1. What is a franchising arrangement? And how is this reflective of business expansion? Moreover, how does this support business growth? From HighBeam Business, these key-terms set the stage from here on out:
MLA: Pondent, Corr S. "About Reacquired Franchise Rights" (29 December 2010). Highbeam Business: Money. eHow. Demand Media, Inc. Web. 18 March 2011.
About Reacquired Franchise Rights
A franchising arrangement is a way to expand a company's business without investing a lot of additional money. The franchisee gets the use of an existing business model, or franchise rights, as well as business support, and pays the franchisor a franchise fee in return.
Reacquired Rights
The franchisor could decide to buyback franchise rights from the franchisee for various reasons. For instance, the company may want to maintain consistency with its suppliers and wholesalers.
Accounting Treatment
Typically, the accounting treatment for reacquired franchise rights is to amortize, or write down, the value of the acquisition over a period of time. This is the approach that many restaurant industry franchisors have followed.
Aggressive Treatment
Some companies take a more aggressive approach in accounting for their reacquired franchise rights. Not writing down the value of these rights over time boosts the company's profits since the write-downs would reduce earnings.
*Corr S. Pondent has provided these clear and concise definitions, so I will post them upfront in order to draw a more linear flow from here on out.
2. Auditee client impairment analysis:
Citation: Katz, Jonathan G. Secretary Commissioner (16 February 2000). SEC Concept Release: International Accounting Standards. SECURITIES and EXCHANGE COMMISSION. 17 CFR PARTS 230 and 240 [RELEASE NOS. 33-7801, 34-42430; INTERNATIONAL SERIES NO. 1215] FILE NO. S7-04-00 [RIN: 3235-AH65] INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS
According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC):
B. High Quality Auditing Standards
The audit is an important element of the financial reporting structure because it subjects information in the financial statements to independent and objective scrutiny, increasing the reliability of those financial statements. Trustworthy and effective audits are essential to the efficient allocation of resources in a capital market environment, where investors are dependent on reliable information.
Quality audits begin with high quality auditing standards. Recent events in the United States have highlighted the importance of high quality auditing standards and, at the same time, have raised questions about the effectiveness of today's audits and the audit process. We are concerned about whether the training, expertise and resources employed in today's audits are adequate.
Audit requirements may not be sufficiently developed in some countries to provide the level of enhanced reliability that investors in U.S. capital markets expect. Nonetheless, audit firms should have a responsibility to adhere to the highest quality auditing practices -- on a world-wide basis -- to ensure that they are performing effective audits of global companies participating in the international capital markets. To that end, we believe all member or affiliated firms performing audit work on a global audit client should follow the same body of high quality auditing practices even if adherence to these higher practices is not required by local laws. Others have expressed similar concerns.
From an academically published article titled "Auditing Estimates: A Task Analysis and Propositions for Improving Auditor Performance" from Emily E. Griffith, Jacqueline S. Hammersley, and Kathryn Kudous, evident become the Auditee client impairment analysis:
Griffith, Emily E. (University of Georgia). Hammersley, Jacqueline S. (University of Georgia). Kadous, Kathryn (Emory University). "Auditing Estimates: A Task Analysis and Propositions for Improving Auditor Performance." (October 2010). Web. 18 March 2011.
Auditing Estimates: A Task Analysis and Propositions for Improving Auditor Performance
Market participants rely on accounting estimates, including fair values and impairments, to get a clear picture of a company's financial condition; however, estimates are difficult to audit. We analyze how auditors assess the reasonableness of accounting estimates with the goals of identifying what difficulties auditors experience in performing the task and how their performance can be improved. We interview 15 very experienced auditors from the set of firms that perform over 100 audits of public companies annually to assess how auditors perform the task and what difficulties they experience. We compare interview results with audit standards to evaluate how well auditors match required steps in the process. We perform a content analysis of PCAOB inspection reports to further shed light on difficulties auditors experience in auditing estimates. We find that both auditors and regulators report auditor difficulties with over-reliance on management assertions. That is, auditors sometimes fail to understand management's...
We draw on the mindset literature in judgment and decision making to suggest ways that auditors can improve their performance in this important task.
3. Analysis of key assumptions
-Annual growth rate (e.g., internal, Moody's, S&P): calculate a reasonable range. See 4 below [Sensitivity analysis: for the growth rate and discount rate identify reasonable high and low values for each rate, with supporting reasons based on your research. Your estimates should incorporate current market conditions as much as possible. This combined with your other assumptions creates four alternative present value scenarios].
Theoretically, Cost-Benefit Analysis is used to obtain a discount rate through the classical and relative utilitarian prosperity functions, two separate methods. The necessary condition here becomes time-invariance, a state at least appeased, if not positively persuaded in any favor, as conceptualized through an overlapping model with independent or exogenous growth; the U.S. Office of Management and Budget demonstrates this entire definition by way of time-variance. The implied discount rate, concerning two independent principles of perpetuated equity, will measure up to the growth rate of the authentic per-capita income (more than 5% on a grand scale of growth; 1% to 2% during a moderately advantageous period); the U.S. Office of Management and Budget hopes to see steady growth like 2%, maybe fluctuating between 1% and 3%; however, any greater fluctuation, up or down, always implies a rebound (i.e., any abrupt rise perpetuates an abrupt loss). From here, this governed functionality allows for the discount rate to be better-defined for a heterogeneous society, and then substantiated through an independent principle equating the growth rate of per-capita income.
-Weekly revenues: pick a best single point estimate, with supporting reasons based on your research.
Source Citation: Levine, David; Michele Boldrin (2008-09-07). Against intellectual monopoly. Cambridge University Press. pp. 312.
Weekly Revenue depends on these three key assumptions:
1) Average per-unit sales price, or per-unit revenue:
This is the price that you receive per unit of sales. Take into account sales discounts and special offers. Get this number from your Sales Forecast. For non-unit-based businesses, make the per-unit revenue $1 and enter your costs as a percent of a dollar. The most common questions about this input relate to averaging many different products into a single estimate. The analysis requires a single number, and if you build your Sales Forecast first, then you will have this number. You are not alone in this, the vast majority of businesses sell more than one item, and have to average for their Break-even Analysis.
2) Average per-unit cost:
This is the incremental cost, or variable cost, of each unit of sales. If you buy goods for resale, this is what you paid, on average, for the goods you sell. If you sell a service, this is what it costs you, per dollar of revenue or unit of service delivered, to deliver that service. If you are using a Units-Based Sales Forecast table (for manufacturing and mixed business types), you can project unit costs from the Sales Forecast table. If you are using the basic Sales Forecast table for retail, service and distribution businesses, use a percentage estimate, e.g., a retail store running a 50% margin would have a per-unit cost of .5, and a per-unit revenue of 1.
3) Monthly fixed costs:
Technically, a break-even analysis defines fixed costs as costs that would continue even if you went broke. Instead, we recommend that you use your regular running fixed costs, including payroll and normal expenses (total monthly Operating Expenses). This will give you a better insight on financial realities. If averaging and estimating is difficult, use your Profit and Loss table to calculate a working fixed cost estimate-it will be a rough estimate, but it will provide a useful input for a conservative Break-even Analysis.
-Expense ratios (focus on variable costs, can assume fixed costs apply to all operations (i.e., are allocated fixed costs)): pick a best single point estimate, with supporting reasons based on your research.
-Discount rate (market risk adjusted? risk free?): calculate a reasonable range [Sensitivity analysis: for the growth rate and discount rate identify reasonable high and low values for each rate, with supporting reasons based on your research. Your estimates should incorporate current market conditions as much as possible. This combined with your other assumptions creates four alternative present value scenarios].
According to the "Introduction to EBAT," two key assumptions persist:
II. INTRODUCTION to EBAT (EVIDENCE BASED ACCOUNTING THEORY) and RISK BASED ACCOUNTING PRINCIPLES
Start with lottery ticket example: how to record asset 1 and asset 2 above? Why?
There are 2 key assumptions (i.e., warrants that…
