Financial accounting tutoring in English, for students at Spanish universities
If you need a financial accounting tutor who works in English but knows the Spanish system from the inside, this is the page. I teach students on English-taught and bilingual Business Administration programmes across Spain, one to one and online.
The awkward part of studying accounting in English at a Spanish university is that the textbook vocabulary and the exam paper do not always line up. Your lecturer talks about journal entries and the balance sheet, but the chart of accounts underneath is the Spanish PGC. I work in both at once, so you never lose a mark because a term did not translate.
The full accounting cycle, from opening entry to closing entry
We start where almost everyone gets stuck: understanding that a journal entry is not a formula to memorise but the translation of an economic event. We cover the whole cycle, opening entry, recording transactions in the journal, posting to the ledger, the trial balance, year-end adjustments, and the closing entries that carry profit or loss into equity. We work through full exam-style cases together, the three-page ones, until the running order becomes automatic. If you are lost from week one, we start at week one without rushing.
The Spanish PGC explained in English, group by group
This is the piece no international textbook gives you. The Plan General de Contabilidad numbers every account, and Spanish exams expect you to use those numbers. Group 1 is equity and long-term financing, group 2 non-current assets, group 3 inventories, group 4 trade receivables and payables including the Spanish VAT accounts, group 5 short-term financial accounts, group 6 expenses and purchases, group 7 income and sales. I teach you to read an account number as an address, and to map each one onto the English concept you already know from your notes.
Depreciation, impairment and accruals: where the marks are decided
Depreciation: depreciable base, residual value, useful life, the straight-line and units-of-production methods, and pro-rating by month when the asset is bought mid-year. Impairment: comparing carrying amount against recoverable amount, recognising the loss and reversing it when the conditions change, for non-current assets, inventories and doubtful receivables alike. Accruals and prepayments: prepaid expenses, deferred income, and interest paid or received in advance. We drill the accrual principle on short cases until you can tell instantly which part of a cost belongs to this year and which to the next.
Financial statements: balance sheet, P and L, equity and cash flow
Once the year is closed you have to present the financial statements, and Spanish exams frequently ask you to draw one up. The balance sheet, with assets ordered by liquidity and equity and liabilities by maturity. The profit and loss account, separating operating result, financial result, result before tax and result for the year. The statement of changes in equity and its two sections. The cash flow statement under the indirect method, split into operating, investing and financing flows. We also look at the abridged formats, because the exam often tells you the company is small.
If your module is called something else
Accounting is the module that changes name most often between programmes, and the name tells you very little about the content. If yours appears on your transcript under any of these labels, we are talking about the same syllabus:
- Introduction to Accounting — the first-year version: the accounting equation, double entry and the cycle up to the first set of statements.
- Principles of Accounting — the same thing with the American textbook naming, usually Accounting I followed by Accounting II.
- Financial Accounting I and II — the split over two semesters: the cycle and the basic entries first, then the specific transactions and the full statements.
- Financial Reporting — the same material with more weight on the statements themselves and on the standards behind them.
- Intermediate Accounting — the second-year course in US-style programmes: provisions, leases, financial instruments and deferred tax.
- External Accounting — named by contrast with management accounting, which looks inwards.
- Contabilidad Financiera — the same syllabus taught in Spanish, if you would rather have the lessons in the language of your exam.
The content underneath is the same in all of them: double entry, the chart of accounts, accruals, depreciation and impairment, and the four statements. What changes is the order and the notation your lecturer uses, which is why the lessons are built on your own notes.
How the lessons work
Video calls, one to one, with a digital whiteboard. Never in a group, so the pace is yours and we spend the time on the specific thing you do not understand. There is no fixed timetable and no compulsory packages: you pick the day and the hour, weekends and exam weeks included. Send me your notes, your lecturer's problem sets and any past papers you have, and we work on your material and your university's exam format, not on a generic syllabus. You keep everything we solve.
Why the English side is not a problem
I live and study in the United States, so teaching accounting in English is not something I switch on for you. It is the language I study in every day. In practice that means we can move between English and Spanish inside the same lesson, which is exactly what you need when your slides are in English, your textbook is a translation and the account names in the exam are Spanish. If you would rather have the whole thing in Spanish, that works too.
Where almost everyone gets stuck
Translating the account instead of understanding it
Looking up the English name of a Spanish account and stopping there. Knowing that 430 is Trade receivables does not tell you whether it increases on the debit or the credit side in the entry you are writing. Work out what the economic event did to the company first, then reach for the account number.
Depreciating the full purchase price and forgetting to pro-rate
Two mistakes that travel together. First, depreciating the full cost without deducting the residual value, when the depreciable base is cost minus residual. Second, charging a full annual amount even though the asset was bought in September, where you have to pro-rate by month. If the question gives you an acquisition date, that date is there for a reason.
Confusing a supplier advance with a prepayment
An advance to a supplier is money paid against goods that have not arrived yet. A prepayment is a cost already recorded that belongs to next year, such as insurance paid in November covering twelve months. They are not the same thing and the closing entry differs. Always ask which period the cost belongs to, not when the cash moved.
Reaching the closing entry without clearing income and expenses
Getting to the year end and not knowing what to do with the balances in groups 6 and 7. Before the closing entry you have to clear every expense and every income into the profit for the year account, and that figure is what appears in equity on the balance sheet. If your balance sheet is out by an odd amount, it is almost always this or a missed adjustment.
Worked example: depreciation and impairment of a machine
On 1 January of year X0 a company buys a machine for 24,000 euros plus 21% VAT, payable within twelve months. It estimates a useful life of 8 years and a residual value of 2,000 euros, and applies straight-line depreciation. On 31 December of year X3, after recording that year's depreciation, the recoverable amount of the machine is 11,500 euros. Record the purchase, work out the annual charge, find the carrying amount at that date and recognise an impairment loss if there is one.
- Purchase entry (1/1/X0). VAT is recoverable and is not part of the acquisition cost: 24,000 x 0.21 = 5,040 euros, invoice total 29,040 euros. Debit Machinery 24,000 (account 213) and Input VAT 5,040 (account 472). Credit Suppliers of non-current assets, short term 29,040 (account 523).
- Annual depreciation charge. Depreciable base = 24,000 - 2,000 = 22,000 euros. Annual charge = 22,000 / 8 = 2,750 euros. Every 31 December: debit Depreciation expense 2,750 (account 681), credit Accumulated depreciation 2,750 (account 281).
- Carrying amount at 31/12/X3. Four full years have run from X0 to X3, so accumulated depreciation = 2,750 x 4 = 11,000 euros. Carrying amount = 24,000 - 11,000 = 13,000 euros.
- Impairment test. The recoverable amount (11,500) is below the carrying amount (13,000), so there is an impairment of 13,000 - 11,500 = 1,500 euros. Debit Impairment loss 1,500 (account 691), credit Accumulated impairment 1,500 (account 291).
- Presentation. On the balance sheet at 31/12/X3 the machine appears at 24,000 - 11,000 - 1,500 = 11,500 euros, which matches the recoverable amount. The X3 profit and loss account shows 2,750 of depreciation and 1,500 of impairment.
SolutionAnnual depreciation charge 2,750 euros. Accumulated depreciation at 31/12/X3: 11,000 euros. Carrying amount before the test: 13,000 euros. Impairment to recognise: 1,500 euros. Net carrying amount on the balance sheet: 11,500 euros.
About these lessons in particular
Can you teach financial accounting entirely in English?
Yes, start to finish. I live and study in the United States and I teach the whole syllabus in English, including the Spanish PGC account names and how they map onto the English terms in your textbook. We can also switch mid-lesson if that helps.
I am an Erasmus student and the Spanish chart of accounts confuses me. Can you help?
That is one of the most common reasons people write to me. We go through the PGC structure in English so you can read any account number, and we practise on the exact past papers your lecturer sets.
Do you cover IFRS as well as Spanish GAAP?
Yes. Many English-taught programmes in Spain mix the two, so we look at where the Spanish PGC and IFRS treatments differ and, more importantly, at which one your particular exam expects.
Is the Spanish PGC very different from IFRS?
Less than it looks. The PGC was rewritten to converge with IFRS, so recognition and measurement mostly agree and the chart of accounts is the part that is genuinely Spanish. If you learned accounting under IFRS or under a national system elsewhere, the gap is the account numbering and a handful of presentation rules, and that is the fastest part to close.
I know the theory in English but the exam gives me Spanish account names. Can you help with that?
That is the most common reason students on bilingual degrees write to me. We keep the explanation in English and build you a working map between the two vocabularies, so that when the exam says amortizacion acumulada del inmovilizado material you read accumulated depreciation without stopping to think.
Do you teach accounting if I am not on a business degree?
Yes. Economics, law and business analytics degrees take the same financial accounting module, and so do some engineering programmes. The syllabus is the one that matters, not the name of the degree.
Can we work through my own problem sets rather than generic exercises?
That is the default. Send me your own problem sets and past papers and we work on those, because the marking style of your department is part of what you are being examined on.
How do I find a financial accounting tutor in English at a Spanish university?
Online, which is how I teach every lesson. An accounting tutor who works with the Spanish Plan General Contable and can also say the same thing in IFRS wording is not easy to find city by city, and what you do find locally is usually school-level. Over a video call that stops mattering: we work one to one on your own problem sheets, whether your module is called Introduction to Accounting, Principles of Accounting, Financial Reporting or Contabilidad Financiera, and whether the exam asks for journal entries, accruals or a full set of financial statements.
I also teach
Shall we work on it together?
Tell me where you are, which university you are at and when the exam is. I will get back to you as soon as I can.