In this essay I am going to explain and identify external users of accounting information and give detail on the main characteristics and how these characteristics and the conceptual framework develop the benefits of financial statements for external users. Financial accounting includes information distributed to external users that are not part of the enterprise, e.g. stockholders, creditors, customers and suppliers, although the information is also of interest to the company's officers and managers. (Yahoo, 2007) External users have an interest in the businesses final accounts. They are individuals or groups from outside the business. (Cox, Fordon, 2008) They are also interested in the capability of a business to pay dividends. They …show more content…
They want to know how quick they are going to be paid. (Elliot, B and Elliot, J 2011, p.4) Trade creditors are interested in data that allows making a decision about whether they should sell to the business and whether the amount owed to them will be paid when it is due. (Weetman P, 2011, p.15) Government is interested in the distribution of resources and therefore, in the activities of entities. They require information in order to control this and provide a basis for national income and economic statistics to assess taxation. The Government look at the businesses profit because they are interested in making sure that the businesses accounts are not bias, therefore, ensuring that the correct amount of tax is collected from them. The government tries to make the financial records produced by the use of various accounting systems, so that the ability to compare numbers between companies and industries isn’t lost. (Weetman P, 2011, p.16) Customers are interested in the duration of the entity, especially when they have a long term involvement with a business. They want to know how reliable the business is. They need information about the current and future supply of goods and services offered, price and other product details, including the conditions of their products and returns policies. This information can be found from sales staff of the business or from trade. Customers are able to choose from all the businesses in the market and are looking for
1. The overhead allocation rate used in the 1987 model year strategy study at the Automotive Component & Fabrication Plant (ACF) was 435% of direct labor dollar cost. Calculated the overhead allocation rate using the 1987 model year budget. Calculate the overhead allocation rate for each of the model years 1988 through 1990. Are the changes since 1987 in overhead allocation rates significant? Why have these changes occurred?
The purpose of this paper is to define accounting, and identify the four basic financial statements. The paper also explains how the different financial statements are interrelated to each other and why they are useful to managers, investors, creditors, and employees.
These different stakeholders consider financial information available to them from slightly different perspectives to meet their own needs (Carlon 2016).
Assess the degree to which the firm’s accounting reflects the underlying business reality. Identify accounting distortions and evaluate their impact on profits and the sustainability of profits.
19. The accounting assumption that requires every business to be accounted for separately from other business entities, including its owner or owners is known as the:
The accounting system we use today started in Venice in renaissance period over 520 years ago. The trade business increased hugely during this time and all the financial recordings had to be written down to help people see how their business is doing. During that time in 1494 the first book about was published in accounting by Luca Paciolli and was called “The Collected Knowledge of Arithmetic, Geometry, Proportion and Proportionality”. He was called “The father of Accounting” and most of his described principles have been used up until this day.
Kimmel, P. D., Weygandt, J. J., & Kieso, D. E. (2013). Financial accounting: Tools for
Secondly, the claim made by ‘free market’ perspective to treat accounting information as other normal goods should be rejected because accounting information are unlike normal goods such as bread or house. It is a public good because the use of it by one investor does not prevent the usage of others (Hendriksen & Breda 1992, p.247). As non-investors have right to use the accounting information such as income statement and balance sheet as much as investors, investors will not agree to pay for the financial reports because others will become free-rider; thus, this prevent the function of normal pricing system of accounting information. As no income is received by producers of financial reports, they will not willing to produce it or will underproduce it so ‘free-market’ perspective is not applicable. Under this circumstance, Demski and Feltham (cited in Deegan 2009, p.65) states that for public good like accounting information, a more collective approach to its production is more desirable. This can be achieved by legislatively regulating the productions of accounting information so companies will produce the accounting information to meet the demands of external users and thus ensuring efficient capital market.
1. A brief history of the two organisations, and their objectives, in as far as they
The balance sheet and Income statement are the most important financial statements of the company that help conduct current analysis of company and evaluate its trends overtime. The balance sheet represents the company snapshots of its financial position on the last days of accounting period. Apple balance sheets, which represent a snapshot of its ending balances in asset, liability and equity account as of the date stated on the report, are changes each year from 2003 to 2014. On the other hand, the income statement shows its financial performance over 2003 to 2014. Apple basically ends its accounting period in September. Most of the long-term debts are in the form of the bonds. According to appleinsider.com, Apple recently issues a new euro bond worth about $2.26 billion with a maturity date on January 17, 2024 and coupon rate of 1.375% payable annually. The first payment will occur on January 17, 2016. Moody’s recently assigned a rating of Aa to Apple Inc. 's senior unsecured note issuance. Thus, Apple recent capital expenditure amount to 11,488 million according to morningstar.com. The analysis of financial statements is conduct to compare Apple with one of its closest rival Hewlett-Packard and twelve ratio were calculated. From table1 and chart1, the current ratio that determine the company ability to meet its short term obligation shows Apple’s current ratio is higher than that of Hewlett-Package from 2003 to 2014. That is, Apple is solvent than Hewlett Packard. Table
Corporations are often the victims of the most common white-collar crimes that occur in corporate America. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (cfenet.com), “abuse and fraud by employees cost U.S. organizations more than $400 billion annually…[which equals] $9 per employee per day.”
Financial Statements basically show the historical performance or record of the company at some previous point of time. By the time when financial statements are made public, changes are many economical areas such as market conditions, currency exchange rate and inflations can change the values of assets and liabilities. In this case there often exist discrepancies between book value of assets and their market values.
Stakeholders can be defined as a person, group, organization, or system that affects or can be affected by an organization’s actions. Examples of stakeholders in accounting are; owners, suppliers, customers, government, employees, creditors, and labor unions. These people are classified into four categories; Capital Market, Product or Service Market, Government, and Internal Stakeholders. Capital Market Stakeholders provide the major financing for the business to begin and continue its operations. Some examples of the stakeholders are banks and owners. Product or Service Market Stakeholders are buyers of products or services and vendors to the business. Examples of Product or service market
Ÿ The information should always give a complete picture of the state of the company whether the information is good or bad. Financial accounting is concerned with reporting information to external and internal users of financial statements. External users are people not involved with the day-to-day running of the company. Internal users are people who are involved.