Legality and Ethicality of Financial Reporting
Clairice Sikoski
ETH-376
December 10, 2012
Samuel Hinton
Legality and Ethicality of Financial Reporting
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.
Identifying the legal issues involved and considering state and federal laws and how they apply to the case. Alternative one
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Integrity is low in this case. Integrity requires a member to be honest and straight within the limitations of client confidentiality. Service and public trust should not hold more value than personal gain. If the third option is selected as their method to do business It will help the company meet their obligation to perform professional services to the best of their ability with concern for the best interest of the company the equipment is provided. They also will meet responsibility to the public for acting ethically and doing business in an honest manner.
Determine the ethicality of the events within the case. This case walks the ethically slippery slope. Terry Reeds, the CFO panics about his personal gain if the company does not meet standard profitability. He forgets to put others first and tries to use his position to push other employees to tamper with sales information in the companies favor. The accounting department came up with three alternatives one of which meets ethical requirements. This area is still on the slippery side because the accounting department should only have produced ethical correct options.
The best alternative offered by the team is option three to offer Data Equipment a 10% discount to take the product by December 31. For the company to present its business in the financial position it would like in a legal manner aligned with accounting standards Data Equipment has to receive
The fundamental ideologies of a capitalist corporation can vary from company to company, but typically all have the same underlying purpose – to make a profit. Often, a business’ ideologies are expressed in the form of an organisational vision or mission statement – a simple statement demonstrating to the public, and reminding the employees, the goal of the organisation. These vision or mission statements usually look at the ‘bigger picture’ of what an organisation wants to achieve. Examples being:
Financial reporting practices and ethics have manifested an ocean of literature. This has mainly come from organization theorists that address accounting practices. These theorists and professionals have given fresh accountability measures. Their ideals give this industry the tools needed to survive, grow and prosper. The way an organization prepares and reports its financial information and handles its daily operations is in essence financial practices, and in the way it accomplishes this reveals their ethical standards to which they adhere to. This paper will discuss the financial practices, ethical standards, and
This review will address several issues associated with the legal, business, and ethics related to the case. First, it will describe the legality of the case by reviewing the
What principles would you need to be aware of when dealing with the ethical dilemmas in this case study?
Corporations can be large or small but they all have some sort of ethical impact on their employees, shareholders, customers, community, and surrounding environments. Richard DeGeorge writes, “We can speak of corporations having moral responsibilities to act in certain ways, and they are morally responsible for the consequences of their actions on people.” (p. 200). Large corporations are comprised of the board of directors, management, and their workers. They also deal with suppliers, customers, and have competitors. This essay will examine the moral responsibilities within a corporation.
Excello Telecommunications has been profitable for many years, but recently has been faced with increased competition for its products by overseas manufacturers. For the first time in the company, it appears that earnings estimates will not be met. Management is concerned about the effect on bonuses, stock options, and the share price of Excello stock. When Terry Reed, the CFO, learns of a transaction on December 20, 2010, that might solve the problem. On December 20, 2010, Excello sold $1.2 million of equipment to Data Equipment Systems. Typically, this type of transaction would be recorded as a sale on the date of shipment. However, the customer requested that
Excello Telecommunications has another option that requires offering Data Equipment a discount for purchasing the equipment by December 31st, 2010. This would be a legal and ethical way of dealing with the situation. Not only does it require that the money is recorded in 2010, but it also increases
This was a very interesting article, in my opinion it brings to mind the derived phrase, which came first the chicken or the egg. Meaning, is corporate governance an attempt to control the results of unethical practices of corporations or is it meant to deter them. In reading this article, it is clear that certain corporations practiced unethical business behaviors for self-interest, but the questions this author have are: 1. Should corporate governance be regulated by the legislature as well as the organization and to what degree, 2. Is corporate governance, there to protect the shareholder or the stakeholder, 3. How effective is corporate governance on a global level. The need for a governance system is based on the assumption that the separation between the owners of a company and its management provides self-interest executives the opportunity to take actions that benefit themselves, with the cost of these actions borne by the owners (Larcker & Tayan, 2008).
This study aims to understand what effect has an ethical framework in accounting. In particular, we examine the influence of ethics on earnings management, financial reporting, and external accounting. Today, the commercial environment reveals the unethical behavior of management and accountants through the manipulation of accounting records to boost the company’s stock price, falsified financial statements to mislead investors, failure of auditors to correct errors and omissions due to client’s pressure and personal material interests.
The following paper will compare and contrast corporate governance in the U.S. and European Union. Because corporate governance regulations are not yet uniform across all EU countries, we have chosen to examine Poland in particular. We will first present U.S. corporate governance and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and then examine how Poland's corporate governance regulations compare. Finally, since we have already learned about Corporate Social Responsibility for U.S. companies, we have examined Corporate Social Responsibility in Poland, looking specifically at the largest airline in Poland, LOT.
The ethical dilemma Bob faces in this case is a transaction that makes Bob question his and the company’s ethics and legal obligations. It’s February, business was slow, the company was $5,000 below their breakeven point, and it appeared as if a
Ethical issues have greatly transformed in our lives since the great Enron, Xerox and other huge corporations proposed big profits showing earnings of billions of dollars and yet in reality facing bankruptcy. These corporations faced great trouble with the federals and state for manipulating financial statements. But not only corporations can be blamed on this, accounting firms were involved in this as much as the corporations were. With the business stand point, ethics comprises of principles and standards that guide behavior. Investors, traders, customers, and legal system determine whether a specific action is ethical or unethical. Ethical issue is a vast subject, but we will look at the niche
The Corporate Governance refers to the mechanisms, rules and regulations in which companies and governing bodies are put into task on various occurrences under their performance. It can be said to be a guideline which directs how companies achieve their objectives and more so how these objectives are set. In this case, abiding to the ASX corporate Governance Council has its merits and limitations at the same time. By abiding to the principle of laying solid foundations for the oversight and management, the merits in this case is the separation and clear allocation of duties to both junior staff and directors or seniors (Swan, 2014). By this there will be minimal conflicts and misunderstanding in execution of the duties by different players. However, by disclosing the process and manner in which the senior executives are evaluated, this can lead to the compromise of the whole process since the senior executives based on their vast knowledge may influence the outcome skewing the results to be positive.
It is well established that good corporate governance practice is beneficial for firms, its stakeholders and whole economy. Further based on studies such as by Levine (2004), saving rates, investment decisions, technological progress and consequently economic growth are encouraged as financial systems reduce market frictions. So developing countries require reforms to stimulate financial system for revival of economy.
organises Regional Corporate Governance Roundtables to support regional reform efforts. The review process benefited from contributions from many parties. Key international institutions participated and extensive consultations were held with the private sector, labour,