Why teach Accounting Curriculum with Simulation and Gamification

Oct 30, 2023

Key Points

Accounting is more than just financial recording; it influences business decisions.

Simulation and gamification add value to teaching accounting.

MonsoonSIM improves learning outcomes and concept understanding.

Teachers become facilitators, encouraging self-directed learning.

MonsoonSIM offers configurable scenarios for teaching various accounting concepts.

MonsoonSIM enhances critical thinking and strategic problem-solving skills.

Students find MonsoonSIM engaging and valuable for their education.

MonsoonSIM can be used in both undergraduate and graduate courses.

MonsoonSIM offers a range of KPIs for performance tracking.

MonsoonSIM helps students understand the power of information in business.

Over the years, Accounting has grown to be a popular field of career interest for those wishing to pursue higher education. Accounting is goes beyond merely recording and reporting a company’s financial information. Accounting has the potential to instead, to influence business decision-making and helps adapt business models in anticipation of external influences.

Enhance Accounting Curriculum with Simulation and Gamification

The recent web event hosted on the 20th of July by the American Accounting Association in association with MonsoonSIM and Michigan State University demonstrated how simulation and gamification have added immense value to teaching an accounting curriculum.

Guest speakers Professor Severin Grabski and Susan Convery from Michigan State University also shared how the MonsoonSIM platform had improved learning outcomes, heightened concept understanding, and chances to develop soft skills in their intermediate accounting undergraduate course and their graduate ERP course.

The web event hosted on the 20th of July by the American Accounting Association in association with MonsoonSIM and Michigan State University demonstrated how simulation and gamification have added immense value to teaching an accounting curriculum.

American Accounting Association with MonsoonSIM

Why MonsoonSIM?

As highlighted during the web event by guest speaker Mr. Abdy Taminsyah (Founder & CEO of MonsoonSIM), this business simulation and gamification education platform truly centers around the main goal: “Transforming the way you teach, transforming the way they learn.”

As teachers become facilitators that encourage self-directed learning instead of only teaching with theory, students can learn through the experiential learning process of doing and exploring. With MonsoonSIM, there are countless scenarios possible that teachers can simulate for the students to experience.

For example, if teachers would like to teach about accounts receivables, payables, and loans, teachers can easily turn on Accrual Accounting and Credit limit. Over hundreds of concepts linking and spanning across the thirteen business departments can be configured. In addition, MonsoonSIM's complexity is highly configurable to suit beginners or advanced students. To see this in action please watch the video below.

MonsoonSIM in an Undergraduate Accounting Course with Professor Susan Convery from Michigan State University

In this presentation, professor Susan Convery outlined how she adapted and configured the MonsoonSIM platform to fit her undergraduate accounting course, using just a subset of the basic modules available.

Her experience in using MonsoonSIM to teach her students reveals that whilst critical thinking can be taught and assessed with relative ease in the traditional way of teaching, the same could not be said for teaching and assessing strategic problem-solving skills.

“It's hard to find the time and the right forms to do that. What we want is to align the undergraduate goals with the graduate program goals…and MonsoonSIM helps with that.” Professor Susan explains, “I saw it quickly, it was innovative, fun and it was designed as a competition with teams that fit into the set of goals we want for this first required accounting class.”

Besides gaining a deeper understanding and practicing the accounting theory, what Professor Susan’s students reflected from using MonsoonSIM were the connections that they could make between the game and the textbook. The students were able to identify the factors that drove the team’s results when learning with MonsoonSIM, and self-reflection on what they could do differently to improve.

For example, some insights that the students gained include learning how to distinguish between good vendors and bad vendors, understanding the supply chain issues of planning for the holidays because inventory tends to sell quicker and enough stock was needed, and many more.

One student shares their experience, “With the virtual climate that we are in, MonsoonSIM allows students to interact and engage with each other, considering we may not have the opportunity to do so outside of the class.”

“Highly recommended and enjoyable. It was entertaining and fun, but at the same time helpful and educational. I loved this game and found it unbelievably valuable to my education.” Another student says.

Please watch Susan's presentation here.

MonsoonSIM in a Graduate Enterprise Systems Course with Professor Severin Grabski from Michigan State University

Michigan State University’s graduate enterprise systems course also used MonsoonSIM to simulate how an enterprise system facilitates the running of a business. Professor Severin, who taught the course, was particularly impressed with these MonsoonSIM features:

1. Captures and updates all the information in real-time

2. Complexity embedded within the simulation

3. HTML-5 (cloud) based that works with both MAC and PC

4. Easy to use for both facilitators and learners

5. Encourages a fun, competitive team task

MonsoonSIM also offers a range of KPIs available to be recorded and tracked. With regards to KPI scoring, Professor Severin has configured the results to include cash on hand, gross profit margin, day sales in inventory, revenue, late shipment (vendor), net profit, space utilization, retail stockout, and return on assets.

When asking the students what they thought about using gamification and simulation to learn accounting, one of them said, “The simulation helped me better understand how an ERP system works and could be helpful for a business. The simulation mimicked events that could occur like inventory stockout, cost increases, and competition. The ERP system aided the business processes to avoid and combat these issues in many ways. For example, forecasting can help a business buy the correct amount of stock. The ability to simultaneously track inventory and consumer demand in one centralized system can save time and money for a business.”

Additionally, other students have mentioned that the main concept they really recognized throughout the simulation was the power of information. Within a day of the simulation, being able to look at the demand for products, how many of the products they have, and ordering more accordingly, are all significant drivers of profit. Being able to capitalize quickly on the changes in the market, as they have discovered, is key to capturing the most income. Cumulative information systems are necessary for everyone to attempt to act optimally.

Studying and understanding the various different concepts and theories of accounting can be challenging or perhaps even daunting for learners. Here, with MonsoonSIM, our platform is ready to help you face these challenges, enhancing the accounting curriculum with both gamification and simulation!

One student explains, “I very much enjoyed our time using MonsoonSIM. I found it very interesting and educational, as I was able to understand all of the small items that go into a business and how everything can come together in order to make a business complete. It was also interesting to tackle all of the obstacles thrown at us, such as vendor shortages. I liked that MonsoonSIM is a good representation of an ERP system. We were able to conduct many business operations all through one unified system.”