The End Of Accounting And The Path Forward For Investors And Managers

Operating Segments: Improving Disclosure From the Bottom Up. (2011, November). Retrieved January 30, 2013, from PWC: http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/audit-services/publications/corporate-reporting/investor-view/operating-segments-improving-disclosure-from-bottom-up.jhtml

The standard statements focus on accounting income for the entire corporation, not cash flows, and the two can be quite different during any given accounting period. However, for valuation purposes we need to discount cash flows, not accounting income. Moreover, since many firms have a number of separate divisions, and since division managers should be compensated on their divisions' performance, not that of the entire firm, information that focuses on the divisions is needed. These factors have led to the development of information that

SFAC No. 8 addresses the cost constraint on useful financial reporting, “Cost is a pervasive constraint that standard setters, as well as providers and users of financial information, should keep in mind when considering the benefits of a financial reporting requirement.” (SFAC No. 8 BC 3.47) However, the ability to place a dollar value and fully enumerate a cost or benefit is almost an impossible task for standard-setters. Additionally, there is no way to successfully identify and measure all of the economic consequences associated with a new standard. The FASB should be applauded though for advancing uniformity in accounting standards, however; uniform financial reporting suggests a one size fits all approach. “Smaller, non-publicly listed firms (and their auditors) argue that accounting standards are formulated mainly for larger, publicly traded firms” and that “compliance costs are disproportionately higher and the

Entity-wide disclosures are required under Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) 280-10-50-40 through 280-10-50-42. The disclosures are required because every corporation does not report information in a similar fashion, and the disclosures would provide comparability of the financial statements among entities. For example, if a corporation uses a geographic approach in its financial statements, disclosing certain information about the products or services sold will make comparability to other companies much easier. The disclosures will also help with comparability within an entity if they decide to choose another method of reporting operating segments in the future. There are three types of entity-wide disclosures; products and services, geographic areas, and/or major customers. Every public company has to comply with the disclosures, even if the company has one reportable segment. The only exception to the entity-wide disclosures is if it is impractical to provide the information, such as it would be extremely costly to the corporation, or if the “internal reporting systems are not capable of gathering financial information by product or service by geographic area.” A disclosure should be made when entity-wide disclosures are impractical.

The purpose of this research report is to understand of two important concepts from the Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting----the objective of general purpose financial reporting and qualitative characteristics of useful financial information. In this report, Myer Holdings Ltd is as an example to describe these two concepts. This report includes the analysis on whether the disclosure of PPE from Myer Holdings Ltd meets the requirements of AASB 116, especially the requirements of objective

The most important thing to any company’s stakeholders is high-quality reporting of its financial statements. Investors, for instance, need to know the truth about a company in order to make an informed decision on whether to make private investment, buy stock or bonds. However, for stakeholders to get the truth about a company, they need to read and understand management’s discussion and analysis, the president’s letter, the notes, as well as the financial statements. Conversely, financial statements must be accompanied with disclosures to prevent them from misleading the stakeholders.

In today’s global economy, investors must rely on information provided by the various companies listed on the stock exchanges in order to determine if a company is a good investment, or a poor one. In order to make informed decisions, investors want to see financial statements that have been proven to be correct; they do not want to risk losing the amounts they have invested if they were to choose to invest in a company that was not being truthful about their financial standings. To reduce this risk, publicly traded companies must have and audit of their annual financial statements. These audits are meant to reduce the risk of misleading numbers skewing how the company is

Main Features of this Pronouncement Application Date This pronouncement makes amendments to the Framework for periods ending on or after 20 December 2013, with allowance for earlier application. AASB CF 2013-1 4 PREFACE  Main Amendments This pronouncement replaces the guidance in the Framework on the objective of general purpose financial reporting and the qualitative characteristics of useful financial information with, as an integral part of the Framework, the Appendix: Objective and Qualitative Characteristics.

The stock market crash in 1929 resulted in increased government regulation of businesses (Kieso, Weygandt, & Warfield, 2013). As a result, the United States “government established the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)” on June 6, 1934 “to help develop and standardize financial information presented to stockholders” (Hoyle, Schaefer, & Doupnik, 2013; Kieso, Weygandt, & Warfield, 2013). Although the SEC was created over eighty years ago, reporting requirements has evolved with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), the SEC’s authority over generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), and the numerous mandated filings with the SEC.

ASC topic 280 sets forth-financial reporting standards for segment reporting, the disclosure of information about different components of an enterprise’s operations as well as information related to the enterprise’s products and services, its geographic areas, and its major customers. The purpose of segment disclosure is to assist investors and lenders in

In order to help users of financial statements better understand the public entity 's operations and make more informed decisions about the public entity 's operating matters, publicly-held companies are required to disclose the segments and related information about the different types of activities in which the company engages and the different economic environments in which the company operates. According to FASB Accounting Standards Codification, public entity is a business entity or a not-for-profit entity that issues securities in public market or is required to files financial statements with SEC. FASB provides guidance regarding the disclosure in the notes to financial

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.

It has been become an issue of great concern that the accounting profession must find a common theory in order to address and put the issue at rest. This therefore, has called for the study of this topic under review “the demand for and supply of accounting theories: the market for excuses. As a result of this several questions have been raised. For instance, the question of why accounting theories are predominantly normative has been put forward by this article? Secondly, why no single theory in accounting profession that is generally or widely accepted? It has been argued that the financial accounting theories have been found to be ineffective most especially in the area of impacting accounting practice and policy, though, this has been

MC Wells ‘A Revolution in Accounting Thought’. The Accounting Review. V.LI. No.3. July 1976. pp471-82. The article does not have an abstract – write an abstract of no more than 400 words. A short guide to writing an abstract is provided. ----Answered by Wenxin

The report of the general purpose of financial reporting outlines an importance of ensuring about what companies disclosure on the PP&E in the report in regards to the qualitative characteristics of useful financial information by the general purpose financial reporting. The report investigates how this company meets the disclosures requirements for PP&E as per AASB116 as well as what extents the disclosures on the PP&E contain the fundamental and enhancing qualitative characteristics of useful