Understanding Accounting and Financial Statements
“Understanding Accounting and Financial Statements”. Accounting can be an involved process, but none the less is essential for the manager to understand. The purpose of this module is four-fold:
- To provide assistance in understanding some of the basic accounting principles and practices.
- Provide hands on practice.
- Provide real life examples
INSTRUCTIONS:
Watch three entertaining and informative video clips (3:30 minutes each) from The Center for Audit Quality (CAQ):
- “Fight Fraud – Accounting Ethics” Provides an explanation why businesses sometimes commit fraudulent accounting acts and the importance of ethics and leadership.
- “System of Investor Protection”: Understanding financial reporting and the team members in charge of ensuring reporting accuracy.
- “Sarbanes Oxley – The Audit Committee”: Understanding the significance of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 and audit committee responsibilities. (Video credit: CAQorg.com)
Watch the video clip (1:07 minutes) entitled “Goodbye Training Wheels”. This is an example of a term called “Innovation Transfer” which means “ The transfer of a new idea or method for solving a problem from one group or individual to another, typically from a process improvement consulting group to a client business. Innovation transfer is an important part of Six Sigma and other best practice deployment approaches.” In this case, I am using this example of the young boy in the video learning to ride his bicycle as an analogy of you learning accounting principles: sometimes you just need a little practice and for someone to steady the bike and before long you are peddling on your own!!
(You can read more about innovation transfer at Business Dictionary.com. “Training Wheel Video credit: Andrea Dorfman. Music: Iron and Wine)
Complete the Excel workbook entitled Chpt 15 Critical Thinking Exercise – Accounting. This workbook consists of two problems (each worth up to 50 points each totaling the possible 100 points you can earn). The two problems are:
- Wheatley International – Preparing a Financial Statement
- Acme Incorporated – Calculating Financial Ratios
Both problems are in the same Excel workbook and are listed in six (6) tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet when you open the file. Complete the work in the gray answer boxes for each assignment