Assessment 1: Steps 2-5

Step 2: Links

Moodle account link: https://moodle.cqu.edu.au/user/profile.php?id=75898
Personal blog link: https://daniellas.school.blog/

Step 3: KCQ’s and My Company

Melbourne IT

An Australian company focused on providing excellent outcomes for small to medium businesses. Melbourne IT appears to have a long history, strong foundations and a demonstrated track record in delivering top tier cloud and data services to large government and corporate firms. I am interested in this company because I have not had much to do with website building and marketing in my personal or professional life.

Link to Melbourne IT website: https://www.melbourneit.com.au/

Melbourne IT helps businesses to build an online presence by creating, promoting and hosting websites, domains and social designs. Melbourne IT also provides website security, trademarks and do-it-for your website construction. I think Melbourne IT is such an innovative and futuristic company dedicated to helping busy business owners reach their marketing and online goals and, stay relevant in what is a technology-driven future. A lot of business owners might not be as tech-savvy and may struggle even to begin a website, let alone create a domain and market themselves through Google, Yahoo and Amazon.

2018 was a year of significant growth and change for Melbourne IT. In May 2018, the firm merged and re branded under the ARQ Group, now a group dedicated to providing a one-stop-shop for all online customer relations, design and marketing needs. ARQ Group help with data analysis and cloud storage. Under the new re brand, ARQ Group will now be able to offer digital services to all businesses, from small all the way through to large corporate and government organisations. Brands and services currently provided under ARQ Group include Outware, InfoReady, WebCentral and Domainz plus many more. Since the merge, revenue has increased by 8%, cash flow is up by 36%, and the company has just entered a three-year $142 million finance facility with both ANZ and NAB. When I realised that my company had merged under another company I freaked out and thought that it would change my financial reports a LOT, however, there were no changes to the financial statements at all. After my freak out, I went to the ARQ Group website to find out what they were about. It turns out that Melbourne IT and ARQ Group are very similar in the industry, where Melbourne IT provided online services for small businesses, that may be getting left behind in the technology ridden future, ARQ Group appears to have offered similar services for large and corporate companies. This do-over seems very fruitful for the future prosperity of the group, in the fact that all businesses can access these services under the one company allowing for more consumer diversity.

Link to ARQ Group: https://arq.group/

Further research outside of the Melbourne IT and ARQ Group website showed that at the end of 2017 Melbourne IT reported a net profit of $14 million after tax on revenue of $197.8 million. To me this seems like a massive ‘win’ and would suggest the company is doing very well. Although, at the same time it still held $54 mil worth of debt it does appear to be covered by their assets.

Before merging under the ARQ Group share prices were increasing steadily and dividends were being paid out at around 7 cents a share. ARQ Group’s share price has taken quite a drop since Aug 2018 from around $3.30 to 0.38 cents. This is a staggering drop in price considering that they have signed the three-year agreement with ANZ and NAB, had some notable projects in recent years and hold parentage over Melbourne IT and some other notable companies. Perhaps prices will rise in the future.

Notable projects this year include the development and launch of Linkt Go application for smartphones and tablets. Using GPS technology to accurately track when and where users enter and exit toll roads. In the first six months since the release of Linkt Go, the application has been downloaded more than 50,000 times and has won multiple awards. Personally, I have never used Linkt Go because I rarely travel through toll roads, but the few times that I have, it has always been a hassle having to set up your travel information and registration number to avoid getting late toll fees. I think this is a wonderful step into the future and it is exciting to see an Australian company behind it.

When I came to my companies’ financial statement, I was little overwhelmed by the sheer number of pages and detail contained within it. I had assumed it would just include the finances of the company and not future goals and leading staff roles within the company. Over the past five years, the company has grown each year significantly. According to the financial reports, there haven’t been any ‘bad’ years, and with the recent merger into the ARQ Group, it would seem nothing can slow them down. It looks like they have some big plans and goals to conquer in the coming years and the director, who has helped his position for over five years, seems very driven to achieving them. They have the right amount of equity and a diverse range of assets to cover the liabilities and more. Melbourne It had specific industry only expenses within their financial statements, for example ‘registry of domain names’ where the company both holds assets and liabilities.

Link to financial statements: https://arq.group/investor-centre/annual-reports

Overall, I have really enjoyed learning about Melbourne It and subsequently the ARQ Group. It is impressive to see the inner workings, goals and finances on just one company within Australia. I am looking forward to Assessment 2 where I get to discover their financial statements in a little more detail

Other student’s blogs:

The student blog that I have enjoyed the most is, Amy McClelland’s. Amy’s blog is a pleasure to read and she puts her own twist and sense of humour into her blog posts, which is refreshing. It is also nice to see another mother such as myself, heading back into study again after a long time out of school. I believe Amy is thorough in her analyse of the study guide and honest in her opinions and experiences. Her blog is a journey of discovery, her own personal touches of family photos and quirky quotes make it my number one.
Link to Amy’s blog: https://thedailyamy.home.blog/

The second student blog that I have found interesting is, Jewel’s. Jewel’s blog is neat and professionally laid out, the links to blog posts are easy to find. Her reflective writing is exceptional, and she is great at linking her personal experiences to her study guide chapters in her KCQ’s. Although Jewel was a little disheartened with her feedback from assessment one, she has taken it in her stride and isn’t letting it slow her down.
Link to Jewel’s blog: https://accountingisaccrualworld.news.blog/

Lastly, is Rebecca’s: I love her Indigenous art style background. I also appreciate that she is open and honest in her about me, she explains why she is coming back to university again to study. Rebecca is proud of her ancestry and involvement within the indigenous community, her little snippets of Indigenous language ‘kaya’ (hello) and yawore (goodbye) give the blog a more personal touch and open the way for cultural appreciation.
Link to Rebecca’s blog: https://becxsstudy.school.blog/

Studiosity review

I thought studiosity was an enjoyable experience over-all, I will use it again in the future. It was quick, having sent my draft in at around 9am and receiving feedback by around midday the same day is exceptional. I have 2 economics essays and a law case study coming up, and I intend to submit my assessments through Studiosity before final submission. My feedback was constructive; however, my draft was treated as an essay, so the comments I received were to do with structure and not having a thesis statement to begin all my paragraphs. Although I believe this to be important for academic essays, I have not used this style for my KCQ’s. Instead, I have used a more reflective and free-flowing thought style for my writing. In Conclusion, any future essays I have I will be sending them off to Studiosity, I don’t think you can ever have enough feedback on assignments and a new perspective could make all the difference in final marks.

Step 5 KCQ’s Chapter 2-3

I will be honest I have not been enjoying this unit much, I am finding that there is a lot involved and the sheer number of folders and requirements for the assessments is genuinely overwhelming. I am beginning to stress out that I am falling behind, and it is only the first assessment. Upon starting chapter 2 of the study guide, I was interested in discovering what kind of game accounting might be and the rules involved I never would have thought of accounting as a game of business, more a game of number manipulation. It seems to me that accounting, as with most companies, is about trust and the trust is maintained and upheld by specific laws and regulations. These laws and regulations are enforced by boards and authorities such as the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).

I am intrigued by how much my other units this term, Foundations of Business Law and Principles of Economics all are linked to this unit and presumably future units. For instance, through business law, I am learning how the law works, where to find it and how to interpret it and for economics, I am learning about the trends of supply and demand and how firms make financial decisions based on the data they have. Integrating my current learning into the different units is fun and is making it a lot easier to understand the key concepts involved. An example from this unit would be the ‘rules’ around the Corporations Act. Because I am studying business law, I know where to find the Corporations Act and interpret what it entails. What I have also found interesting is the supposed unwritten rules surrounding accounting practices. I believe this will be something I grasp later in my degree.

It seems to me that the game of accounting it all about making connections, either through financial statements, professionally or networking. My husband is currently in the process of a career change, studying to become a mortgage broker. Something he has learnt recently is that ‘an accountant is a mortgage brokers best friend’ mainly due to the unending networking and personal interactions involved in accounting. Due to this, an accountant can often refer to multiple clients, from all walks of life to a mortgage broker. How exciting.

The notion that firms are restricted by rules set out by authorities in their own countries is a strange concept to me. I can fully understand the fundamental need for local governing bodies. However, it leaves a lot of room for unethical practices for international firms or even local firms that keep offshore accounts and records. I remember seeing quite a lot of this in the media over the years, and it is fascinating that it is still common practice. Perhaps there should be an entirely separate international authority that decides and enforced a set of universal rules and regulations to ensure all big corporations act within a certain standard. This is just my thoughts anyway.

The idea that reading the financial statements of a company is like getting to know someone new is a creative way of thinking about it. So much so that it has made the whole process less daunting than reading 50+ page booklet of numbers and future goals. The concept of Chris and Sarah gives the topic of financial statements a fun edge in what could be an unriveting topic. Before reading the third chapter, I was feeling very overwhelmed at the prospect of having to shift through all the pages in the financial statements to find the information I needed to complete my assessment. I was especially taken aback by the endless number of footnotes that all link to items within the financial statements I would be using. Would I have to read all the notes? Would I have to put these into the end of the spreadsheet? Martin’s explanations of what all the four financial statements entail and what they are used for has given me a better understanding of what the game of accounting is about. It is clear to me why the financial statements are essential to investors, who are looking to make the best investment for the future, with their money. Unlike Martin’s company Ryman Healthcare, my company was a singular entity until 2018, when it merged under a parent group called ARQ Group. The idea that companies can oversee or be the parent to such staggering amounts of other smaller companies is quite bewildering. For me, having an objective view while reading through my firm’s financial reports has helped me to gain a realistic perspective of the personal characteristics of my firm, and it has given me an interesting vantage point of how different firms have diverse expenses, unique to their industry. A little like job skills.

I personally have never been interested in starting my own business, in fact, accounting is the closest I have come to try to understand the inner workings of companies., a concept that was quite a shock to me. Although I have worked for both small and international companies alike, I have not thought about what it must be like to juggle and oversee so many aspects all at once, to keep the business running smoothly. The numerous assets held by each company is fascinating to me. And, the diversity of some of these assets is equally impressive, anything from cash to property to shares. Overall, to me, the assets are like leverage for the firm, a back-up if you will, to ensure future security if it should fall on hard times.