Groupon Financial Summary

The Enron and WorldCom scandals were arguably the incidents that permanently changed the procedures for accounting controls. In response to these incidents, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 was passed. Once the knowledge of these scandals was made public, a number of subsequent accounting scandals were discovered in public companies such as Tyco International, HealthSouth, and American Insurance Group. In addition, a then-employee-owned company, Post, Buckley, Schuh & Jernigan, Inc. (dba PBS&J, now known as “Atkins North America, Inc.”), was also hit by a similar accounting scandal. Henceforth, a case study of PBS&J is presented where we will examine the fraudulent transactions that

For instance, the funds owed the company by the Rigas family went undisclosed in the statements, because the management at Adelphia deemed such disclosure as being “unnecessary” (Barlaup, Hanne, & Stuart, 2009). Given that Adelphia was a publicly traded company, the purposeful non-disclosure caused potential investors to rely on financial records that were grossly misleading. The inevitable result was the investors continued to inject money into a company that had all the appearances of profitability and sustained growth, but that was, in reality, rapidly becoming insolvent. Moreover, lending institutions also relied on the “independently-audited” financial statements, and they were more than eager to loan the company money, given Adelphia’s presumed state of financial “profitability.”

Yahoo and google have the Revenue at $73,785,000,000 for 2016 which is a $1,167,000,000 increase from 2015 when they were at $72,618,000,000. However this increase does not continue into the income statement on 01/28/17 where their revenues fell to $69,495,000,000 which is about a 6.17% decrease as compared to the 1.61% increase from the prior years. Even 2014 to 2015 saw an increase in revenue of $1,339,000,000 equating to a 1.88% increase. The profit shows a similar tended expect when a discontinued operations is involved by resulting in a loss for 2015 of $1,636,000,000. Both 2016 and 2017 reports show a profit however 2016 is gain lower than the statement for 01/28/17 with profit dropping by $626,000,000 translating to a 22.87% less

Of these transactions, most of it was not in the interest of Enron of Enron’s shareholders; such as profits and cash flows were manipulated and grossly inflated which caused misleading to the investors. AA has also failed to recognise the Generally Accepted Accounting Principle (GAAP) – which is accounting rules used to prepare, present and report financial statements for a wide variety of entities used in United States. AA also did not advise Enron’s audit committee that Enron’s CFO – Andrew Fastow – and his helpers were involved in significant conflict of interests. Enron’s politics and internal control was also found out to be inadequate to protect the shareholders interests. These should have made known and clear as these are responsibilities of an auditor. AA has also make the mistake by which it did not act upon evidence found or neither has it find any audit evidence relating to the numerous share rights transferred to SPEs and the side deals between Enron and banks which remove the banks’ risk from transactions. In auditing, audit documentations are key part to the audit processes.

The annual budget 2011/12 yielded a profit for the company, however, by looking into its quarterly performance it will be noted that the organisation will incur a net loss.

Unfortunately, all those efforts have not been vindicated because of the following reasons: Accounting did not cause the recent corporate scandals such as Enron and WorldCom. Unreliable financial statements were the results of management decisions, fraudulent or otherwise. To blame management’s misdeeds on fraudulent financial statements casts accountants as the scapegoats and misses the real issue. Reliable financial reports rely to a certain extent on effective internal controls, but effective internal controls rely to a large extent on a reliable management system coupled with strong corporate governance. when management deliberately or even unlawfully manipulates business processes in order to achieve desirable financial goals and present untruthful financial reports to the public, accounting systems are abused and victims rather than perpetrators.

Bob Schein, is a vice president of human resources at Glefair Electronics, as a listed company, Glenfair was required by the securities and exchange commission to issue public sales and profit forecasts Glenfair Electronics had over 10,000 employees and a reputation for producing high-quality electronic components used in a number of manufacturing applications.the company had begun to experience a slowdown in product demand. And their share price had declined as well in the last year and a half. Anwar patel joined Glenfair after completing his digree in accounting five years ago,for the past three years,partel had been preparing Glenfairs

Serco Group is a conglomeration of different operations with the defining characteristic that the company provides government services to institutions throughout the world. Serco employees nearly fifty thousand individuals and offers services that include such items as providing record keeping to schools and prisons, administering drivers licenses, providing administrative services to the armed forces and even providing services to CERN. Since Serco mainly targets governmental institutions, the general public is not typically familiar with the firm. One reporter referred to Serco as "the biggest company you have never heard of" (Martinson, 2006).

Arup is a professional service firm specialising in engineering, design, planning, and project management and consulting services for the built environment. Arup is a global firm, present in Africa, North and South America, Australasia, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. It has nearly 10,000 staff based in 92 offices spread over 35 countries with its headquarters situated in London, UK.

From ready-to-eat cereal to convenient meals to wholesome snacks, General Mills is one of the biggest food products manufacturers and competes in growing food categories that are on-trend with consumer tastes around the world. The company markets many well-known brands, such as Haagen Daazs, Yoplait, Betty Crocker, Totinos, and Cheerios, among others. Main rivals include Kellogg, Kraft, Conagra Foods, and Sara Lee. General Mills sells its products in three segments: U.S. retail (63% of net sales), International (25% of net sales), and Bakeries and Foodservices (12% of net sales). In addition, General Mills sells cereals and ice cream through its Cereal Partners Worldwide and Haagen Daazs Japan

This is where Groupon comes in with having the ability to save the consumer money anywhere from 50% to 90% through different services and products. Saving people money is only going to mean better things for Groupon in these economic times. We can only think that Groupon is going to fair well despite the economic situation the country is currently suffering.

The result of all the reductions of expenses on the revenues, takes us to the Net Earnings. This account reflects $12,266, $683 less than in 2008, but $1,690 more than 2007.

The article discusses that in 1976 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in one case that omitted financial statement information altering a reasonable investor’s decision proves the material nature of the information. The article continues by describing that lower courts earlier ruled that all financial information whether material or not must have full disclosure in a company’s financial statements. The rejection of the lower courts’ ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court gives the investor the ability to focus on the aspects of the financial statements that are most important by allowing the elimination of minute details (Sauer 2007, 317-357). In essence, this ruling allows for the elimination of financial information below the determined materiality threshold unless otherwise required by the ruling of a regulatory body.

TWOS is a planning tool used by managers to strategize and position their business in the order that assures sustained positive performance. TOWS is simply an inverted SWOT common used on analyzing performance and position of businesses. while SWOT begins with strength, weakness, opportunity and then threats faced by a business, TOWS matrix of business analysis begins with threats, opportunities, weaknesses then strengths faced by a business in that order. Under TOWS matrix of business analysis, threats and opportunities categorize as external environment factors that affect the business in particular ways (Koontz and Weihrich 112). Strengths and weaknesses usually categorize under internal environment that impact a business in particular ways.

Furthermore, because Google’s employees d are also equity holders, morale is high and Google encourages its employees to feel a part of Google’s success.