Category: Accounting

Instructions for the discusssion posts are in the files below. There are 2 discussion posts to respond to, each needing at least 1 source.

You will use the company search feature of the U.S. Securities and Exchange EDGAR database service(opens in a new tab) to locate a company report.
To locate an annual report using the EDGAR database, navigate to the website, and type your selected company’s name into the search box. Note: You must use the official company name.
Answer the questions below to complete your case study.
Read the notes to the financial statements and determine your company’s revenue recognition policies. Revenue recognition has changed recently. Based on your chosen company does their policy meet the new FASB(opens in a new tab) recognition standard? Apply your professionalism in analyzing and reporting financial information by justifying your response as to why your chosen company meets the new standard. Explain how they meet it. 
Give one example of where historical cost information is reported in the financial statements and related notes.
Give one example of the use of fair value information reported in either the financial statements or related notes.
Does your chosen company intend to adopt any new accounting pronouncements such as revenue recognition or leasing? Explain your answer. Apply analytical critical thinking and problem-solving skills by determining the effect to the financial statements if they have any lease or revenue recognition changes.
Describe the current trends with lease recognition and revenue recognition under GAAP.
If there are changes in revenue recognition, discuss the expected effect on income, changes in its revenue recognition policy, and in the years following the change.
(In relation to any accounting changes) Before the change, are there any concerns with respect to the qualitative characteristics of comparability? Explain your answer. 
Let’s say your chosen company made a change in accounting principle such as a movement from LIFO to FIFO, write a note to the financial statement reflecting this change.
You must use essay format with an introduction, body, and conclusion in a minimum of 400 words.
Cite all your sources in APA format with citations and references.

The CK&M Company manufactures a robotic vacuum called the Robo2000. The company sells the vacuum to discount stores throughout the country. The Robo2000 is a basic robotic vacuum with a remote and is significantly less expensive than the robotic vacuum that requires a smartphone and app offered by the competitor, Stone Manufacturing. Furthermore, CK&M has experienced production problems that have resulted in significant rework costs. Stone’s model has an excellent reputation for quality.
Is CK&M’s current strategy that of product differentiation or cost leadership? What about the strategy of Stone Manufacturing? CK&M would like to improve quality and decrease costs by improving processes and training workers to reduce rework. CK&M’s managers believe that increased quality will increase sales. Develop an appropriate strategy to achieve this goal. For each of the 4 perspectives, propose criteria that you would include in a balanced scorecard for CK&M.

Instruction 4.10
From the database created in the comprehensive problem (attached spreadsheet), perform queries based on the tables and query grid shown in Table 4-21. Your instructor may specify whether you are to use Design view or SQL view.
Table 4-21
Selected Query Screen for Chapter Comprehensive Problem: See image  
You must complete Problem 4-10 questions A to J. Your queries should be named and saved in alignment with the parts of the problem, i.e. Query 4-10-a, Query 4-10-b, Query 4-10-c, etc.
Questions
a)Which borrowers use Advent Appraisers? List BorrowerID, LastName, and AppraiserName. 
b) List all of the property appraisers with the letter “d” in their name, sorted by name. List AppriaiserID and AppraiserName. 
c) List all of the lenders who have participated in a transaction that used AppraiserID 8. Provide LenderName, BorrowerID, and ReqMortAmount. 
d) List the lenders that lent more than $100,000. Provide LenderName and AppraiserName. Only list each combination of LenderName and AppraiserName once. 
e) Queries that use aggregate functions 
f) What is the average amount borrowed from each lender? Provide LenderID, LenderName, and AvgMortAmt. Sort by AvgMortAmt in descending order. Consider using ROUND() to present at two decimal places. 
g) How many appraisals did each appraiser perform? Provide AppraiserName and CountOfAppraisals. 
h) Advanced queries that may require nesting or reference to earlier queries. 
i) Which borrower requested the largest mortgage? Provide BorrowerID, LastName, and ReqMortAmount. 
j) Which borrower requested the smallest mortgage? Provide BorrowerID, LastName, and ReqMortAmount.

ACC 350 Project Two Guidelines and Rubric
Competency
In this project, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following competency:
Apply VITA guidelines and regulations to the intake and review process
Overview
For this project, you will focus on work as a volunteer for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. By using your knowledge of tax guidelines, the codification, and the regulations, you’ve assisted clients by preparing tax returns specific to the VITA program, and you have communicated vital information to clients with diverse financial backgrounds.  
Scenario
You are a volunteer income tax assistant (VITA volunteer) in a local community service organization. Your site coordinator is putting together a training program and has tasked you with developing training materials. You will create a slide presentation to assist the site coordinator with offering informational sessions to potential VITA volunteers based on your experience. 
Directions
Create and present an engaging, informative presentation on the VITA volunteer role. Explain how the intake and review process is vital to preparing accurate tax returns for VITA clients and showcase how VITA volunteers communicate with clients. Your presentation should be 4–7 minutes in length, including 5–10 slides (not including your title and references slides), and you should provide speaker notes within the presentation for each slide.
Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:
Explain how the VITA client’s prior and current year tax returns differ. Include the following:
Three or four examples about how a tax return may differ from prior year to current year
Examples may include changes to tax law and/or results on a tax return.
Speaker notes
Explain how accuracy is obtained on a VITA client’s completed tax return. Include the following:
Best practices for intake and review process
Use of the VITA software to support your work
Clarifying questions to ask a VITA client
Example from a client in this course
Speaker notes
Explain a variety of VITA resources that support diverse taxpayers. Include the following:
Two resources to support a VITA client
Speaker notes
Demonstrate how ethics play an important role in the VITA process. Include the following:
Explain at least three standards of conduct required through the VITA program as they relate to ethics.
Speaker notes
Communicate recommended tax information to the site coordinator. Include the following:
Explain how a volunteer may address confidential client information (privacy).
Discuss the purpose of the Consent to Disclose Tax Return Information to VITA/TCE Tax Preparation Sites form.
What is the form used for?
Reflect on the VITA program.
Highlight at least three things you’ve learned in this course.
Discuss your thoughts on volunteering for VITA in the future. Include the following:
Reasons to volunteer
Reasons not to volunteer
Speaker notes
What to Submit
To complete this project, you must submit three elements as follows:
Part 1: Project Two VITA Slide Presentation
Use the Project Two Presentation Template to create a 5–10 slide presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint. The title and reference pages are not included in the total slide count requirement. Sources should be cited in APA style.
Part 2: VITA Slide Presentation Speaker Notes (Transcript)
Submit a PDF of speaker notes covering the VITA slide presentation. Utilize resources found in the Supporting Materials section for assistance in converting speaker notes within the PowerPoint presentation to a PDF file
scenario can found from the attachement i added
email from Professor qlarifying
Thank you for reaching out for clarification.  You do not need to use any specific client for these slides.  With that said please note that you will need to use specific examples to explain #1 prior and current year tax return differences and #2 how accuracy is obtained for a tax return.   For these you can use any of the scenarios that you have used during this course as examples that you would like to illustrate these concepts.  I hope this answers your question and I look forward to seeing your presentation.

Instructions will be uploaded later.
Important Info
The order was placed through a short procedure (customer skipped some order details).
Please clarify some paper details before starting to work on the order.
Type of paper and subject
Number of sources and formatting style
Type of service (writing, rewriting, etc)

In this module, you will discuss strategies to use when the research is vague concerning your client’s context and facts.
When performing tax research, you may come across a vague answer that does not fit your client’s facts. If the code sections do not provide an answer, where would you turn for additional resources? How often should we reference the committee reports to see what was discussed on the congressional floor? Give an example of when you would (or did) use additional resources to find the answer for a client’s unique situation.

Pick a publicly traded company you might be interested in learning more about throughout the semester. It could be a company you have seen on the news, a member of an industry you want to work in, or just a random choice.
Go to the company’s website and find a copy of their most recent Form 10-K. This is the annual filing with the SEC that contains their financials and a whole lot of other information. For most companies, you can find the Form 10-K by going to the “investors” page, then “financials”, then “SEC filings”, then choosing the “annual items” option. I would suggest saving the pdf of the 10-K for future reference.
Organizational Context:
What key features of the organization (e.g., major products or services, customers, location, etc.) help set the boundaries for business decisions? In other words, what key goods or services does your organization provide, for whom, where, and why?
How is the company organized and managed (e.g., by product groups, geographic region, function, etc.)? How does that affect accounting and financial information and subsequent business decisions?
Risks & Growth Opportunities: (Might want to read the management discussion & analysis to help you analyze this section)
What are some risk factors facing the company? How are they working on reducing the adverse effects of these risks? For example, is the company vulnerable to technological changes or cyber-attacks? Loss of high-talent personnel? Production disruptions?
What is a decision that your company is facing or might face? What information would be required (or at least help) with making that decision? If you were charged with implementing the gathering / analysis of the information, what sources would you try to use? Can you think of any obstacles related to the data? One overriding issue with data usage is keeping in mind motivations. If you ask me for information (data) my motivations may shape what I give you. Could this be an issue for this decision?
How might the organization better capitalize on non-financial factors such as market share, reputation, human resources, physical facilities, or patents? Support your response with relevant research and analysis. You can use Mergent Online to help with your research.
Past Financial Performance:
Analyze you company’s balance sheet, statement of income, statement of stockholders’ equity and statement of cash flows. I am not just looking for net income is this and it went up by this, but looking for in depth analysis. Below are some areas you can consider looking at that we have discussed in chapters 1-11:
Analyze company’s performance year over year. For example, what do the amounts and year-to-year changes in revenue, operating income, net profit or loss, and Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization tell you? Do any items stand out?
Describe your company’s earnings quality. Any room for growth and improvement?
Any discontinued operations? If so, why were those segments closed?
How often do they pay dividends? How is retained earnings doing?
Complete profitability analysis for your company and explain year over year change in profitability ratios and what that means for the company?
Revenue recognition criteria? Is revenue increasing/decreasing and why?
What is happening to income from continuing operations year over year?
What are the sources and uses of cash? Any non-cash transactions?
What are some of the company’s significant accounting policies?
Any going concern issues? Any related party transactions? Any subsequent events and how are they disclosed?
AR methods use?
Inventory methods use?
Write down of inventory?
Interest capitalization?
Financial Health:
How is the overall financial health of the company? Can use liquidity and solvency ratios and/or graphs and chart to help reader understand. For example, does the organization have enough cash for payroll and other bills? Does it have the right mix of debt versus equity (stock)? How do you know?
Give your conclusion on whether you would invest in this company and why.
Footnotes:
Focus on two footnotes from the your class. The analysis can be related to any of the below topics. Do not select footnote topics not discussed in class.
-Critical estimates / judgement
-Revenue recognition
-Subsequent events
-Cash & cash equivalents
-Accounts receivable
-Inventory
-Property, Plant & Equipment
-Intangibles
-Impairments
Every company does footnotes a bit differently. So each topic may either be a separate footnote or organized a bit differently.
Be sure to compare each of the footnotes to another similar company. Do not give me screenshots of the footnotes in the paper, take what you have learned in class and analyze what the footnote is telling you about the company and compare the company to another in the industry. You can compare using trends, ratios and simple observations.
Attach a copy of the footnotes from your company and its competitor as an exhibit item. This is not part of the page limit. Don’t attach the entire 10-K just the relevant footnote so it’s easy for me to grade.
Rubric:
Guidelines for Submission: Your financial analysis report should be approximately 11-14 pages (excluding title page). It should be double-spaced, with 12-point Times New Roman font and one-inch margins, and proper page number citations from the 10-K. Please also include your name, course name, submission date and year of your 10K on the title page.

You are a tax advisor and your client, Nora, owns and operates C-C Bakery (a C-Corp for tax purposes). She encounters three different tax scenarios on which she requests your advice. You are to research the relevant tax code and make recommendations to her in the form of a memorandum for each situation.
Nora has some further questions for you regarding her individual tax return and C-C Bakery. Her business has been doing extremely well, and she has decided to give back to her community. She would like to contribute $70,000 in December of this year to the charitable and nonprofit Boys and Girls Club. She would like to know if she should contribute this from her business account (C-Corp) or her individual account (1040 return). She would also like to know if there are any tax advantages or limitations. Her bakery has been profitable, as her taxable income is projected to be around $500,000 on this year’s tax return. Her adjusted gross income on her individual return will be around $350,000. She has made no further charitable contributions throughout the year. In a short memo, advise how she can take advantage of the deduction for the charitable contributions to her community via her individual return and/or corporate return. Be specific regarding code sections or any other primary or secondary sources. You will find a memo template in Chapter 10 of the Federal Tax Research textbook.
Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:
Charitable Giving
Identify sources for evaluating appropriate tax situation
Document research performed to determine if charitable giving applies to tax year and specific limitations, describing results
Apply research to individual or business tax years and determine amount of deduction
Document findings and advice in a memorandum to the client, including supporting details

Chevron Corp
NYSE: CVX
Pick a publicly traded company you might be interested in learning more about (Chevron Corp). 
Go to the company’s website and find a copy of their most recent Form 10-K. This annual filing with the SEC contains their financials and a lot of other information. For most companies, you can find the Form 10-K by going to the “investors” page, then “financials”, then “SEC filings”, then choosing the “annual items” option. I would suggest saving the pdf of the 10-K for future reference.
You will use the same 10-K for parts 1 and 2 of this analysis. You can also find the 10-K using Mergent Online through Business Library. 
Write a maximum of 11-14 pages, double-spaced, analysis of the company based on your learnings on the topics addressed in their 10-K. Refer to the rubric and the topics below regarding what is expected in your analysis. There is a page limit because people in the business world want concise and to-the-point messaging written with proper grammar and easy-to-understand language that a person without much financial knowledge can understand. How you organize your report to cover the below is up to you, but I would use graphs, charts, visuals, and words. It must be easy to follow and written as an analysis and commentary rather than just stating the facts. I am not looking for quantity but quality of analysis. As a reader, I want to get the most analysis in as few words as possible. 
Organizational Context:
What key features of the organization (e.g., major products or services, customers, location, etc.) help set the boundaries for business decisions? In other words, what key goods or services does your organization provide, for whom, where, and why?
How is the company organized and managed (e.g., by product groups, geographic region, function, etc.)? How does that affect accounting and financial information and subsequent business decisions?
Risks & Growth Opportunities: (You might want to read the management discussion & analysis to help you analyze this section)
What are some risk factors facing the company? How are they working on reducing the adverse effects of these risks? For example, is the company vulnerable to technological changes or cyber-attacks? Loss of high-talent personnel? Production disruptions?
What is a decision that your company is facing or might face? What information would be required (or at least help) with making that decision? If you were charged with implementing the gathering/analysis of the information, what sources would you try to use? Can you think of any obstacles related to the data? One overriding issue with data usage is keeping in mind motivations. If you ask me for information (data), my motivations may shape what I give you. Could this be an issue for this decision?
How might the organization better capitalize on non-financial factors such as market share, reputation, human resources, physical facilities, or patents? Support your response with relevant research and analysis. You can use Mergent Online to help with your research. 
Past Financial Performance:
Analyze your company’s balance sheet, statement of income, statement of stockholders’ equity, and statement of cash flows. I am not just looking for net income, which went up by this, but I am looking for in-depth analysis. Below are some areas you can consider looking at that we have discussed in chapters 1-11:
Analyze the company’s performance year over year. For example, what do the amounts and year-to-year changes in revenue, operating income, net profit or loss, and Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization tell you? Do any items stand out?
Describe your company’s earnings quality. Any room for growth and improvement?
Any discontinued operations? If so, why were those segments closed?
How often do they pay dividends? How are retained earnings doing?
Complete a profitability analysis for your company and explain year-over-year changes in profitability ratios and what they mean for the company.
Revenue recognition criteria? Is revenue increasing/decreasing, and why? 
What is happening to income from continuing operations year over year?
What are the sources and uses of cash? Any non-cash transactions?
What are some of the company’s significant accounting policies?
Are there any ongoing concerns or issues? Any related party transactions? Any subsequent events, and how are they disclosed?
AR methods used? 
Inventory methods used? 
Write down the inventory. 
Interest capitalization?
Financial Health:
How is the overall financial health of the company? Can use liquidity and solvency ratios and/or graphs and charts to help the reader understand. For example, does the organization have enough cash for payroll and other bills? Does it have the right mix of debt versus equity (stock)? How do you know?
Give your conclusion on whether you would invest in this company and why.
Footnotes: 
Focus on two footnotes from your class. The analysis can be related to any of the below topics. Do not select footnote topics not discussed in class. 
-Critical estimates/judgment 
-Revenue recognition 
-Subsequent events 
-Cash & cash equivalents 
-Accounts receivable 
-Inventory 
-Property, Plant & Equipment
-Intangibles 
-Impairments 
Every company does footnotes a bit differently. So each topic may be a separate footnote or organized differently. 
Be sure to compare the footnotes to those of another similar company. Do not give me screenshots of the footnotes in the paper. Take what you have learned in class, analyze what the footnote tells you about the company, and compare the company to another in the industry. You can compare using trends, ratios, and simple observations.
Attach a copy of the footnotes from your company and its competitor as an exhibit item. This is not part of the page limit. Don’t attach the entire 10-K, just the relevant footnote, so it’s easy for me to grade. 
Rubric: 
Guidelines for Submission: Your financial analysis report should be approximately 11-14 pages (excluding the title page). It should be double-spaced, with 12-point Times New Roman font, one-inch margins, and proper page number citations from the 10-K.