Report of Fcb Case

Haefren Baum is primarily using financing activities to maintain operations of the business. They are basically staying alive by debt, and will need to re-evaluate its processes to stay in business.

Financial analysis: Haefren Baum is funding itself from bank loans, mortgages, and their supplier’s flexible credit. The major change in consumer demand, from the economic bust, in 1993, lead to lower sales and extended account payable days. The cash flow statements are unhealthy as they negative operating cash flows generated from a negative net income and high account payables. The company is far from liquid with 1.26 quick ratio in 1995 and high account payable days. The company has profitability issues, which is seen in their decrease in operating profit and negative return on equity. As stated earlier this is due to their decline in sales, tough economic conditions, and increased competition. They are highly leveraged company, which is risky. Their debt to equity ratio jumped from 5.84 in 1993 to 8.22 in 1995, which means it is hard for them to sustain that debt with their low equity. For

With different industry definitions and viewpoints, fraud can be a tough issue for audit committee members to grasp for oversight purposes. The legal obligations of audit committee members have intensified because their standard duty of care and loyalty to the entity has increased in light of management fraud activities.

The auditor must remember that all information collected during the audit needs to be sufficient enough to further the audit process. The information must not only possess the two qualities, relevance and reliability, but it should also test various assertions. For instance, in the audit of Walmart, the auditor should make an attempt to acquire information such as financial statements from the company’s bank, as opposed to acquiring the statements from Walmart’s management. Taking such crucial information from Walmart’s management will put the reliability of that information into question. It is possible that management may manipulate the financial statements, so that they are more appealing to the public and investors. Management may do things

Accountants are relied upon to be trustworthy and maintain high ethical standards. It is because of the nature of the profession that puts them in a position of trust with people who rely on their professional judgment and guidance in making decisions. These decisions are extremely important in accounting and more so that companies that have high ethical standard or main good ethical culture spend enormous time to train the staffs about the conduct that is expected of them.

In the Enron case, The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Congress conducted an investigation into Enron's collapse. The authorities re-examined the roles of corporate watchdogs, including corporate boards of directors, auditors, investment banks, credit rating agencies and lawyers. It could be that the watchdogs had too tight relations with the company's executives. That is why no one questioned the Enron's aggressive accounting strategies. To prevent such collapses, someone needs to look into the possible conflict of interest. The dilemma is that auditors should perform in the interests of the investors, but they are paid by the audited company, which makes it more difficult for them to exercise tough decisions. The auditors should not perform some particular consulting services for the firms that they audit. Another belief is that there should be more severe consequences for those committing financial crimes and causing fall of the companies.

The Model of Trust Enhancement was established to enhance and maintain the public’s trust in the accounting profession. Over the last two decades, the ethics of the accounting profession has been questioned and public trust destabilized, in particular for auditors, due to the Enron debacle. The fact that an auditing firm would assist their clients with publishing an inadequate set of financial statements shows their willingness to violate laws and regulations (Sims & Brinkmann, 2003). According to the textbook, “Because trust is essential, even the appearance of an accountant’s honesty and integrity is important. The auditor, therefore, must not only be trustworthy, but he or she must also appear trustworthy” (Duska, Duska & Ragatz, 2011, p. 116). The majority of statements filed inadequately have a substantial impact on the credibility of the accounting profession as a whole. Sullivan (n.d.10) states that a CPA must possess a high level of trust, by applying professional judgment and enhancing the three trustworthy characteristics (ability, benevolence, and integrity) when resolving accounting ethics dilemmas (slide 3).

The auditing firm has been in engagement with the company throughout the period when the fraud was being committed. One of the common and clear indicators of possible fraud was the company’s cash flow statement. The company experienced positive growth in its profits from the year 1996 through to the year 1998. However, a close analysis of the cash flow statement shows that the company had experienced negative figures of cash flow from both operating and investing activities and positive cash flow from financing activities which would not sufficiently offset the negative cash flows from operating and investing. It is therefore evident

B) I think the auditors should have equal responsibility for detecting material misstatements due to error and fraud. It’s their job to make sure the financial statements are as accurate as possible. Although it may be hard to check all the information from a company it’s the responsibility of the auditor to sign off that everything is in check.

Analytical skills – as an auditor you must identify the problem issues and offer solutions

Usually in corporations there is a clear distinction between the people who take critical decision – Board of Directors – and the people who actually execute the decisions – management. In FBM, many managers were also part of the Board. This arises conflicts of interest. This should be avoided.

Bodie Industrial Supply has funded itself mostly through loans. These loans include a bank loan, transport loan, mortage payable and CCB mortage payable. They took out a loan in 2005 in order to pay for the purchase of land, building and equipment. Liz Bodie expects sales growth to increase in 2007 and thus needs funding to build an extension to the warehouse to hold more inventory. Looking at BIS’s cashflow statements, you notice a significant increase in net cash flow from financing from 2005-2006. There is also an increase from the cash flow of operations from 2005-2006. In 2005 net cash flow was -$13,500 and increased rapidly in 2006 to a healthy net cash flow of $49,720. Based on current ratio, the company is losing liquidity, decreasing from 2.63 in 2004 to 1.52 in 2006. The quick ratio is another indication

This frequently puts the auditor in the position, in effect, of deciding whether a company is able to obtain the funds it needs to continue operating. Thus, the auditor’s qualification tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The auditor’s expression of uncertainty about the company’s ability to continue may contribute to making it a certainty.

The purpose of an audit is to enhance of confidence in the financial statements. An auditors opinion validates this purpose.

Since reliable financial information is essential for investors and other stakeholders to take adequate decisions, this reliability must be backed by independent review performed by independent and certified auditing firms, which are supposed to verify and certify financial statements issued by a company’s management. If the auditor is not competent and independent from management, the audit of the financial statements loses its credibility (Schelker, 2013, p.295). According to Impastato (2003), because of audit failures, accountants are to blame for investors losing billions of dollars in earnings in addition to market capitalization (as cited in Grubbs & Ethridge 2007).