Todd Richards: Business Analysis

The Auditor, an instructional novella written by James K. Loebbecke, tells the story of Jack Butler, a man from the San Francisco Bay area, who goes to college, majors in accounting, and goes to work for a large accounting firm referred to as “The Firm.” The story is loosely based upon the real world experiences of the author, and is written to give students a look into the world of public accounting that goes beyond a textbook. The Auditor not only gives students a chance to follow Jack Butler’s journey up the company ladder at The Firm, but also reiterates the relative importance of conventional lessons learned in school.

The goal in the life of a college student is graduating and getting the dream job in the career field that is chosen. To achieve this goal takes more than just having the knowledge and heart for the career; it also takes technical skills to be able to perform the tasks. The Auditor: An Instructional Novella stretches beyond the standard textbooks to reveal the principles and practices of auditing as they are in the real world. The book consists of a few key aspects such as: targets students’ natural curiosity about the field of accounting, supports traditional teaching tools, shapes the potential challenges that awaits public accountants.

Auditor, an instructional novella written by James K. Loebbecke, tells the story of Jack Butler, a man from the San Francisco Bay area, who goes to college, majors in accounting, and goes to work for a large accounting firm referred to as “The Firm.” The story is loosely based upon the real world experiences of the author, and is written to give students a look into the world of public accounting that goes beyond a textbook. The Auditor not only gives students a chance to follow Jack Butler’s journey up the company ladder at The Firm, but also reiterates the relative importance of conventional lessons learned in school.

This course is the first in a two-part series that deals with auditing a company 's financial reports, internal controls, and

Legitimacy in accounting practices is ensured by the check and balance of having independent auditors from registered public accountant firms reviewing financial practices. The report features eleven sections and these sections pertain to accounting overview, independence of auditors to reduce interest conflicts, corporate responsibility, financial disclosures, tax returns, criminal fraud and various elements of white collar criminal activity (107th Congress

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).

As one recent article on the West Valley database noted, venture capitalist investor, Tim Draper, is proposing a voter initiative on Congress to split California into 6 states. Today, researchers have been observing areas of California that place either greater or lesser importance on decisions about laws, taxes, and public policy, thus some counties are lacking in affordable housing and quality infrastructure. The fact that our state lies between the top ten worst governments to do business with was sufficient reason for Tim Draper’s plan to balance California’s resources by dividing it into 6 sovereign states. According to Draper, since California demonstrates many subjects of interest different from other states, it could be a solution to

Since 1978 our goal has always been to provide the best possible service to our clients – those individuals that have honored us with the task of supporting their business. From our strong Compliance department with an experienced and professional Operations department, a Fixed Income desk that is one of the best in the business and management that truly understands the retail and institutional business you will see we provide service like it should be. You’ll be proud to be associated with R.M. Stark & Co.

3.) Strong presence in high margin health services business. In addition to UnitedHealth Group’s leadership position in the health benefits market segment, UnitedHealth Group has strong information and technology based health services platform through its business segments which is Ingenix, OptumHealth and PrescriptionSolutions. The “CNN MONEY” (2012) website states Ingenix is one of the largest health information, technology and consulting companies in the world. The UnitedHealth Group derived $2.3 billion of revenues from Ingenix which contributed $284 million (excluding $200 million in goodwill impairment and business line deposition charges) of operating profit, and an operating margin of 12.1% during FY2010.

Greg Steiner, the president of Kaman Aerospace Group and the Executive Vice President of Kaman Corporation spoke about many topics in regards to business and management, as well gave some advice that will be helpful to me as I prepare myself for the workplace.

With the avalanche of accounting scandals that have rocked the public, people tend to have increasingly high expectation that auditors are accountable for detecting all frauds, while the standards require auditors to provide reasonable, but not absolute, assurance. The purpose of the report is to discuss the accountability of auditors in detecting fraud by analysing a $16.9 million fraud of Otago District Health Board (ODHB) perpetrated by Swann and Harford from 2000 to 2006. The report will explain the event, the fraud, the stakeholders, the role of auditors and the current situation.

2Arguments for why auditors should not be allowed to perform these services for the same client include:

Rittenburg, Larry. Johnstone, Karla. Gramling, Audrey. (2012) Auditing: A Business Risk Approach 8e. Mason: South-Western, Cengage Learning.

Internal auditors cannot effectively provide an analysis on the company’s internal dealings as they are part of the company. External auditors, however, can observe these processes from the outside and then determine where the funds of the company and whether the dealings adhere to the regulations. Using external auditors in a company prevents conflict of interest from happening. Conflict of interest is a situation where an individual or organization has multiple interests and of those multiple interests, one could possible corrupt the motivation for an act on the other when the auditor has any kind of beneficial interest in their client’s performance. In other circumstances, there is also the threat of familiarity where auditors become

The role of internal audit is to provide independent declaration that an organization’s threatadministration, governance and internal control processes are functioning effectively. Internal auditors deal with concerns that are essentially important to the existence and success of any organization. Unlike external auditors, they aspect beyond financial possibilities and statements to reflect wider problems such as the organization’s reputation, development, its power on the location and the approach it treats its organizations.In summary, internal accountantssupport organizations to thrive.