small accounting firm can add diversification to their company. It also contains a detail of how they can simultaneously benefit from having tax consulting services along with the services of audit, etc.
Diversity: Tax Consulting Services
Everybody's talking about consulting services nowadays! Whether they are big firms, little firms, they are starting to explore different ways of adding diversity by employing resources and services outside the typical financial and accounting arenas as a way of strengthening relationships with their clients, and simultaneously making additional revenue for the firm, Through unique diversification of the accounting firm we will be able to create and introduce tax consulting services to our clients and prospective clients in combination with the specialized packaging of other accounting and tax services.
We are a small accounting firm dealing with Chinese speaking clients in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China.
Locally, our reputation as one of the local accounting firms is based…...
Alan Moser and Stephanie Philips operate a successful software business in Brisbane. Alan and Stephanie are existing clients of your accounting firm CPT Accountants. Their business currently operates as a partnership but due to expansion plans they are considering incorporating the business (ie becoming a company). They wish to clarify the following points before making a decision and have asked CPT accountants to write a report answering the following:
What is the difference between forming a proprietary (private) company and public company?
There is substantial difference in the reporting requirements and tax basis for private and public companies. However, the biggest difference is how the legal entities deal with liability. Under a sole proprietorship and a partnership the owner can be held liable for many different problems that the business incurs while under a public model the company's owners have a limited liability. This offers the investors in a public company…...
They then proceed to detail their selected sample (76 NYSE firms that reported at least three annual losses in period's 1980-1985 and that reduced cash dividends. They then implemented various conditions to test their hypothesis that it is the troubled firm's aim to retain preservation of their company, rather than to make a bonus, that causes them to select a certain accountancy plan.
In section 2, the authors describe their methods used in selecting a sampled population and their bias controls. There is a great deal of numerical data, and the material is dense particularly when they elaborate on the earnings and cash flow performance of the various firms. Each unit is broken up into subunits. Scholarly tables condensed with data that for instance report accrual levels and changes for the 76 firms support their written text and the Tables are alluded to in the text. Statistical analysis of these…...
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References
DeAngelo, H. DeAngelo, L. & Skinner, DJ (1992) Accountign choice in troubled companies. Jour. Of Account. & Econ. 17, 113-143
Elliot, Barry & Elliot, Jamie: Financial accounting and reporting, Prentice Hall, London 2004
Gray SJ (1988) Towards a Theory of Cultural Influence on the Development of Accounting Systems Internationally Abacus, pp.1-15
.....ethical for an employer to use social media information as a factor when considering whether to hire an employee? What about monitoring social networking activities of employees while on the job? Use ethical reasoning in answering these questions.
The wide-ranging use of social media in the workplace gives rise to serious moral and ethical concerns. Kantian ethics lays emphasis on the form of an action in ascertaining its morality. Kant insists on the Categorical Imperative. Kant implies that this ethical principle is the superlative and outright and proper test to morality, whereas imperative implies that from time to time one must command oneself to be moral and undertake the right thing, even and particularly when one's self-centeredness may be infringed by acting ethically (Mintz, 2015). As an overall moral rule, for an employer to impose into an employee's private life on social media devoid of consent or in a clandestine or…...
Yost directly aware of the fact that counting different locations on the same day was not the best idea if accuracy was demanded. However, Yost shot down the idea of doing all locations on the same day and even went to so far as to sign off on the fact that doing all locations on the same day was not practical due to manpower/locational issues.
B) To defend themselves against the bank, the PA firm could simply point to the details enumerated in the prior part of this question. Yost specifically and explicitly brought up the fact that doing counts on different days was less than wise. This was surely because even if no subterfuge was going on (and it was), it would give the appearance of impropriety, or at least bad procedure.
) Yes, they would probably prevail. Yost specifically noticed and advised their client that they were unwise to…...
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Chapter 8 - Question 30
There are a few red flag and issues that should be discussed about the two sets of meeting minutes. First, the talk about the IRS audit was a little incomplete and there was not a lot of good news to glean from it. Related to this is the handling of the computer equipment and this neatly dovetails with the timeline of the computer switchovers. They dispensed with the equipment shuttered after the 2008 computers were purchased and then the very next day the spent money for yet another computer system in the form of a loan. The fact that the IRS audit period relates to property and it's the same year as the last computer upgrade is a head-scratcher.
Also concerning is that that every single vote was unanimous. The only thing that seemed to get anyone's dander up was the talk about the profit sharing for other employees. In terms of knowing for sure whether the meeting minutes were all forwarded, this would require either the auditor to be present in the room for all meetings or that the people involved sign off on the minutes being accurate and complete. If the auditor is presented with the fact that they are complete and they turn out not to be, the people who signed committed a fraud, in all likelihood. Again, though, it would be better if it was required that the auditor take the minutes themselves or author their own copy so as to compare to what is published and approved. If anything is omitted, changed or materially represented, then the auditor would have a cause of action to voice some concern.
"I hate math." Ever since I can remember people have approached me to tell me how much they loathe math, when they hear that I love it. However, I have always been fascinated by the order mathematics can bring to a chaotic world. Sometimes when life seems hard, it is very comforting to be able to look at numbers. This is not to say, of course, that accounting is not challenging. In fact, like many prospective accounting majors, I initially struggled with the discipline in my fundamentals courses ("Top 10 Easiest and Hardest College Degree Majors of 2016"). There is a reason that introductory accounting classes are often considered weeding-out, gatekeeping classes for the profession. Many people decide they want to be accountants because they think it is a lucrative profession that does not require as much additional schooling as law or medicine but then find out…...
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Works Cited
Erstad, Will. "Is an accounting degree worth it or worthless?" Rasmussen. 16 Nov 2015.
The following plan details the business areas and services to be provided for a growing homeowners' association by a certified accounting firm. The large growth in size of the association is cited as a need for this contracting with the accounting firm, and the specific business areas in need of servicing are identified as billing, collections, payments, reporting, taxes, and miscellaneous advisory duties. Input, output, and control requirements are listed in brief for each business area, with reference to current scholarly and regulatory/advisory information to ensure consistency and conformity with accounting standards. Automation of accounting processes is a major focus of the service provision, and levels of automation are fully discussed, with the decision to build an in-house automation system and certain automation challenges discussed.
Introduction
The homeowner's association is facing a problem of a major increase in the amount of accounting work it will need to take on.…...
Accounting
Several terms and definitions are valuable to understand financial statements. In the United States, financial statements of public corporations are produced in accordance with the U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. These principles govern how the information for financial statements is compiled and presented. The purpose of these principles is so that all stakeholders can easily understand the statements and make comparisons across both time and across different companies, because the statements are produced and presented in a consistent manner. The International Financial eporting Standards (IFS) are the international equivalent of GAAP. While several countries utilize a national version of GAAP (U.S., Canada, UK, etc.), more than 100 countries use IFS, making this set of standards the most widely-adopted in the world. There is a move to converge national GAAP standards with IFS, including a multi-year project to converge U.S. GAAP with IFS. For now, however, IFS represents a different set…...
PCAOB.org (2012) PCAOB oversees: The auditors of companies to protect investors. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. Retrieved August 18, 2012 from http://pcaobus.org/Pages/default.aspx
Accounting
The role of financial statements in investing is that they provide a consistent format that can be used by potential investors and other stakeholders to evaluate a company. There are several components that facilitate this happening. For publicly-traded firms, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) play a key role in the creation of financial statements. GAAP is a common set of accounting principles and procedures that companies use to compile their financial statements (Investopedia, 2012). ith companies having to produce their statements according to a common set of criteria, the information is easier to compare not only between different years at the same company, but also against other firms in the industry and all other publicly-traded firms.
The IFRS is essentially the international version of GAAP. Financial statements in many countries, especially those in Europe, are produced according to IFRS. There are a many areas where GAAP and IFRS diverge, so analysts…...
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Works Cited:
AICPA. (2011). International financial reporting standards (IFRS): An AICPA backgrounder. AICPA. Retrieved March 22, 2012 from http://www.ifrs.com/pdf/IFRSUpdate_V8.pdf
The statement of owner's or shareholders' equity is designed to show the components of the change in equity from the end of one fiscal year to the next. Beginning with the amount of equity shown at the end of the previous fiscal year, net income is added and cash dividends paid to the owners are subtracted. If owners contributed any additional capitol this amount (such as the sale of new shares) it is added to the equity. On the other hand, if the owners withdrew capitol, equity declines. All the additions and subtractions, taken together, equal the changes in owner equity from one fiscal year to the next (Kurtz, 2010).
The Statement of Cash Flows
Public companies are required to prepare and publish a statement of cash flows. This statement provides investors and creditors with relevant information about a firm's cash receipts and cash payments for its operation,…...
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References
Kurtz, D.L. (2010). Contemporary Business, 13th ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Accounting
This discussion contains research pertaining to the impact of cash-basis accounting on the distortion of the financial position and operating results of a business.
We began our discussion with a definition of cash base analysis. We concluded that this accounting tactic is used to examine cash and cash equivalents. This is done by separating cash flow transaction into one of three activities which include; operating, financing and investing activities.
Our investigation then explored why and how financial statements completed using cash-basis accounting can be distorted to present a misleading picture about the financial position and operating results of a company. Our investigation found that these distortions exist when accountants fail to provide a report of additional information that may not appear on the face of the financial statement. Additionally, we found that inconsistencies in the presentation of a financial statement can greatly influence the distortion of information that is found in the…...
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Reference List
Financial Reporting under the Cash Basis of Accounting (2000) Standards Report International Federation of Accountants.
Accounting forms the overall backbone of the financial world. Financial markets are predicated on consumer and user confidence. Without confidence, consumers attempting to make financial decisions will be doing so using inaccurate and incomplete information. The lack of transparency regarding the truthfulness of reported numbers creates uncertainty within the capital markets. This uncertainty regarding the accuracy of information ultimately undermines the overall financial system, causing harm to society in the process. Investors will require higher rates of return, individuals will become unlikely to invest, and innovation could become stifled, harming the quality of life for society overall. Accounting standards, particularly those from the IFRS, are required to help maintain confidence in the reliability of reported financial performance. These standards, such as IFRS , are often amended to reflect the economic realities of business transactions. These changes, although well intended, may often have unintended consequence. This is particularly true for IFRS…...
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8) Jeffers, Agatha; Mengyu Wei; Sidney Askew (2010). "The Switch from U.S. GAAP to IFRS." Proceedings of the Northeast Business & Economics Association: 48 -- 54
9) Oler, Derek K., Mitchell J. Oler, and Christopher J. Skousen. 2010. "Characterizing Accounting Research." Accounting Horizons 24 (4): 635 -- 670
10) Perks, R.W. (1993). Accounting and Society. London: Chapman & Hall. p. 16. ISBN 0-412-47330-5.
Sarbanes-Oxley stipulates criminal and civil penalties for securities violations. Also, it mandates auditor independence from the interests of the firm, meaning that accountants cannot have a financial interest in the success or failure of the firm. Additionally, it mandates the certification of internal audit work by external auditors and mandates increased disclosure regarding executive compensation, insider trading and financial statements, in the interest of making more information public to investors. ("Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance," Technet 2005) Although the act is not a panacea, increased objectivity on the part of auditors and greater insistence on free and fair disclosure on the part of firms will hopefully ameliorate the some of the hiding of vital information that created the climate of secrecy within the firms of Enron and orldCom that helped give rise to the 2002 scandals.
orks Cited
Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance." (2005) Technet. Retrieved on 23 Oct 2005 at http://www.techlistings.net/xlist/tech/bizsoft/compliance/sox?id=1
Sarbanes-Oxley. (2002) Law retrieved by findlaw…...
The findings of this report will be valuable to two different audiences. The first consists of accounting regulatory bodies. These bodies are working towards convergence and are presently struggling with the resistance from the business community. Understanding the nature of that resistance is key to finding ways of overcoming it. For the large publicly traded corporations themselves, this report will help them understand why they and their peers are resistant, and this will shed light on whether or not that resistance is justified. Convergence is coming whether the corporate world is ready for it or not, but the key for corporations is to understand what convergence is, why it is important, and which elements of their resistance are not worth the effort. For both parties, it is important to work together to make the convergence process as smooth as possible, and that is going to take a greater degree…...
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Works Cited:
Qu, X. & Zhang, G. (no date). Measuring the convergence of national accounting standards with International Financial Reporting Standards: The application of fuzzy clustering analysis. Xiamen University. In possession of the author.
Larson, R. & Street, D. (2004). Convergence with IFRS in an expanding Europe: Progress and obstacles identified by large accounting firms' survey. Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation. Vol. 13 (2004) 89-119.
AICPA. (2011). International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS): An AICPA backgrounder. American Institute of CPAs. In possession of the author
AICPA (2010). Financial system considerations in IFRS conversion projects. American Institute of CPAs. In possession of the author.
Yet, financial statements and managerial accounting reports can be highly effective nonetheless. Sometimes they will merely confirm what the proprietor already knows, but there are inevitably going to be times when they will reveal that the proprietor's assumptions about the nature of the business are false. Moreover, accounting can act as essentially a second opinion. The proprietor may feel one thing is true, but the numbers can reveal something different.
Overall, accounting is an essential component of any business. Sole proprietorships often make less use of accounting, in part because the law does not obligate them to engage in any more than the most rudimentary accounting. However, proprietors should not overlook the value of accounting. Accounting helps to reveal the business' past performance, but can also be used to enact organizational controls today and to help plant for more effective operations in the future. By understanding the firm's cost structure…...
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Works Cited
Marshall, David H.; McManus, Wayne W & Viele, Daniel F. (2008). Accounting - What the Numbers Mean. McGraw-Hill/Irwin, New York, 2008.
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