Putra Salamanis board game: the game of bookkeeping for fundamental financial accounting learning

This paper highlights the need for a gamification approach in supporting the teaching and learning process of fundamental financial accounting at Universiti Putra Malaysia. It briefly reviews the already available gamification approaches from the literature, and addresses important issues in efficiently delivering the gamification exercise as part of classroom learning. The paper introduces Putra Salamanis, the game developed by the authors and which is inspired by the well-known board game, Monopoly, as a suitable board game in teaching financial accounting fundamentals. In this game, business transactions are recorded based on the double-entry rule. This requires students to recognize the five accounting elements of assets, liabilities, equities, revenue, and expenses, which are vital in accrual basis accounting. A pilot group of students who engaged themselves in the game provided positive feedback, implying that the game facilitated students’ learning in understanding the basic concept of double-entry bookkeeping and accrual accounting.