ACC4210 FINANCIAL AND MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING
FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING – ESSAY
Prepared By
TAUSEEFAHMED SHAIKH
(M00481867)
(M.Sc. in Financial Management)
Topic
Critically evaluate whether the extent of regulation relating to financial reporting is excessive and should be reduced.
INTRODUCTION
There are different understandings of financial reporting. In general terms, we can equate it to reporting of “external accounting”; which indicates an accounting that disseminates through internal business management to owner or broader stakeholder. From mainstream economist point of view, financial accounting can also be described as information that guides economic decisions. For information specifically in financial accounting, the approaching of perfect information is often taken as desired. More transparent information often leads to improved economic decisions. However, more transparent information means the more cost associated with providing the information.
Obviously, the influential accounting policy makers like Accounting Standard Board (ASB) find it more beneficial to provide qualitative financial accounting information in guiding economic decisions and thus enhancing social welfare. This in turn prompts them to formulate regulation in the best interest of social welfare encouraging “pro-regulation” perspective. At the same time, some mainstream economists find these regulations stringent and are of opine that it would be in better interest of the business if financial accounting regulations reduced. These economists either represent the “free-market” perspective to argue against financial accounting regulations.
WHAT IS REGULATION?
When we discuss about accounting regulation, we are discussing policy or rule set by an i...
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...rd-setters needs to analyse cost-benefit of particular accounting requirement before they put it into existence. Regulators need to ensure that marginal cost associated with accounting regulations should not exceed marginal benefit associated with social welfare, knowingly; it is very difficult to quantify social welfare benefits.
REFERENCES
1. Chapter-3 The regulation of financial accounting (Core textbook-Deegan Unerman
2. http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/sites/default/files/programme_resources/lse/lse_pdf/subject_guides/ac3091_ch1-3.pdf
3. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2012/wp12233.pdf
4. http://www.laits.utexas.edu/txp_media/html/bur/features/0403_02/slide2.html
5. http://greg-accounting.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/economic-interest-theory-and-regulation.html
6. http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1049&context=accfinwp
Additionally, today’s society is filled with legal and ethical concerns that surround numerous individuals and their responsibility is to keep all information private and accurate. Furthermore, accounting and financial reporting is the most significant function of a business and entails a great sense of legal, ethical and technological concern.
One of the most debatable topics in the accounting industry today is the extent in which we should make the financial statements understandable to the general population. The FASB currently gears its reporting standards toward...
A consolidated financial statement can be defined as the financial statements of a parent and its subsidiaries combined to form a single economic entity (AASB 10, 2011). The entity, which acquires the other entity, is known as the parent and the entity, which has been acquired, is known as the subsidiary. Consolidation financial reports arise when one entity purchases another entity, to then form a group.
Managerial accounting has changed over the years. Managerial accounting focuses on more than the financial aspect. We will be looking at how managerial accounting affects the business world today. Business also look to the economy, federal taxes, and the financial market so it can make the best decisions for their business.
Financial reporting and its regulation are affected by the self-interest of the individuals involved and the individuals form into groups to help achieve their objectives. Individuals are involved in the standard setting process scope for self-interest to get in the way of “neutral and unbiased” accounting regulations the individuals that will be regulated by the new accounting standards can have an impact on the standard setting process. The adverse economic and social consequences must also be considered.
Judgement is a notion of relevance and reliability in developing and applying accounting policies. It is a requirement of management that they exercise a high degree of professional judgement when selecting appropriate accounting policies in the preparation of financial statements that is relevant to decision-making and assessment needs of users. Management should also consider the applicability of IFRS and AASB in dealing with similar and related issues and then the definitions, recognition criteria in the Conceptual Framework when there is no IFRS standard or interpretation in certain circumstances that are specifically applicable. Management may also consider the most current pronouncements of other standard-setting bodies to the extent that do not conflict with IFRS and AASB in developing accounting standards and accepted industry practices by using a similar conceptual framework.
Managing an organization’s financial operation requires a good understanding of the economy and ways to maximize revenue. For an organization to operate on a daily basis, adequate cash flow is required. Poor cash management within an organization might make it hard for the organization to function because there may be shortage of cash in case of inconsistences in the market. In most companies, management is interested in the company 's cash inflows and outflows because these determines the availability of cash necessary to pay its financial obligations. Management also uses this information to determine problems with company’s liquidity, a project’s rate of return or value and the timeliness of cash flows into and out of projects (used as inputs
Financial accounting is the analysis, classification, and recording of financial transactions and reporting such information to respective users especially external users who use the information to make decisions about their engagements with the entity. In financial accounting general purpose financial statements are used for external reporting. The public by standards imposes the development of the statements through respective national professional bodies, International Accounting Standards Board and respective company Acts for various nations.
Schofield (2014) researches the difference between public and private company financial reporting. For instance, a private company has fewer consumers reviewing their financial statements, whereas public companies could have multiple consumers reviewing financial statements. In addition, private companies typically have less specialized accounting personnel, whereas public companies will have several. Lastly, Schofield (2014), reviewed the number of amendments proposed and finalized to help benefit private companies financial reporting.
Discuss the Need for Regulation in Financial Reporting There is a need for regulation in financial reporting because of a number of reasons. There are several major user groups of financial reporting, some of which include equity investor groups, employee groups, analyst adviser group, the government, the public and other stakeholders. These different stakeholders however, need to be able to interpret and use financial information in a systematic way in order to make the necessary financial decisions. If these different user groups created financial reports, it will be prepared in diverse ways which would suit their various requirements. If this is the case, then different groups will interpret different financial reports in different ways.
The accounting cycle is a series of steps starting with recording business transactions and leading up to the preparation of financial statements. This financial process demonstrates the purpose of financial accounting–to create useful financial information in the form of general-purpose financial statements. In other words, the sole purpose of recording transactions and keeping track of expenses and revenues is turn this data into meaning financial information by presenting it in the form of a balance sheet, income statement, statement of owner’s equity, and statement of cash flows.
Accounting dates back as far as first centuries, is the language of business. As everything has gone through many changes, accounting has also changed many times through out the centuries. It went from the use of abacus to the most advanced softwares, and computers. With these drastic improvements nowadays accounting, financial accounting and management are facing big challenges. From the presentation of the reports to communication to the users, investors, and owners, the accounting field has gained totally a new shape from two decades ago. Today with the dynamic change in every aspect of life, the accounting field has to act fast and be able to adapt these new changes and challenges in order to survive.
The Financial Accounting Standards Boards (FASB) defined conceptual framework as a consistent of underlying concepts and the ideas that describe the nature and general purpose of financial reporting which may lead to consistent standard in accounting (Deegan 2010). The role of the conceptual framework is to ensure that financial statements in accounting are free from bias and to provide useful information that is useful for user’s decision making. The standard-setting board also formulated a range of perceptions and theories related to accounting to trigger the objectives of financial reporting. The standard-setting board keeps issuing the conceptual framework over time to ensure that the conceptual framework’s objectives are improving to provide useful financial information. The innovative work on conceptual framework was embraced in the United States by the FASB in the early 1970s. The FASB accomplished disappointment in attempting to generate a standard that at the outset might not appear to present, especially testing theoretical issues. Regardless, while attempting to achieve concession on Statement of Financial Accounting Standard, tending to the theoretical issues produced critical matter for the board members. In this manner, throughout the outset the FASB understood the requirement for an obvious conceptual framework. Based on Hines’s argument, the conceptual framework is mean to provide the ability to increase self-regulate of a profession in order to neutralizing government interference from arising. Whether this argument has been accepted or not will be discussed in more detail with supported evidence to clarify the main point about Hines’s argument. Further details about this argument will discuss below.
In regards to school finance, the ultimate goal of school administrators is to provide all students with the most cost effective, comprehensive education that meets all federal, state, and local requirements and that reflects the values and beliefs within the community. This means that it is an expectation for schools to equip all students equally with the best possible educational opportunities that a community is willing to furnish. However, to accomplish this, school administrators must be able to sustain school programs throughout various economic periods.
Accounting aids the government and organisations in decision making for their financial stability. This numerical data helps solve real life problems and contributes to how the economy and businesses perform.