbox laboratory, the ERP simulation laboratory and the group finance laboratory. The training project refers to some comprehensive and design experiments in the professional courses of management. The purpose of training is to use the advanced management ideas and management concepts to conduct the prediction, the decision analysis, the financial supervision and control, the financial analysis, the production operation management and the human resource management. At the same time, the ability of management and analysis of students can be also cultivated: the cognition of the operation processes of enterprises, the experience of business activities and the improvement of operation ability; the enhancement of management quality and the centralized financial management training; the simulation experience of centralized fund management and training management; the comprehensive practice of simulating the corporate operations in school; the entrepreneurship and operations.

2.3 Advanced laboratory

The advanced laboratory includes the simulation laboratory of the market operations. It is the laboratory where the teachers, the researchers and the outstanding senior students complete the project topics.

3 Training mode of multi-functional comprehensive accounting laboratory

The multi-functional comprehensive accounting laboratory can complete the experience of concrete practice through adopting the following new teaching models:

3.1 Demonstration experiment

The teachers can use the accounting experimental teaching software and adopt the animation, the pictures and the sound to produce the multimedia courseware. Combined with the explanation of teachers, the whole processes of preparing the documents, bookkeeping and preparing the reports will be demonstrated to the students so as to make them have a comprehensive understanding for the whole process of accounting. In the process of experimental teaching, the teachers can also present the experimental television materials at any time according to the needs of teaching in order to solve the key content and the difficult problems in the practice tutorship of teachers.

3.2 Simulation training mode in groups

The simulation training in groups can make the students simulate the transfer of some relevant documents of the personnel in the business department, the transportation department and the accounting department of supplier units, transport units and purchases units. At the same time,the cashiers in accounting department can settle the accounts with the documents in the bank of virtual enterprises. This operation will teach through lively activities, which can greatly active the teaching atmosphere and enhance the perceptions of students.

3.3 Practice simulated in different modules and different stages

The module experiment takes the chapters of theoretical textbook as the experimental unit and the experiments are respectively organized according to the progress of theoretical teaching. Then, the students will have an intuitive understanding for the application of the relevant theoretical knowledge in the practical operation after learning a chapter, which can further deepen the understanding and the grasp for the theoretical knowledge. After learning an accounting professional course, the students will be arranged to simulate the enterprises to design a set of accounting process flow business which is consistent with the teaching objectives for one or two weeks. Afterwards, the students can practice a complete accounting process, which is from the simulation of an enterprise to build a new account to a series of basic accounting business processing such as handling the original certificate, filling in the vouchers, registering the books and preparing the accounting reports, etc.

3.4 Practice mode of comprehensive simulation

The comprehensive simulation practice is usually conducted before the employment when the students finish their professional courses. Then, the ability of students to comprehensively use the professional knowledge can be improved. It is no longer the repetition of stage simulation practice and it belongs to the high-level accounting simulation practice. The key of simulation refers to the content that the enterprises connect with the external economic operation environment, which can fully reflect the relationship between the enterprises and other business.

4 Construction steps of multi-functional comprehensive accounting laboratory

4.1 Formation of laboratory construction team

It is required to form the construction team of laboratory and develop the scientific and rational teaching objectives and plans of accounting practice. From the configuration of the hardware facilities such as the field of experimental teaching to the structure, the content and the system of experimental courses, the organization and the writing of experimental materials and case information, the scientific integration of various disciplines, the configuration of the teaching software of various disciplines, the preparation of the multimedia courseware of simulation teaching and the construction of the experimental network platform which is related to the course content and so on, all of them indicate that this is a complex system engineering. Therefore, the plan of the laboratory construction can be divided into the immediate plans and the long-term plans. The length of planning is determined by the school conditions, the funds situation and the human resources.

4.2 Experimental sites and preparation of facilities

When selecting the experimental sites, it is required to distinguish the accounting manual simulation room and the comprehensive information simulation room. The main function of accounting manual simulation room refers that this laboratory is conducive to the manual operations of students as well as the preparation and the presentation of software, courseware and simulation of live action. The main functions of accounting comprehensive information simulation room include: the single manual simulation and the computerized simulation of various disciplines can be experienced and verified; the comprehensive simulation and the analysis testing of various disciplines can be conducted; the financial software and the multimedia courseware of various disciplines can be played and presented; the ERP sand table can be displayed, operated and experienced.

4.3 Selection of the appropriate manufacturing enterprises

Firstly, it is required to conduct the technical innovation for the business data of an accounting cycle in the enterprises according to the pre-established experimental curriculum system so as to meet the demands of the single experiment of accounting disciplines and the comprehensive experiments of relevant disciplines. Then, it is conducive to the preparation of the simulation experimental materials used in the comprehensive training after the data of single discipline and various disciplines being integrated. Secondly, it is necessary to buy and develop the financial software which can be used by various disciplines. Based on this, the software interfaces of various disciplines should be designed so as to adapt to the requirements of the information sharing and comprehensive simulation of various disciplines.

4.4 Construction of local area network environment

It is required to adopt the high-end servers and the whole laboratory can be changed into the local area network environment through connecting with the switch, through connecting the campus network with the Internet, which makes the students can access the financial software resources of laboratory through the campus network. At the same time, it is also necessary to install various development tools and applications. A variety of information simulation environment can be simulated according to the demands. What’s more, it also has the powerful data processing capacity and it has been equipped with a lot of application soft wares involving with the aspects of finance, accounting, taxation, auditing and management which can be largely used in teaching activities and researches.

4.5 Design of using content

It is required to take full account of the experimental purpose, the focus and the difficulties in terms of the construction of experimental curriculum system and experimental content. The experimental contents should be established in different levels: the first level refers to the single simulation experiment, namely the single course experiment of accounting major; the second level refers to the comprehensive simulation experiment of accounting major, which includes two aspects: the first aspect is the combination experiment of similar disciplines and the second aspect is the comprehensive experiment of various disciplines involved with accounting major; the third level refers to the enterprise resource planning which is related to the business administration and accounting major as well as the sandbox simulation operation experiment which is coordinated with the planning.

4.6 Construction of experimental materials and experimental data

According to the above content of experimental courses and the idea of course system, it is required to grasp the comprehensive, typical, scientific and reasonable principle to collect, organize and write the experimental teaching materials. In the process of writing experimental materials, the following problems should be paid attention to: ①the manufacturing enterprises with typical business and moderate size should be taken as the core and the accounting experimental data of other industries and non-profit organization should be also taken into account. Then, the students can use these data in and out of class; ②the experimental materials should fully consider the demands of accounting information environment; ③some typical cases and accounting regulation data should be written in the experimental materials. At the same time, it is also required to design a lot of thinking questions so as to guide the students to discuss and analyze. Afterwards, the professional judgment ability of students can be cultivated and the professional ethics as well as the law-abiding awareness of students can be strengthened; ④the single practice should be combined with the comprehensive practice in the experimental materials. This is also the difficulty in the construction of teaching materials, especially the comprehensiveness and the innovation of cross-discipline; ⑤the experimental data in the experimental materials should be timely updated and completed so as to form the applicable and high-quality teaching material system.

4.7 Construction of simulation environment and experimental conditions

The good experimental content and the experimental data should be well coordinated with the good experimental conditions or simulation environment design. Otherwise, the expected results will be not obtained. Therefore, the diverse comprehensive accounting experimental conditions should be designed. This condition or environment should be integrated into the whole experimental environment of economic management and students should exposure to the diverse simulation environment, which can not only deepen the students’ grasp of the professional skills and the methods of accounting, but also fully cultivate the communication skills and the organization skills of students.

4.8 Evaluation of experimental results

It is required to establish the experimental means, the experimental methods and the evaluation methods of experimental results. If the accounting simulation experiment tries to obtain the desired results, the experimental means and methods should be modernized, diverse and flexible. From the accounting manual simulation experiment to the accounting computerization experiment, from the knowledge in book to the practical knowledge, from the classroom teaching to the review after class and the homework, from the professional knowledge to the extension of knowledge, the computer network technology and the multimedia technology should be widely integrated into them. In other words, the modern multi-functional accounting simulation room should be adopted to combine the simulation combat with the theory, combine the generic data with the real data and combine the campus experiment with the off-campus internship. Afterwards, the advantages of each aspect can be better complemented and the students can personally experience and feel in the real atmosphere so as to get the real and effective training.

References

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