...Ethics is more than simply the pursuit of goods; is also about fidelity to ethically acceptable relationships. A crucial relationship is that of a professional towards his or her client. Because accounting is a skill that demands expertise, and because accountants have clients’ who depend on that expertise, accounting can be included among the professions. Accounting ethics in the field of accounting refers to the guidelines (consisting of judgments and moral values) that a professional needs to follow while practicing accounting. People using the service of accounting professionals rely on their professional competency to take decisions and in the process also relies on the ethics followed by them. Roles an Accountant can fulfill Although accountant’s primary purpose is to present a picture of an organization’s financial affairs, accountants play many other roles: 1) Auditing- the most important role is the role of an independent accountant (auditor). The auditors function is that the organizations estimate are based on formulas and those formulas are applied consistently year to year- thus to ensure reasonable and consistent application. 2) Managerial Accounting- In house role of accountant is to give most accurate picture of the organizations economic state so that company can flourish. The account’s main responsibility is to the company, but if the companies’ board, managers and share-holders are at cross purpose, the accountant is conflicted. This conflict forms the ground...
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...The Role of Accounting in the Medical Office By Joy Hicks Medical Office Expert An accounting department plays an enormous role within the medical office. As the backbone of the organization, the accounting department allows the organization to operate at its fullest potential. Without an accounting department, it would be impossible for any type of organization to operate in a cost effective manner. General Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) are the common set of accounting principles, standards and procedures that companies use to compile their financial statements. GAAP, are simply put, the customarily accepted ways of recording and reporting accounting information. Each organization may operate differently but all have to follow by set guidelines within the organizations community, state and at the federal level. If these standards and procedures are not followed the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) will fine the organization and possibly pursue criminal action to enforce compliance. Within accounting and financial management, there are four key elements recognized. The four elements are: Planning, Controlling, Organizing and Directing and Decision Making. The planning element allows an organization to set forth goals and guidelines to ensure the future success and accomplishments of the medical office. Controlling provides the organization the opportunity to ensure that all areas within the organization are following the previous planned...
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...Affect Being in the accounting profession for close to eight years, I have seen how large of a role ethics plays. While I have never done or been asked to do anything that could be considered unethical, I have come to realize that in accounting there is a lot of gray area. Many principles are left for interpretation and in some cases little guidance is given. In these cases ethics becomes of the upmost importance. Early in the chapter, Mark Cheffers and Micael Pakulauk raise the question of why ethics has become a part of the CPE program. This question might suggest that the accounting profession is inherently unethical or dishonest. This, of course, is not the case. Instead, ethics, or ethical behavior, is the solution to navigating through a complex and changing profession. Out of all the business disciplines, accounting must be the one that keeps all others in check. I have always felt that the role of an accountant is to safeguard the company and to provide an accurate picture of the health of a company. In order to provide this level of service, an accountant has to do it using intrinsic motivation instead of having to be compelled. Because of all the recent scandals involving accountants, it has become ever more important to have a foundation based on sound ethical practices. When confronted with a gray area in accounting and interpretation is needed, if you are bound by ethics and honesty, the outcome will be for the greater good instead of satisfying...
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...ETHICS AND THE ROLE OF ACCOUNTANTS According to (Finn, 1994) ethical behaviour is a base which is required in the accounting profession to provide a proper and professional service to a client who just relies on the information provided by the accountant. This helps to build a reputation and in as well in the eyes of the client that the accountant is reliable and adds to their degree of trustworthiness for the client. The reason it has become so important to monitor the ethical behaviour of accountants is because of the recent scandals by corporate and accounting firms like Enron and WorldCom as mentioned by (Chan, 2006). It was further mentioned that ethical problems are a part of any business due to the interaction of the accountants with so many people with different interests that it leads to conflict of interests. Many different people have different views about ethics. The basic meaning of ethics is the authority of custom and tradition (Svensson, 2003). It was further stated that ethics is more of a mix of philosophical thoughts over a period of time as compared to being a fixed concept and each culture has its own norm of what is acceptable and what is not. Another view point by (Duska, 2011) stated that ethics is related to analysing what is right in the eyes of the person and the law. It consists of a set of moral principles that vary between individuals that distinguish between good or bad. While some of the ethical behaviour is implied, the professional framework...
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...REPORTING PRACTICES AND ETHICS PAPER HCS/405 June 2, 2014 Reporting Practices and Ethics Paper In today’s healthcare financial plans it is important to have good financial management. If the financial planning is not done properly then the company will not be able to function efficiently. The accounting records are kept up to date in regards to the guidelines in order to make sure the accounting records are accurate. By doing this, this helps keep track of how a company is doing to make sure that they are aware of where their money is going. This will show whether it is a profit or a loss. This allows the company to change things around so that they are not losing money within the company. Four Elements of Financial Management The accounting department plays a critical role within the medical office. The accounting department is the backbone of the organization and is what allows the organization to operate at its fullest potential. If the accounting department did not exist, it would make the office impossible for any type of company to operate efficiently. There are four elements of financial management which include the following; Planning, Controlling, Organizing and directing and Decision Making. The planning element sets goals and guidelines in order to allow the organization to ensure the future success and accomplishments of the medical office. The controlling is what ensures that all areas within the organization are following the...
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...Abstract It is fairly easy for a top executive to reduce the price of his or her company's stock. Due to information asymmetry. The executive can accelerate accounting of expected expenses, delay accounting of expected revenue, engage in off balance sheet transactions to make the company's profitability appear temporarily poorer, or simply promote and report severely conservative estimates of future earnings. And this phenomenon of accounting scandal exist in contemporary society. The integrity of the accounting profession and the credibility of financial information provided by businesses have been undermined by scandals. Accounting and business education should pay more attention to the ethical to prevent accounting scandals. And they should not be focused on the teaching of accounting techniques. Neoliberal ideology is a political movement beginning in the 1960s that blends traditional liberal concerns for social justice with an emphasis on economic growth. And it is similar to globalization. Globalization includes three elements that are difficult decreasing, quick response to alterations, and multilateral trade liberalization. And accounting professional contains individual professional judgment and professional self-regulation. Globalisation brings many benefits but also a number of problems, for instance, low price labour used by multinationals that Increasing wages for highly-skilled workers and reducing wages for less-skilled workers obviously leads to greater inequality...
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...Accounting ethics is primarily a field of applied ethics and is part ofbusiness ethics and human ethics, the study of moral values and judgments as they apply to accountancy. It is an example of professional ethics. Accounting introduced by Luca Pacioli, and later expanded by government groups, professional organizations, and independent companies. Ethics are taught in accounting courses at higher education institutions as well as by companies training accountants and auditors. Due to the diverse range of accounting services and recent corporate collapses, attention has been drawn to ethical standards accepted within the accounting profession.[2] These collapses have resulted in a widespread disregard for the reputation of the accounting profession.[3] To combat the criticism and prevent fraudulent accounting, various accounting organizations and governments have developed regulations and remedies for improved ethics among the accounting profession. ------------------------------------------------- Importance of ethics The nature of the work carried out by accountants and auditors requires a high level of ethics. Shareholders, potential shareholders, and other users of the financial statements rely heavily on the yearly financial statements of a company as they can use this information to make an informed decision about investment.[4] They rely on the opinion of the accountants who prepared the statements, as well as the auditors that verified it, to present a true and fair...
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...on the nature and role of accounting. Thus, to ensure that accounting stated roles can be perform successfully, accountants, as professionals, are expected to maintain a level of ethical conduct that goes beyond society’s laws. They have the responsibility to ensure that their duties are performed in conformity with the ethical values of honesty, integrity, objectivity, due care, confidentiality, and the commitment to the public interest. Luca Pacioli, the "Father of Accounting", wrote on accounting ethics in his first book Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni, et proportionalita, published in 1494. Ethical standards have since then been developed through government groups, professional organizations, and independent companies. These various groups have led accountants to follow several codes of ethics to perform their duties in a professional work environment. However, accountants’ involvement with large corporate scandals in recent times reflects that they have not complied with the expected ethical standards. Thus, ethics has become a key area of concern in accounting at present owing to the series of corporate scandals that had taken place in the world questioning the credibility of the accounting profession. These scandals have placed in doubt the effectiveness of contemporary accounting, auditing and corporate governance practices, for which accounting profession is responsible for. Unethical Accounting Practices Accounting ethics has been deemed difficult...
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...BUS 630 Managerial Accounting Entire Course Week 1 to 6 Purchase here http://homeworkonestop.com/BUS%20630/bus-630-managerial-accounting-entire-course-week-1-to-6 Product Description BUS 630, Managerial Accounting WEEK 1 Written Assignment, Case 2B (Mendel Paper Company) Discussion 1, Ethics in Cost Control Discussion 2, Fixed and Variable Costs WEEK 2 Written Assignment Case 3A (Auerbach Enterprises) Discussion 1, Product Costs Discussion 2, Job Order Costing vs. Process Costing WEEK 3 Written Assignment Case 5A (Glaser Health Products) Discussion 1, Allocating Joint Costs Discussion 2, Variable/Absorption Costing WEEK 4 Written Assignment Case 6B (Chester & Wayne) Discussion 1, Budgeting Comments Discussion 2, Standard Cost System Journal Budgets and Employee Morale WEEK 5 Discussion 1, Capital Investment Evaluation Discussion 2, Ranking Investment Alternatives Written Assignment Case 9A (Middlehurst House) WEEK 6 Final Paper, Analyze the Role of Managerial Accounting Discussion 1, Evaluating Performance Discussion 2, Non value- Added Costs in a Doctor's Office BUS 630 Managerial Accounting Entire Course Week 1 to 6 Purchase here http://homeworkonestop.com/BUS%20630/bus-630-managerial-accounting-entire-course-week-1-to-6 Product Description BUS 630, Managerial Accounting WEEK 1 Written Assignment, Case 2B (Mendel Paper Company) Discussion 1, Ethics in Cost Control Discussion 2, Fixed and Variable Costs WEEK 2 Written...
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...Business ethics are a pivotal aspect in strategic business finance, or finance in general. Poor ethical practices and immoral acts have been conducted across many years by many individuals and businesses in the business world in regards to finance. This paper will focus on two of the more well-known ethical issues that occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Enron Corporation and WorldCom. This paper will focus on the factors that led to the demise of the corporations, as well as the violations that occurred within the accounting practices, and the specific ethical violations in strategic financial planning. To summarize, the largest contributing factor to the demise of Enron Corporation and WorldCom was simply corporate governance failure (Stanford GSB Staff, 2016). The smaller factors that led to the governance failure were such things as increases in executive compensation and stock options, jumps to incentives to manage earnings, and major shifts in the structure of auditing firms. These changes directly led to the loss of money and public confidence. These reason can be classified as nothing other than management greed. This can be validated by the statistical increases in worker compensation which rose forty-two percent in the 1990s as well as corporate profits rose eighty-eight percent, the standard and poor index increased two hundred and forty-eight percent, as well as CEO compensation rose four hundred and sixty-three percent during this timeframe (Stanford GSB...
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...Questions Based on what you know about accounting, what role do you see it playing in business operations? How dependent do you think a business is on its accounting department? Explain why. Why are ethics so important in the field of accounting? Home Work Hour aims to provide quality study notes and tutorials to the students of ACC 220 Week 1 DQ 1 and DQ 2 in order to ace their studies. ACC 220 WEEK 1 DQ 1 AND DQ 2 To purchase this visit here: http://www.nerdypupil.com/product/acc-220-week-1-dq-1-and-dq-2/ Contact us at: nerdypupil@gmail.com ACC 220 WEEK 1 DQ 1 AND DQ 2 Discussion Questions Based on what you know about accounting, what role do you see it playing in business operations? How dependent do you think a business is on its accounting department? Explain why. Why are ethics so important in the field of accounting? Home Work Hour aims to provide quality study notes and tutorials to the students of ACC 220 Week 1 DQ 1 and DQ 2 in order to ace their studies. ACC 220 WEEK 1 DQ 1 AND DQ 2 To purchase this visit here: http://www.nerdypupil.com/product/acc-220-week-1-dq-1-and-dq-2/ Contact us at: nerdypupil@gmail.com ACC 220 WEEK 1 DQ 1 AND DQ 2 Discussion Questions Based on what you know about accounting, what role do you see it playing in business operations? How dependent do you think a business is on its accounting department? Explain why. Why are ethics so important in the field of accounting? Home Work Hour aims to provide quality...
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...Ethical in accounting practice Ethics is a guideline for us to do what is right and what are wrong, but being unethical is not against the law, to be ethical in accounting practice there are 3 roles Trust, confidentiality and legal repercussions. Trust-Accountants must be worth trusting for understanding the law and legal aspects of the accounting issues. Confidentiality-In a company accounts would have the most information (client’s information, each colleague’s salary, company’s trading record) so it is really important for an accountant to keep their account documents confidential. Legal repercussions- accountants must be really careful for their work and understanding that the consequence of breaking the law if they are not careful for their work. (http://www.ehow.com/facts_6821517_role-ethics-accounting.html) In some companies they will have a person who is called an ethicist, an ethicist is for setting standards for accounting ethics for a company, to become and ethicist, he or she must have a degree on business law and philosophy, an ethicist also play the role of an consultant, the ethicists could answer question like “Can I consider buying a birthday present for our company’s friendly driver who would drive us home even his working time is off as an allowance for entertainment?” not only answering question the ethicist will so advice how to react on different situations, such as misleading financial analysis in order to obtain personal gains, misuse...
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... The Canadian Financial Reporting Environment Role of Financial Reporting • Financial statements and financial reporting • Accounting and capital allocation •Stakeholders Objective of Financial Reporting •Management bias •Users’ needs Standard Setting • Need to develop standards • Parties involved in standard setting • Standard setting in a political environment GAAP • GAAP hierarchy •Professional judgement • Role of ethics Challenges Facing Financial Reporting • Globalization of companies and capital markets • Impact of technology • Changing nature of the economy • Increased requirement for accountability 2 The Canadian Financial Reporting Environment Role of Financial Reporting • Financial statements and financial reporting • Accounting and capital allocation •Stakeholders Objective of Financial Reporting •Management bias •Users’ needs Standard Setting • Need to develop standards • Parties involved in standard setting • Standard setting in a political environment GAAP • GAAP hierarchy •Professional judgement • Role of ethics Challenges Facing Financial Reporting • Globalization of companies and capital markets • Impact of technology • Changing nature of the economy • Increased requirement for accountability 3 Characteristics of Accounting 1. Identification, measurement, and communication of financial information about; 2. Economic entities to; 3. Interested persons. 4 Financial Reporting • Financial accounting provides historical information • Financial reporting...
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...What does ethics have to do with accounting? Everything, since there have been some recent financial accounting scandals; a few examples being Xerox, WorldCom, Enron, which have generated much unwanted and unfavorable publicity for CPA's, including those working as controllers or chief financial officers for organizations. When you hear the word "ethics," what is the first thing that comes to mind? Having to make the decision of doing what is right versus doing what is wrong. Some idealists say that decisions of ethics should not be conditional. However, that is not as simple as it may sound. What constitutes "right" to one person may be "wrong" to anther; what clearly distinguishes the line between right and wrong? What some may look at as being unethical does not necessarily make it illegal. In the predicament of David Duncan, the lead audit partner at Arthur Anderson the Accounting Firm for Enron, underscores the penalty that accountants may face under professional accountability. Duncan had pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice when he was involved in the connection with document shredding. The scandals have made some big implications on the profession as a whole. One being the decision from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOA) of 2002, in April 2003 they voted to assume the responsibility for establishing auditing standards. The Auditing Standards Board of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants...
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...Behavioral Aspect of Accounting: The Need to Emphasize on Ethics ------------------------------------------------- Ahmad Zubair Chedi ------------------------------------------------- Abstract Accounting plays a vital role in providing information that permit economic decision, therefore the information has influence on its users. The financial statements that serve the basis for the economic decision are drawn up, not by the users, but by the enterprise’s accountants under the authority and control of the enterprise’s management. Ideally the preparers should take as their objective the fulfillment, (to the best of their ability) of the users’ needs. However the preparers have their own objectives, which often are quite different from those of the users. The financial statements can play a very important role in helping the enterprise’s management to achieve its objective. If the accounts show that the enterprise is doing well, the shareholders will be happy also the market price of the company’s shares will remain high. Since the accounts are prepared under the direction of the management there is a temptation for the management not to present the full truth about the enterprise in the financial statements, particularly when the company is doing badly. The paper examines the behavioral aspect of accounting with emphasis on the need of ethics; the methodology used is purely content analysis, using secondary data. The study reveals that unethical behavior is less...
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