Acc 557 Week 1 to Week 11 All Discussion Questions

ACC
557 Discussion Questions

Week 1

DQ 1
“Improper or Illegal
Methods” Please respond to the
following:

From the e-Activity, identify the
company, the accounting impropriety or illegality, how it was detected, the
outcome, and propose a strategy that might have prevented the situation.
Indicate how the strategy should be implemented.
Assess the impact to the
company’s financial performance based on the impropriety and the resulting
effect to stakeholder confidence in management, recommending how the company
can minimize the resulting impact to the business.

DQ 2
“General Accounting
Principles” Please respond to the following:

“Bookkeeping and accounting are
the same.” In terms of your role in the provision of financial services,
present data to support the accuracy of this statement and support your
position.
Analyze the accounting equation
as a concept that underpins the work of professional accountants and how an
understanding of the equation can impact business decision making.

Week 2
“Sarbanes-Oxley Act
(SOX)” Please respond to the following:

From the e-Activity, recommend
how the SOX framework can ensure reliable and complete financial information
and how accounting professionals have benefitted from its use. Provide support
for your response.
Evaluate how the SOX has
reinforced investors’ and creditors’ confidence in companies and how these
individuals can take steps to verify the accuracy of the financial statements
of potential investments or loans. Provide support for your rationale.

DQ 2
“Accounting for a Specific
Circumstance” Please respond to the following:

From the e-Activity research you
gathered, analyze how you, as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of a “big box
store” that has potential pollution, environmental-disposal, or demolition
problems, would handle these costs in your financial statements and communicate
this proposed plan to your colleagues on the management team. Indicate how any
resistance would be overcome. Support your stance with the information that you
obtained through your research.
Recommend the advantages and
disadvantages of recording the above-referenced costs in the financial
statements and how this might alter the company’s public image.

Week 3
DQ 1
“Researching Financial Information”
Please respond to the following:

From the e-Activity, analyze one
company’s financial position and determine whether or not the stock potential
will rise, remain stable, or decrease in value. Determine whether you would
invest in it or not at this time. Provide a rationale for your response.
Assess how profitable the company
has been over the past 5 years and determine how you would advise the company
about its future profitability potential.

DQ 2
Most people are familiar with
cash as a form of compensation to employees. To conserve cash, companies have
devised creative methods (gift cards, barter,stock options, bonuses, free
meals, etc) to pay employees and independent contractors. Using the Internet,
analyze non-cash forms of compensation to employees and/or independent
contractors.
As a CFO of a new company,
analyze non-traditional compensation (or fringe benefits) to conserve cash.
Discuss the advantages and
disadvantages to using this type of benefit.
For instance, assess the impact to employee morale, fraud, etc.

Week 4
DQ 1
“Accounting Methods”
Please respond to the following:

Analyze the risks to
merchandising that a business may experience and how they might be minimized.
Determine if automation of accounting has had a positive or negative impact on
business, in general, and how you arrived at that conclusion.
Create a corporate policy
designed to minimize inventory shrinkage related to theft, stocking errors,
shipping errors, etc., indicating how the policy will be enforced and
procedures that may need to be implemented.

Create a corporate policy designed to minimize inventory shrinkage
related to theft, stocking errors, shipping errors, etc., indicating how the
policy will be enforced and procedures that may need to be implemented.

DQ 2
“Inventories” Please
respond to the following:

Imagine you are accountable for a
franchise fast-food restaurant. Evaluate the best method of inventory costing
and make a recommendation to the company’s leaders about why it is best suited
for your franchise fast-food restaurant to reduce the possibility of employee
theft of product or other shrinkage concerns.
Inventory control requires
constant attention. Propose a set of guidelines that reflect the necessary
monitoring controls for three distinct types of business (e.g., a shoe
retailer, a physician’s office, and a food vending truck) to minimize loss and
waste. Indicate how each control will minimize risk of inventory loss.

Inventory control requires constant attention. Propose a set of
guidelines that reflect the necessary monitoring controls for three distinct
types of business (e.g., a shoe retailer, a physician’s office, and a food
vending truck) to minimize loss and waste. Indicate how each control will
minimize risk of inventory loss.

Week 5
DQ 1
“Internal Controls”
Please respond to the following:

From the e-Activity, analyze the
situation from the company you selected and the internal controls that may have
been compromised to allow the problem to occur and the resulting financial
impact to the business. Propose a plan to prevent this type of situation in the
future.
Match the situation with the
primary components of the fraud triangle factor (opportunity, financial
pressure, or rationalization) that best describes it and specifically create
strategies to address this component of the triangle to prevent recurrence for
the above-mentioned company.

DQ 2
“Receivables” Please
respond to the following:

Assess the external and internal
factors that influence credit policy and decision making within a company that extends credit to its
customer when providing a good or service on account. Indicate the factor of
most significance in today’s business environment. Provide support for your
rationale.
Assuming that a certain
percentage of customers will be deemed high risk, recommend a strategy to
minimize a company’s bad debt exposure. Indicate how the company would
implement the strategy. Provide support for your recommendation.

Week 6
DQ 1
“Information Protection and
Privacy” Please respond to the following:

Based on the e-Activity, evaluate
the circumstances that contributed to the privacy violation, the consequence to
the company to the breach, and management’s response to the breach, indicating
the appropriateness of the response. Suggest how the company may have presented
the breach and / or responded differently once the breach was discovered.
Provide support for your rationale.
Assess the ethical considerations
for information privacy, indicating how these considerations should be
addressed with a corporate policy. Provide support for your rationale.

DQ 2
“Debt Covenants” Please
respond to the following:

Based on your research conducted
in the e-Activity, assess the key components of the loan covenant typically
used in business loans. Indicate the necessity of each covenant and the
likelihood that default will be prevented. Suggest whether or not you agree or
disagree with lenders using the covenant approach for protection. Provide a
rationale for your position.
Create an alternative strategy
for lenders to use to protect themselves for loan default. Indicate how this approach would be more
desirable than debt covenants. Provide support for your strategy.

Week 7
DQ 1
“Effects of a Merger”
Please respond to the following:

Based on the company you
researched in the e-Activity, assess the key drivers of the merger. Indicate
how the merger will most likely create more value for the company stakeholders,
indicating whether or not you believe the value will be realized. Provide support
for your rationale.
Assess the accounting
complexities related to mergers and acquisition, indicating how management
accounted for these complexities in the merger you researched. Suggest whether
or not you agree or disagree with the accounting approach used in the merger.
Provide support for your position.

DQ 2
“Retained Earnings”
Please respond to the following:

The items contained in the
Retained Earnings section of a balance sheet are often complex and confusing.
Suggest an improvement for the reporting on this information that will help the
users of the statement to have a better understanding of the activity. Provide
support for your suggestion.
Evaluate what a cumulative loss
in the retained earnings section of a company’s balance sheet might indicate
about the financial performance in the future, indicating how this may
influence decisions made about the company. Provide support for your answer.

Week 8
DQ 1
“Venture Capital”
Please respond to the following:

Based on your research conducted
in the e-Activity, evaluate the business decision to use a venture capitalist
to raise funds, indicating whether or not you believe the company will benefit
from this decision in the long run. Provide support for your position.
Assess the challenges for
businesses using the resources of a venture capitalist, given that significant
returns on the investment are likely to be impacted by the firm. Indicate how a
business can manage these expectations. Provide support for your rationale.

DQ 2
“Investment Valuation”
Please respond to the following:

While US GAAP requires assets to
be valued at the lower of cost or market, there is a belief that assets with
value fluctuations should be valued at market and adjusted on a regular basis.
Create an argument supporting the use of market value for investment valuation.
Provide support for your argument.
Assess the potential abuses of
companies using a market value approach to investment valuation and how it may
impact decisions made by the public relying on the information.

Week 9
DQ 1
“Cash Flow Reporting”
Please respond to the following:
Given the complexities related to
preparing and interpreting the statement of cash flow, evaluate the current
requirement under GAAP and IFRS, indicating improvements that you would make to
each method’s requirement to better serve the users of the information. Provide
a rationale for your changes.
Analyze the impact of erroneous
classifications in the Operating Activities section of the statement of cash
flows, detailing how the distortion can impact the decisions made by financial
statement users. Suggest how these errors may be minimized.

Analyze the impact of
erroneous classifications in the Operating Activities section of the statement
of cash flows, detailing how the distortion can impact the decisions made by
financial statement users. Suggest how these errors may be minimized.

DQ 2
“Use of Cash Flows
Statements” Please respond to the following:

Assess what information may be
revealed about the sustainability of a company by review and analysis of a
company’s statement of cash flows that may not be revealed in the balance sheet
or income statement. Provide support for your rationale.

Create an argument indicating
that the statement of cash flows contains the most valuable information related
to a company’s performance for users of financial statement information.
Provide support for your argument.

Week 10
DQ 1
“Financial Analyst
Skills” Please respond to the following:
Based on the information
presented in the e-Activity, recommend the skills that are required to be a
successful Financial Analyst, indicating how the role of a Financial Analyst
adds value to a company. Provide support for your answer.
Assess the key ratios used by
Financial Analyst to evaluate the financial performance of company, indicating
the ratio that you believe to be most indicative of future performance. Provide support for your rationale.

DQ 2
“Financial Analysis”
Please respond to the following:
Determine three key ratios that
should be used when evaluating the financial performance of a company,
indicating what information this will reveal to an analyst and the impact to
decisions made about the company.
Given that financial analysis is
reactive based on events that have already occurred, suggest how financial
analysis may obtain information to be proactive to the decision-making process.
Provide support for your rationale.

Week 11
DQ 1
“Course Wrap-Up” Please
respond to the following:
Explain two concepts in this
course that provided the most value to you.
Indicate how these two new areas
of knowledge will benefit you in your current job or future career / endeavors.

DQ 2
“Financial Accounting”
Please respond to the following:
Predict one major change in
financial accounting that may likely occur within the next 10 years.
As a CFO, recommend how you would
integrate these changes into your business.