Twelve training sessions

How to run a session

Each session takes about an hour. The shape is the same every time:

1. Open the business in ByteBook: in the sidebar, under Set up, choose Practice businesses. The cards are labelled by trade; find the trade named in the session and press Start this business.
2. Do the task in the application. The task always ends with a document or a number somebody else could check.
3. Run the assurance procedures and write down what they found.
4. Mark it against the note at the end of the session.

Marking is where the learning happens, so do not skip step four.

Session 1 — Bright Cuts (hairdressing, no GST)

In the app: Practice businesses → Hairdressing (the books of Bright Cuts) → Start this business.

Task: Raise three invoices, record two payments, and produce the profit and loss report for the quarter.

Marking note: The business is not registered for GST, so no GST appears on any document, no GST return is expected, and the invoice totals equal the revenue. A candidate who records a GST figure has applied last week's habit instead of reading the settings. Look for evidence that they checked the registration status before invoicing.

Session 2 — Kōwhai Advisory (consulting, payments basis)

In the app: Practice businesses → Consulting (the books of Kōwhai Advisory) → Start this business.

Task: Work out the GST return for the quarter, then explain why the figure changes if you switch the period to include the following month.

Marking note: The business files on the payments basis, so a March invoice paid in May belongs in the later period. The correct answer explains that the basis moves the transaction, not the invoice date. The most common wrong answer treats the invoice date as decisive.

Session 3 — Tasman Builders Ltd (construction, stage payments)

In the app: Practice businesses → Construction (the books of Tasman Builders Ltd) → Start this business.

Task: Explain, for one contract, why more than one invoice is raised, and what each invoice recognises.

Marking note: Revenue is recognised as each performance obligation is satisfied NZ IFRS 15.31. Each stage invoice recognises the work transferred in that stage, not the whole contract at the first invoice and not on receipt of money. Look for the phrase as the work is done, and for a candidate who can say what would change if the whole contract were invoiced up front.

Session 4 — Harbour Cafe & Co (hospitality, volume)

In the app: Practice businesses → Hospitality (the books of Harbour Cafe & Co) → Start this business.

Task: Open the bank reconciliation. Read the ledger balance, the statement balance saved with the business and its date, and the difference. Explain what the page is testing, and what document a real reconciliation needs. Then explain how one lump deposit covers several trading days.

Marking note: The first lesson is that a reconciliation is evidence only if the balance compared comes from an outside document — here the statement the business was built from — and that a saved balance has a date for a reason. The second is tying the money in the bank to the money rung up: every line accounted for, and an explanation in words of why a deposit and a day's takings are not the same number. Mark down an answer that only says "the balances match" without explaining either point.

Session 5 — Loom & Light (online retail, refunds)

In the app: Practice businesses → Online retail (the books of Loom & Light) → Start this business.

Task: Find the voided invoice and the reversal it produced, explain what each one did to revenue and GST, and then finish and post the draft invoice.

Marking note: The reversal corrects the sale it belongs to. Revenue and GST both come back down, and the period it lands in is the period it happens. A candidate who treats the reversal as a new negative sale in a later period has the arithmetic right and the period wrong — and the GST reconciliation procedure will show it. The draft invoice is there to test whether "post" and "pay" are still understood as two separate events.

Session 6 — Marine Parade Rentals (residential property, exempt income)

In the app: Practice businesses → Residential property (the books of Marine Parade Rentals) → Start this business.

Task: Read the GST return for the period and explain where the exempt rent has gone, and what the return says about GST on the costs of the residential property.

Marking note: Exempt rent is income but it is outside the GST return: it is not in box 5 or box 8, and GST on costs relating to it is not claimable. The strongest answers notice that box 5 therefore holds only the commercial rent and any other taxable supplies, and that the return's purchases and credits should contain only the taxable side of the property costs. That apportionment is the trap in this exercise and the reason the business is in the set.

Session 7 — Whirinaki Contracting (horticulture, six-monthly)

In the app: Practice businesses → Horticulture (the books of Whirinaki Contracting) → Start this business.

Task: Save the six-monthly return as a snapshot and reconcile it to the ledger.

Marking note: A longer period contains more transactions and more chances for a misfiled one. The mark is for the reconciliation, not the total: the candidate should be able to show that the GST in the return is the GST in the ledger, transaction by transaction, rather than asserting that the totals match.

Session 8 — Foundry Labs (software, no revenue)

In the app: Practice businesses → Software (the books of Foundry Labs) → Start this business.

Task: Produce a balance sheet and a profit and loss report for a business with no income, and explain what each one says.

Marking note: This is the session that separates people who can read reports from people who can produce them. With no revenue, the profit and loss report is all costs, and the balance sheet is where the money went. A strong answer explains that a growing loss with a falling bank balance and rising creditors describes a business being funded by someone, and names who.

Session 9 — Marine Parade Dental (health, security on)

In the app: Practice businesses → Health (the books of Marine Parade Dental) → Start this business.

Task: Switch security on, set up three roles, do a piece of bookkeeping as the general manager, and run the assurance procedures as the auditor.

Marking note: The two things to look for are that the owner had set a password before any other sign-in could be switched on, and that the candidate noticed they could not change anything as the auditor. That second observation is the learning objective of the session.

Session 10 — Ngata Plumbing Ltd (trades, a busy statement)

In the app: Practice businesses → Trades (the books of Ngata Plumbing Ltd) → Start this business.

Task: Reconcile the bank, run the assurance procedures, and write a working-paper note on what the clean result does and does not prove. Then record the same manual payment twice — same amount, same description, same week — and show that A08 reports the pair.

Marking note: Mark the explanations, not the exceptions. "The reconciliation agrees" is an observation. "The reconciliation agrees because every line is coded and the closing balance is the statement's balance at its date, so the bank is accounted for" is a finding. The deliberate duplicate is the second half: the candidate should be able to say which procedure noticed it (A08 looks for the same amount described the same way inside a week), why an honest pair can look like a duplicate, and what the correction must leave behind. Run Start over afterwards so the business is clean for the next person.

Session 11 — Pacific Trading Ltd (wholesale, inventory)

In the app: Practice businesses → Wholesale (the books of Pacific Trading Ltd) → Start this business.

Task: Read the balance sheet and the profit and loss for the year ended 30 June, find the bills to the overseas suppliers, and explain how the stock bought and sold shows up in those reports — then say how you would value the stock left on the shelves.

Marking note: Inventories are measured at the lower of cost and net realisable value NZ IAS 2.9, and cost is assigned using first-in, first-out or a weighted average NZ IAS 2.25. ByteBook records the purchases and the sales; it does not keep a stock ledger, so the closing valuation is the candidate's own calculation and should show its working. The strongest answers say what they would do if the selling price fell: the write-down is recognised in the period it happens NZ IAS 2.28.

Session 12 — Precision Engineering Ltd (engineering, the rounding trap)

In the app: Practice businesses → Engineering (the books of Precision Engineering Ltd) → Start this business.

Task: Open an invoice and multiply one line out by hand, then read what ByteBook stored. Find the bank line whose amount does not match the invoice it pays. Show, from the trial balance and A14, that the two sides agree to the cent and the reports reproduce from the rows.

Marking note: This is the session that rewards patience. Money is handled as decimal cents, rounded half up, so a figure on a screen is the figure in the file. A candidate who finds a discrepancy should be able to say whether it came from a rounding rule, a GST split, or a miscoding — and should be able to show which entry caused it by reading the general ledger rather than the report.

Marking the whole course

Check	What a pass looks like
The numbers	The reports are reproduced from the rows by procedure A14
The record	No broken links in the chain; sealed periods verify
The reasoning	Every conclusion names the evidence behind it
The references	Every standard cited by paragraph, not by name
The honesty	Exceptions are reported with their cause, not hidden