...OF ACCOUNTING (HONS) CREDIT HOURS : 4 CONTACT HOURS : 4 STATUS : CORE SYNOPSIS This financial accounting course exposes students to accounting theory, corporate accounting policies and financial reporting practices. The importance of history is introduced through a brief discussion on accounting history from both experiences of both western and Muslim Civilization. In understanding the theoretical framework of accounting, the various perspectives on financial accounting theory are examined with particular emphasis on their rationale and implications on accounting practice. General concepts of theory formulation are discussed and types of accounting perspectives and research are also introduced in this course. Corporate Accounting Policies are explained by the development of the Conceptual Framework and the Importance of a Regulatory Environment. The Standard Setting process in Malaysia is discussed. An analytical approach of the accounting standards is adopted by examining the recognition, measurement, disclosure and presentation of accounting information is discussed. Significant emphasis is placed on Asset Measurement, Nature of Liabilities, Types of Equity, Recognition of Revenue and Income Finally contemporary accounting practices and issues are discussed including corporate governance and social and environmental reporting. LEARNING OBJECTIVES The primary objective of this course is to develop the critical skills in accounting students...
Words: 1820 - Pages: 8
...BUSN69, Degree Project – Accounting and Auditing Master Thesis, 15 ECTS Spring 2014 The evolution of CSR Reporting in the Banking Sector of Greece An analysis of specific characteristics of CSR Reporting Author Papakostopoulos, Georgios Supervisors Jonnergård, Karin Loft, Anne 2014-10-20 1 2 Abstract Title The evolution of CSR Reporting in the Banking Sector of Greece An analysis of specific characteristics of CSR Reporting. Seminar Date 2014-06-02 Course BUSN69, Degree Project – Accounting and Auditing Author Georgios Papakostopoulos Supervisors Karin Jonnergård and Anne Loft Keywords Banks, CSR, Development, Reporting, Standardisation Purpose This thesis aims to examine the development of CSR reporting in the banking sector. The emphasis is set on a number of characteristics. Trends for standardization will be also examined Methodology The methodology undertaken is generally based on a qualitative research approach through a combination of content analysis with interviews. The research has a partly longitudinal, inductive and comparative character. Theoretical Perspectives The theoretical aspects that were used in the analysis were a combination of the theoretical framework of the Legitimacy, Stakeholder and Institutional theory with the reporting requirements from a number of standards, guidelines, initiatives and indices. Empirical Foundation The empirical material consists ...
Words: 24865 - Pages: 100
...“Numerous pieces of evidence suggested that earnings management – the managerial use of discretion to influence reported earnings – was a widespread corporate practice at Computer Associates.” Distinguish between accrual-based earnings management and real activities manipulation. Explain what is meant by a trade-off between the two. Which type of earnings management was practised at Computer Associates? Academic support should be provided (see the attached reference list) from at least two articles. (25 marks) CORPORATE GOVERNANCE 3. Corporate governance is defined as the system by which companies are directed and controlled" (Cadbury Committee, 1992). Discuss the role of specific corporate governance mechanisms that may have alleviated earnings management at Computer Associates. Academic support should be provided (see the attached reference list) from at least two articles. (25 marks) LOBBYING 4. The fraudulent activity at CA centred on issues of earnings management concerning revenue recognition. On 14 November 2011 the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued for public comment a revised draft standard to improve and converge the financial reporting requirements of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) and US General Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) for revenue (and some related costs) from contracts with customers. The objectives...
Words: 433 - Pages: 2
...questions raised by the financial crisis over the objective of general purpose financial reporting, and how the IFRS Foundations Trustees wish to resolve them”. The financial crisis which started during the summer 2007 is, by its magnitude and its scale, the strongest crisis that happened since 1929. Begun as a bank crisis which have destroyed and “all the major US bulge-bracket firms” (Molyneux & Valdez, 2010, page 263), the crisis spread like wildfire and has rapidly engulfed the entire financial world. Even if everybody agree to recognise that accounting was not the root cause of financial crisis, its role to prevent future financial crisis could be significant. Many questions have been raised by financial crisis over the objective of general purpose financial reporting. The first question is related to the purpose of the financial reporting. In fact, the actual crisis has showed that, more than ever, the financial sector needs prudential regulators (Goodhart, et al.,2003, page 10) (Molyneux & Valdez, 2010, page 470) (Spencer, 2000, page 211); because the information given by the financial reporting is an important tool for regulators, standard setters and regulators need then to collaborate. However, their interest could overlap or be in conflict. In these cases, it is important to formulate clearly the main aim of financial reporting. The lacks of global standard as well as the inconsistency of some standards are two other weaknesses of the financial crisis that, by...
Words: 2352 - Pages: 10
...The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) governs the preparation of corporate financial reports. This paper will reflect on the FASB conception, its accountability, and members of the board. Furthermore, in many ways, the FASB standards known as generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), places limitations on business practices and financial reporting requirements; but it is required since accounting standards are crucial in a market where financial information should be transparent, credible, and easy to understand but some would disagree. These standards help protect both the stakeholder and business communities. When and Why was the FASB created you may ask? In 1973, the FASB was created “ to establish and improve standards of financial accounting and reporting that foster financial reporting by nongovernmental entities that provides decision-useful information to investors and other users of financial reports” (FASB.org, 2012). Those standards are officially recognized as authoritative by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) (Financial Reporting Release No. 1, Section 101, and reaffirmed in its April 2003 Policy Statement) and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (Rule 203, Rules of Professional Conduct, as amended May 1973 and May 1979), (FASB.org, 2012). Establishing these standards are extremely important because it effectively provides for an efficient economy when dealing with the allocation of resources to provide a more...
Words: 2250 - Pages: 9
...is to identify and determine the contributing factors which influence the contents of a firm‟s sustainability reporting through combined social and environmental accounting and management perspectives. Design/methodology/approach: This paper analyzes the disclosed sustainability indicators of a major Australian financial institution, Westpac, through the application of the research method content analysis. The theoretical framework will be shaped by the consideration of legitimacy theory and the Balanced Scorecard approach. Findings: The results indicate that the four perspectives of a traditional Balanced Scorecard are related to the main sources of influential inputs to Westpac‟s sustainability reporting – existing frameworks, stakeholder engagement mechanism, employee involvement and traditional shareholders‟ financial information needs. It also reinforced the argument that the focus of organisational legitimacy is a key resource of organisation survival. Originality/value: This research contributes to the literature on social and environmental disclosures including the research of Do, Tilt and Tilling (2007) and Baxter, Chua and Strong (2010) which was based on the sustainability management and reporting of Westpac. Keywords Balanced Scorecard, Legitimacy, Sustainability, Page 1 Introduction This paper considers sustainability management and reporting in the Australian private sector context. It aims to evaluate an Australian publicly listed firm‟s continuous...
Words: 9462 - Pages: 38
...Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 8 September 2010 Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting Chapter 1, The Objective of General Purpose Financial Reporting, and Chapter 3, Qualitative Characteristics of Useful Financial Information a replacement of FASB Concepts Statements No. 1 and No. 2 Copyright © 2010 by Financial Accounting Foundation. All rights reserved. Content copyrighted by Financial Accounting Foundation may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Financial Accounting Foundation. Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 8 September 2010 Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting Chapter 1, The Objective of General Purpose Financial Reporting, and Chapter 3, Qualitative Characteristics of Useful Financial Information a replacement of FASB Concepts Statements No. 1 and No. 2 Financial Accounting Standards Board of the Financial Accounting Foundation 401 MERRITT 7, PO BOX 5116, NORWALK, CONNECTICUT 06856-5116 Statements of Financial Accounting Concepts This Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts (Concepts Statement) is one of a series of publications in the Board’s Conceptual Framework for financial accounting and reporting. Since the publication of the last Concepts Statement, the Board has undertaken a project with the International Accounting Standards Board...
Words: 12590 - Pages: 51
...Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 8 September 2010 Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting Chapter 1, The Objective of General Purpose Financial Reporting, and Chapter 3, Qualitative Characteristics of Useful Financial Information a replacement of FASB Concepts Statements No. 1 and No. 2 Copyright © 2010 by Financial Accounting Foundation. All rights reserved. Content copyrighted by Financial Accounting Foundation may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Financial Accounting Foundation. Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 8 September 2010 Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting Chapter 1, The Objective of General Purpose Financial Reporting, and Chapter 3, Qualitative Characteristics of Useful Financial Information a replacement of FASB Concepts Statements No. 1 and No. 2 Financial Accounting Standards Board of the Financial Accounting Foundation 401 MERRITT 7, PO BOX 5116, NORWALK, CONNECTICUT 06856-5116 Statements of Financial Accounting Concepts This Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts (Concepts Statement) is one of a series of publications in the Board’s Conceptual Framework for financial accounting and reporting. Since the publication of the last Concepts Statement, the Board has undertaken a project with the International Accounting Standards Board...
Words: 12508 - Pages: 51
...evaluate each comment carefully to ensure that the suggested change is appropriate for your paper, but remember that your instructor's preferences for style and format prevail. You will also need to review your own citations and references since WritePoint capability in this area is limited. NOTE: WritePoint comments are computer-generated writing and grammar suggestions inviting the consideration and analysis of the writer; they are not infallible statements of right/wrong, and they should not be used as grading elements. Also, at present, WritePoint cannot detect quotations or block-quotes, so comments in those areas should be ignored. Please see the other helpful writing resources in the Tutorials and Guides section of the Center for Writing Excellence. Thank you for using WritePoint. The IASB and FASB have collaborated for the past 10 years. This collaboration was a goal toward convergence of U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). The convergence project began with the two organizations conducting a joint meeting in Norwalk, Connecticut, on September 18, 2002. The goal for creating the convergence project was for the “development of high-quality compatible accounting standards that can be used for both domestic and cross-border financial reporting. They also promised to use their best efforts to make their existing financial reporting standards compatible as soon as practicable and to coordinate...
Words: 1423 - Pages: 6
...has regarded as a core reporting method among organisations and it has been eventually separated from the statement of the financial position (Deegan and Unerman, 2011, pp. 385). In the late 1990s, triple bottom line reporting, which considers that economic, social and environmental areas are equally important (Elkington, 1997), but unfortunately, with the higher demand of more integrated reporting, it has been replaced (Deegan and Unerman, 2011, pp. 386). This responsibility also embraces the social and environmental reporting practices on the basis of the personal judgement (Deegan and Unerman, 2006, pp. 318). Social and environment reporting can be defined as the process of the communication with particular stakeholder groups within society regarding the social and environmental impacts of the organisation (Gray, Owen and Maunders, 1987, pp. ix). It has been argued that the accounting standards which deal with this social and environmental sector appear to be somewhat meagre although there are some frameworks in terms of sustainability reporting (Gray et al, 1997). Hence, there may be some claims that an accounting standard regarding social and environmental issues needs to be established while others might think that the organisation may feel more comfortable to comply with current guideline from the association 'Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)' for sustainability reporting (Deegan and Unerman, 2011, pp. 389). It is thought that accounting standard should not address the...
Words: 3915 - Pages: 16
...Business Reporting Language) is a standard XML reporting language to enhance the efficiency, reliability and accuracy of financial reporting. Since its foundation in 1998, XBRL has been developing rapidly in the world. This paper teases out and discusses the literature researches of XBRL from 6 aspects: the production bases of XBRL, the effect of XBRL, the classification criteria formulation of XBRL, the auditing assurance of financial reports based on XBRL, the implementation of XBRL in different countries and some researches about XBRL in China, which reflects the current status of research about XBRL relatively fully. ------------------------------------------------- Keywords: XBRL, Auditing assurance, Classification criteria 1. Introduction XBRL is one variant of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) for business reporting. XBRL defines financial data on the web with explicit semantics in a machine-readable format, making automated data analysis possible. XBRL is a standard XML reporting language to enhance the efficiency, reliability and accuracy of financial reporting. Data in XBRL format does not need to be converted from one application to another because data are independent of applications by using standard tags for data items (Farewell, 2006). The financial information is presented to the public on the Internet usually in a static format such as PDF or HTML, the XBRL technology offers a way to have dynamic financial information. XBRL can support both financial and non-financial...
Words: 5525 - Pages: 23
...forestry and fisheries practices and ensure good nutrition for all (FAO, 2010). Rome Italy is head quarters. It has 191 member states as well as Europe Union and the Faroe Islands, which are associated members (FAO, 2010). FAO is composed of 8 different departments, the meeting is conducted by finance division. Relevant Key Points & Issues The fist half of the presentation briefly introduced the FAO’s role as UN’s agency, its structure, business environment and management. FAO’s mandate is contribute to the growth of world economy and to increase the level of nutrition, with the mission of helping build a food secure world. In order to achieve such mandates, they involves 4 activities which are putting information within reach, sharing policy expertise, providing a meeting place for nations and bringing knowledge to the field. It used result- based management which is an approach that integrates strategy, people, resources, processes and measurement to improve decision-making while increasing transparency and accountability. The focus is on measuring performance against goals, learning from experience and adjusting to new conditions, reporting outcomes, and achieving objectives. There are two ways FAO can be funded: assessed contributions (regular assessed contribution paid by member countries) and...
Words: 5165 - Pages: 21
...THEORETICAL STRUCTURE OF FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING Overview The primary function of financial accounting is to provide useful financial information to users external to the business enterprise. The focus of financial accounting is on the information needs of investors and creditors. These users make critical resource allocation decisions that affect the nation’s economy. The primary means of conveying financial information to investors, creditors, and other external users is through financial statements and related notes. In this chapter you explore important topics such as the FASB’s conceptual framework that serve as a foundation for a more detailed study of financial statements, the way the elements of these statements are measured, and the concepts underlying these measurements and related disclosures. Learning Objectives LO1–1 Describe the function and primary focus of financial accounting. LO1–2 Explain the difference between cash and accrual accounting. LO1–3 Define generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and discuss the historical development of accounting standards, including convergence between U.S. and international standards. LO1–4 Explain why the establishment of accounting standards is characterized as a political process. LO1–5 Explain factors that encourage high-quality financial reporting. LO1–6 Explain the purpose of the conceptual framework. LO1–7 Identify the objective and qualitative characteristics of financial reporting information, and...
Words: 7130 - Pages: 29
...governments. Therefore, the Malaysian Government, similar to many other governments, has planned and implemented a number of programmes to embrace the digital world by transforming itself to deliver information and services electronically. In public sector audit and accounting practices, the Malaysian Government has experienced local reform aimed at escalating transparency, streamlining accountability and improving overall financial management in line with international standards and practices. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of computer-based accounting systems (CBASs) on the effectiveness of performing accounting tasks by Malaysian public sector agencies (PSAs). This study focuses on the impact of performancebased outcomes at three levels: individual task, accounting-related task, and organisational level performance. With regard to accounting-related task performance outcomes, this study aims to analyse the impact of CBASs on the typical processes, which are related to budgeting, financial reporting, auditing and financial controlling. This study also seeks to investigate the influence of driving factors comprising management support and organisational resources and capabilities on the...
Words: 66979 - Pages: 268
...CORPORATE REPORTING AND ANALYSIS By Dr. S.A.S. ARUWA[1], CNA ____________________________________________________________________ Being a paper presented at ANAN Practitioners’ Forum at Mainland Hotel, Lagos on 3rd August, 2010 ____________________________________________________________________ Abstract Good corporate reporting is generally an indication of competitiveness and superior corporate governance. Good reports show initiative and effort on the part of the preparers. Significant changes in the corporate external reporting environment have led to proposals for fundamental changes in corporate reporting practices. A variety of new information types are been demanded, in particular forward-looking, non-financial and soft information. Openness and transparency in annual reporting on an unprecedented scale may be inevitable with the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and Nigeria’s commitment to adopt IFRS; Nigerian companies will have no alternative but to bring themselves up to speed. One way is to ensure that company’s reports actually reflect good governance. INTRODUCTION Good corporate reporting is generally an indication of competitiveness and superior corporate governance. Good reports show initiative and effort on the part of the preparers. “The better reports always address all the required relevant information concisely, and disclose thoroughly the measures taken – including on activities, corporate policy, strategic plans...
Words: 9556 - Pages: 39
