Accounting

This week’s required readings explain the role that analytics plays in the modern business environment. Consider the following questions and respond in a minimum of 175 words:·  How is data analytics different from statistics?·  Analytics tools fall into 3 categories: descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive. What are the main differences among these categories?·  Explain how businesses use analytics to convert raw operational data into actionable information. Provide at least 1 example.·  Consider the organization you work for (or another organization you’re familiar with). Does this organization use data analytics? If so, how is it used? If not, how could the organization use data analytics to improve its performance?

Identify the factors that influence the amount of cash/bank balances an organization will hold at any one time. You will need to consider the following questions.  Why do organizations hold some of their assets in the form of cash? What are the costs of holding too much cash? What are the costs of having too little cash? To what extent are the reasons for holding cash similar to those for holding stock? I have included 2 examples that you can use and reword please do not just copy these.

You have learned this term that it is important to understand the cross-cultural psychology literature on national and ethnic cultures and on the management literature on culture in organizations. Of major concern to the global organization is the impact of environmental sensitivity – culture and subculture. Climate change opinion varies by country on many levels, economic, political, legal, and social to name a few. Evaluate how cross-cultural cultural issues associated with environmental sensitivity can be a source of competitive advantage. Also, consider the impact: does it only represent a cost to an organization? How will global organizations adapt as concerns about the natural environment increase? Your paper should synthesize theories and concepts and demonstrate how you can apply them in your analysis and evaluation of this topic.  You may also use these Internet sources: http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/research/climate/projects/undp-cp/ http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/07/14/climate-change-seen-as-top-global-threat/ https://blog.richmond.edu/geog250/2016/02/08/mapping-the-impacts-of-climate-change/ https://wikitruth.co/topic/global-warming-and-anthropogenic-climate-change/56260b399034736a6829657e http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/climatechange/

It is common industry knowledge that an audit plan provides the specific guidelines auditors must follow when conducting an external audit. External public accounting firms conduct external audits to ensure outside stakeholders that the company’s financial statements are prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) or International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).  Use the Internet to select a public company that appeals to you. You may also use the company dossier in the Nexi Uni database to find company information. Imagine that you are a senior partner in a public accounting firm hired to complete an audit for the chosen public company. Write a 4–6 page paper in which you: Outline the critical steps inherent in planning an audit and designing an effective audit program. Based upon the type of company selected, provide specific details of the actions that the company should undertake during planning and designing the audit program. Examine at least two performance ratios that you would use in order to determine which analytical tests to perform. Identify the accounts that you would test, and select at least three analytical procedures that you would use in your audit. Analyze the balance sheet and income statement of the company that you have selected and outline your method for evidence collection which should include, but not be limited to, the type of evidence to collect and the manner in which you would determine the sufficiency of the evidence. Discuss the audit risk model and ascertain which sampling or non-sampling techniques you would use in order to establish your preliminary judgment about materiality. Justify your response. Assuming that the end result is an unqualified audit report, outline the primary responsibilities of the audit firm after it issues the report in question. Use the Strayer Library to locate at least two quality academic resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and other similar websites do not qualify as academic resources. Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements: This course requires use of new Strayer Writing Standards (SWS). The format is different than other Strayer University courses. Please take a moment to review the SWS documentation for details. Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow SWS or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions. Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.

Prior to beginning work on this discussion, read Drakopoulou’s article A Review of Fundamental and Technical Stock Analysis Techniques (Links to an external site.) from the Journal of Stock and Forex Trading (2015). Review the financial statements for one publicly traded company, such as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), General Motors (NYSE: GM), Sony Corp (NYSE: SNE), International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), American Airlines Group Inc. (NASDAQ: AAL), or Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN)). The financial statements may be found at EDGAR | Company Filings (Links to an external site.). Enter the company’s stock ticker in the Fast Search box, Enter 10-K in the Filing Type box, and click on the latest 10-K. If you wish, you can save the whole 10-K report to your computer. After examining the financial statements of your selected publicly-traded company, refer back to the article A Review of Fundamental and Technical Stock Analysis Techniques (Links to an external site.). Assume you are a daily equities trader with an actively traded equity portfolio. In your initial post of at least 200 words, Discuss the differences between fundamental analysis and technical analysis techniques you will employ to select the stock of your preferred publicly traded company. Dive deeper into the details of how these two approaches differ, the criticism against technical analysis, and how technical and fundamental analysis can be used

SEC Filings and the EDGAR Database [WLOs: 1, 2, 3, 4] [CLOs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5] In a three- to five-page paper (not including the title and reference pages) research and discuss how the SEC’s EDGAR | Search Tools improves how investors find and use financial information. In your paper, explain how investors can use the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) database at EDGAR | Search Tools (Links to an external site.) to research a company’s operations and financial information. Assess the financial performance of Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) by determining the risk of investing in the company through financial statement analysis. To make the above assessment and determination, go to Amazon’s.com (Links to an external site.) official website, and locate the company’s Investor Relations link. Using the Investors Relations link, find financial information such as SEC Filings and Annual Reports. Conclude how investors can assess Amazon’s.com financial performance and risk using Annual Reports. Explain the content of each report listed below in detail and how it relates to your assessment of Amazon’s.com financial performance. Form 10-K SEC filings Annual Reports Management Discussion and Analysis Management’s Responsibility for Financial Reporting Management’s Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting Auditors’ Report Selected Financial Data Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) is the world’s largest electronic commerce and cloud computing company measured by revenue and market capitalization. The following items were adapted from a recent Annual Report of Amazon.com (Links to an external site.) for the year ending December 31:   In millions 1.                   Accounts payable $16,459 2.                   Accounts receivable 5,612 3.                   Cash 14,557 4.                   Cost of sales 62,752 5.                   Income tax expense 167 6.                   Interest expense 210 7.                   Inventories 8,299 8.                   Net cash provided by operating activities 6,842 9.                   Net cash flows used for investing activities (5,065) 10.               Net sales 88,988 11.               Other expenses 118 12.               Other income 76 13.               Property, plant, and other long-term assets 16,967 14.               Selling, general, and administrative expenses 26,058 15.               Retained earnings (Dec. 31) 2,190   Indicate on which financial statement you would find each of the preceding items using the following notations (note: an item may appear on more than one statement): IS Income statement SE Statement of stockholders’ equity BS Balance sheet SCF Statement of cash flow Prepare an income statement for the year ending December 31, based on the com, Inc. financial statement data shown above. The Final Paper: SEC Filings and the EDGAR Database Must be three to five double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.) Must include a separate title page with the following: Title of paper Student’s name Course name and number Instructor’s name Date submitted For further assistance with the formatting and the title page, refer to APA Formatting for Word 2013 (Links to an external site.). Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance. Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper. For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Ashford Writing Center resources. Must add an APA heading (Level 1 or Level 2) for each one of the topics discussed in the research paper as shown: SEC EDGAR Database Level 1Amazon’s.com financial performance Level 1 Form 10-K SEC Filings Level 2 Annual Reports Level 2 Management Discussion and Analysis Level 2 Management’s Responsibility for Financial Reporting Level 2 Management’s Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting Level 2 Auditors’ Report Level 2 Selected Financial Data Level 2 Financial Statement Notations (IS, SE, BS, SCF) Level 1Amazon’s.com Income Statement Level 1   Use the following APA Style blog to read about the APA Five Levels of Headings (Links to an external site.) Must use at least 14 scholarly and/or credible articles from ProQuest Business, Industry Databases: Nasdaq.com, EY.com, and Comprehensive Accounting Databases: FASB codification, AICPA, and SEC reference library sources in addition to the course text. The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment. Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.) Must include a separate reference page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.

SCENARIO: A routine financial audit reveals that several people receiving paychecks are not, and have never been, on the payroll. A system review indicates they were added to the payroll approximately one month prior, at the same time, via a computer in the financial department. What is your response? INJECT: You confirm the computer in the payroll department was used to make the additions. Approximately two weeks prior to the addition of the new personnel, there was a physical break-in to the finance department in which several laptops without sensitive data were taken. OPTIONAL INJECT: Further review indicates that all employees are paying a new “fee” of $20 each paycheck and that money is being siphoned to an off-shore bank account. Having this additional information, how do you proceed? Discussion questions • What actions could you take after the initial break-in? • Do you have the capability to audit your physical security system? • Who would/should be notified? • Would you able to assess the damages associated with the break-in? • Would you be able to find out what credentials may have been stored on the laptop? • How would you notify your employees of the incident? • How do you contain the incident? o Optional Inject question: How do you compensate the employees?

Include two Chapter: A / methodology part ( collect data from annual reports from public websites of an accounting firm and recruitment material of accounting firms: (1) statistics on the number of women in the profession, and  (2) rules (both laws and community norms) about gender in the profession and in education.  B) Analysis of data

Managerial Accounting Course: The paper itself has to deal with: Restoring Trust after Fraud or Management Failures. Thus you have to embark on the research task by investigating some of the prominent issues relating to Corporate Governance and Accounting Scandals or Evidence of deliberate Deceptions or Corruptions. Examples of how to frame your Research Topic: Restoring Trust after Fraud: The Case of——————–

What If NAFTA Goes Away? Case studies must be typed, single-spaced and 1-2 pages long (minimum of 700-800 words), not recapping the case history or repeating the material in the case. Answer the case study questions in the textbook (p. 137) one by one. Bullet points are acceptable as long as they are accompanied by a relevant explanation. Case Discussion Questions 1. Because the three NAFTA member countries had been trading for ages before NAFTA, what are the benefits of an FTA such as NAFTA? 2. ON ETHICS: Pick your role as (1) a consumer, (2) a manufacturing worker, or (3) a banker in one member country. What has NAFTA done to help or hurt you and your community? 3. Pick a firm from your state or country that is active in at least two (preferably three) member countries via trade and investment. How does it prepare for the scenario that NAFTA benefits are curtailed? Case study what If NAFTA Goes Away? In effect since 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has no shortage of controversies. As Trump has assumed power, the criticisms against NAFTA, potentially culminating in its repeal, force us to entertain a previously unthinkable scenario: What happens if NAFTA goes away? The answer to this question obviously boils down to what NAFTA has brought to the United States. In two decades, trilateral merchandise trade among three member countries grew from $290 billion in 1993 to $1.1 trillion in 2016—a nearly fourfold increase. Approximately $3 billion goods and services cross the border every day—an astonishing $2 million every minute. US trade with Canada tripled and US trade with Mexico increased by five times—while US trade with the rest of the world grew 280%. Canada and Mexico are, respectively, the second and third largest exporters to the United States (China is the first). Canada and Mexico are, respectively, the first and second-largest importers of US goods. Mexico alone imports more US goods than China and absorbs more US imports than Britain, France, and Germany combined. Canada imports even more “Made in USA” goods. What about jobs? In brief, no “giant sucking sound” has been heard. Approximately 300,000 US jobs—an average of 15,000 per year—were lost due to NAFTA in its first two decades, but about 100,000 jobs were added. The net loss was small, as the US economy generated at least 25 million new jobs during the same period. In 2015, the Congressional Research Service acknowledged some worker and firm adjustment costs brought by NAFTA. But overall, it reported conclusively that “NAFTA did not cause the huge job losses feared by the critics.” At present some eight million US jobs depend on trade with Canada and another six million on trade with Mexico. Even for every job lost, the economy gains $450,000 in the form of higher productivity and lower consumer prices, which benefit all. But a hard count on jobs misses another subtle but important benefit. NAFTA has allowed US firms to preserve more US jobs because 40% of the value of US imports from Mexico and 25% from Canada is actually made in the USA—in comparison, only 10% of the value of US imports from China is made in the USA. In 1994, US imports from Mexico only contained 5% of the value made in the USA. Clearly NAFTA has facilitated seamless supply chain integration, with goods, components, and parts crossing the border multiple times to be eventually assembled in one member country. Without NAFTA, entire industries may be lost rather than just the labour-intensive portions. So what if NAFTA goes away? First, relax: not all the benefits discussed above will be lost. As an institutional framework, NAFTA merely represents some relatively new rules of the game that are man-made and artificial. Given their natural geographic proximity and historical links, the three North American neighbours had been trading for ages before 1994. Their tightly-knit economies cannot and will not immediately stop trading. In a hypothetical post-NAFTA era, these three economies will still gain by trading, but the gains will be smaller. Americans and Canadians can still enjoy plenty of yummy avocados from Mexico (the world’s top avocado producer), but they will have to cough up more money for their beloved guacamole. Second, if the Trump administration unilaterally imposes high import tariffs, Canada and Mexico will certainly respond in kind. Given the reality of NAFTA supply chain, a tariff is like erecting a wall in the middle of a factory. Hard-fought export market share in Canada and Mexico will shrink. Thousands of jobs in manufacturing, logistics, and other services will disappear. For example, the Center for Automotive Research estimated that a 35% tariff on vehicles imported from Mexico, which would contain 40% “Made in USA” parts, would result in the loss of 31,000 US jobs. Third, because both Canada and Mexico have free trade agreements (FTAs) with the EU, the US withdrawal from NAFTA will significantly help increase EU firms’ market share there. In other words, EU firms, propelled by their own FTAs with Canada and Mexico, will be delighted to take over the market share vacated by US firms. Beyond those from the EU, strong competitors from China, Japan, and Korea, despite having no help from FTAs, will be elbowing their way into Canada and Mexico. In other words, reducing the preferential treatments (especially low or zero tariffs) enjoyed by US firms under NAFTA will clip their wings in the competition for export markets in Canada and Mexico. Ironically, gutting NAFTA will help enhance the competitiveness of America’s global rivals. Finally, shutting down NAFTA does not bring back a large number of manufacturing jobs to the United States. The recent crises facing US manufacturing jobs, falling from 17 million to 11 million between 2000 and 2010, have little to do with NAFTA. Instead, competition with China and technological changes have largely contributed to such a decline. Therefore, blaming Mexico and dismantling a beneficial FTA does not solve the problems associated with manufacturing job losses. There is a widespread belief that Trump’s nasty rhetoric on NAFTA is just “talk.” Procedurally, Trump is required to seek congressional approval if he merely wants to renegotiate NAFTA. Congress is unlikely to support a policy to throw away so many benefits and to spark retaliatory trade sanctions in America’s top two export markets—with so little gains. While NAFTA is not a panacea and has its problems, dismantling it would be “lunacy,” according to Texas Monthly. In summary, NAFTA is unlikely to be gone completely. But renegotiation is certainly possible.