To speak about financial matters, I decided to use the example of Hapag Lloyd which is famous container company ranking 6th among the world container carriers. We can find financial data from a great variety of sources either internal or external for public addressing.
Having access to internal sources requires to be part of company since it involves some manager’s report in their dedicated fields as well some client’s records or operations expenses. Internal figures are recorded by the accounting system which compiles all the department’s transactions and will combine all the results. All this mass of data must be categorized in order to create a clear summary of the global financial situation. Such an accountancy has to be performed
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- Any financial statement is normally approved by an external auditor. That would stand as a guarantee that all figures and statements reflect the true situation of the company.
- Any financial result is subject to taxation regulated by the fiscal administration of the country. That’s a form of additional security since fiscal declaration is then cross-checked by this authority.
We can also get data from the stock exchange if the company is listed. For example Hapag Lloyd is listed in Frankfurt so values of the value of their shares and their fluctuation can be used to determine their financial performance. Since the stock exchange is regulated by strict authorities and its operations are clear. Consequently, this is a very reliable data to take into account.
A.C. 1.4 - Review and question financial data
When reading financial data, some attention must be paid to assess their veracity. Over the past, some accounting techniques have been used to mislead investors on the true financial situation of the company. We’ll details some of them.
- The most common is creative accounting which consists in diverging from the GAAP to misrepresent financial figures in order to modify the global financial results at the end. It’s usually include to deliberately inflate the income or to manipulate asset value and liabilities. For example, it would lead to present figures to creditors within the debt covenants in order to preserve current assets from
In today’s world, the role of IT has turned accounting estimated critical in financial reporting and disclosure. Houghton and Fogarty have said that non-accurate or incorrect estimates have often caused to misstatements in audit report (Gray & Manson, 2007).
In accounting there is much to be learned, about the financial aspects of a business. In the past five weeks I have learned the importance of financial reports and how they relate to the success of an establishment. These reports may include balance sheets and income statements, which help accountants and the public grasp the overall financial condition of a company. The information in these reports is really significant to, managers, owners, employees, and investors. Managers of a business can take and deduce financial
Throughout history and in our own time, legitimate accounting methods have been utilized to fraudulently engage in manipulating activities that results in illicit gains to the perpetrators and losses to individuals and financial institutions.
After reviewing the financial information of the Tech Tennis, USA, there was a concerned due to some unusual changes in the company’s accounts. Financial statements play a crucial part in the determination of the progress of an organization. It assists the relevant personnel to identify whether the company is making profits or making losses. Although unethical, some companies will tend to deliberately misrepresent some of their financial statement information to create a false impression of the company’s success. There are various techniques that organizations utilize to manipulate their financial statements such as overstating their revenues (Bierstaker, Brody, & Pacini, 2006). In addition, some organization will tend to inflate their sales without considering their cash flow amount that the organization has acquired which will be a red flag to investigate. Consequently, financial statements provide vital information that helps both internal and external users to understand the position of the organization. Some companies in an attempt to continue in the market, they end up manipulating their financial statements that create an illusion of the success of the organization.
1. Fraudulent financial reporting – reporting false financial performance and overstating the company’s earnings and falsifying the level of liabilities to attract investor’s contributions.
The financial crisis of the early 2000s left many investors and stockholders nervous about the accuracy of financial statements issued by public companies. The financial crisis resulted after many previously successful companies suddenly tanked due to restatement of their financials. These companies include Enron, Tyco, Sunbeam, Rite-Aid, Xerox and WorldCom amongst others (Kieso, 2014, p. 17). How could many previously successful companies suddenly go belly-up? The evidence was to be seen, these companies had used malicious accounting techniques to hide massive amounts of debts and increase their assets without having to show them accurately in a fair and honest way on their financial statements.
Assignment #1 - Leon’s versus The Brick etc.) have a vested interest in understanding inherent risks of engaging in economic activities with such companies. In addition to periodic and timely filing requirements for publically traded companies, market based share price data is readily available through most online news networks or major stock exchange websites. Yet another touch point for the financial analyst to access relevant and valuable business intelligence on a timely basis.
Excello Telecommunications is looking to record revenue before the earning process has been completed or before the unconditional exchange has occurred. Terry Reed, the CFO is trying to influence the accounting department to look for options to record the sale of 1.2 million in equipment by December 31 to boost earnings on financial statements. The purchasing company does not want the order of equipment delivered until the middle of January.
This subject company in this case study is WoolEx Mills. The top management team at the Mills had to act fast to prevent the accusations charged upon them, so that they may venture deep into the United States market. In the process, they had to act in a way that will present the company’s financial statements; cash flows in a way that they did not show any suspicious fraudulent activities. The type of fraud in this case study is known as manipulation of accounts which involves the act of offering the accounts in the way they are not in reality.
To illustrate the lengths to which client management will sometimes go to misrepresent its company’s operating results and financial position.
Financial statement fraud occurs when financial statements are intentionally misstated in order to make an organization appear better off than it actually is. This not only includes misstatements but also information that is intentionally omitted or improperly stated. The two sub-categories of financial statement fraud are asset/revenue overstatements and understatements. Financial statement fraud is the least common type of fraud, occurring in 9% of the cases studied in 2014, but the most costly with a median loss of $1,000,000. (Report to the Nations,
Reporting and preparing financial statements are main and critical steps of accounting. This paper is about one of the most surprising accounting errors in the US economy. This happened in Bank of America’s financial statements in April 2013. I mentioned it surprising because it is discovered by one of the regular tax clerk while calculating bank’s earnings in order to prepare its reports for first-quarter. In fact, this mistake goes back to 2008. That really started when Bank of America acquired investment bank Merrill Lynch. And, companies like Bank of America have own audit committee that do annual internal auditing. As a result, Bank of America shows to Federal Reserve $4 billion capital more than they really have, which
Nowadays, as our economy is facing possible everyday crises, managers undergo an increasing pressure in order to keep their company 's earnings stable. Shareholders and analysts expect companies to meet forecasted goals and not to deviate from these. Especially, reliable companies are to report positive results and shall not present any 'surprises '. Managers therefore often turn to their accounting departments for help, whose job it then is to improve the bottom line by changing the information shown in financial
The executives of Waste Management, in order to save their jobs and keep/increase their personal bonuses, manipulated financial records in order to give the appearance to investors that certain earnings targets were
A company prepares financial statement to provide information about its financial position and performance. This information is in turn used by a wide range of stakeholders (such as investors, banks, customers, suppliers etc) in making economic decisions with respect to respective economic interest in the company. Typically, in terms of ownership by investment in shares of the company, shareholders though own the company but do not manage it. Therefore, the shareholder and other such stakeholders to get comfort in taking sound decision need independent assurance from the auditors that the financial statements reflect true and fair view of the company affairs in all material respects. Hence, in order to enhance the level of