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Importance of financial statements
Importance of financial statements
Importance of financial statements
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Preparation of financial information is a critical role of the management of all public companies. For instance, access to accurate and timely information enhances the ability to manage the business of the company effectively. Moreover, it makes investors to put confidence in financial reports of the company if the company needs to increase its capital in the public securities market.
The ability of the management to fulfill financial reporting roles depends on the design and effectiveness of the process as well as the security that is put in place over financial and accounting reporting. Without this controls, it will be difficult for businesses to prepare reliable and timely financial reports for lenders, investors, management and other users. While there is no guarantee that financial reports will miss errors, effective internal control systems over financial reporting are able to substantially minimize such inaccuracies or errors in financial statements of the company.
Over time, an efficient internal control over financial reporting has been made one of the most important legal obligations. For instance, the federal law requires a public company to create an internal control system that gives a reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of the financial reports in line with the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). In addition, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act maintained that the management of public companies assess the effectiveness of Internal Control over Financial Reporting (ICFR) and give reports of the result to the public on annual basis. Also, the act needs large public companies to engage independent auditors in auditing the effectiveness of their ICFR (Vay, 2006).
Management plays an important role in ensuri...
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...her advisers, if they deem this to be necessary. I believe that these requirements are sufficient to protect stockholders and potential investors from accounting errors and fraudulent business practices (Johnstone & Gramling, 2014).
Works Cited
Frederikslust, R. (2007).Corporate Governance and Corporate Finance:
A European Perspective. Routledge.
Johnstone, K. M., & Gramling, A. A. (2014). Auditing: a risk-based approach to conducting a quality audit (9th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Nelken, I. (2006). Hedge fund investment management. Amsterdam:
Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann.
Rezaee, Z. (2009). Corporate governance and ethics. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Vay, D. L. (2006). The Effectiveness of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in preventing and detecting fraud in financial statements: a dissertation. Boca Raton, Fla.: Dissertation.com.
A Guide to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (2006). Retrieved December 16, 2009 from www.soxlaw.com
Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Dodd-Frank Act are some of the most important regulations in the modern financial environment. The significance of these regulations is attributed to their focus on promoting the vitality of financial markets through addressing complexities in financial procedures and preventing financial wrongdoing. The enactment of these regulations was fueled by some financial irregularities in the corporate world and some major players in the financial markets. Despite the strong link between these laws and the financial markets, they have some similarities and differences in light of their respective objectives.
It has been a decade since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act became in effect. Obviously, the SOX Act which aimed at increasing the confidence in the US capital market really has had a profound influence on public companies and public accounting firms. However, after Enron scandal which triggered the issue of SOX Act, public company lawsuits due to fraud still emerged one after another. As such, the efficacy of the 11-year-old Act has continually been questioned by professionals and public. In addition, the controversy about the cost and benefit of Sarbanes-Oxley Act has never stopped.
Consistent accounting and financial frauds in the U.S. alerted the SEC to the imperative need for policy and corporate governance changes. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 was enacted to encourage financial disclosures, enhance corporate responsibility, and combat fraudulent behaviour. This Act also helped create the PCAOB, which oversees the auditing practice (Stanwick & Stanwick 2009).
Zhang, I. X. (September 01, 2007). Economic consequences of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 44, 74-115.
A possible flaw of Sarbanes-Oxley is it failed to put up any resistance in thwarting the financial crisis. While the degree to which fraudulent behavior can be traced to the roots of the Great Panic of 2007 will likely be up for eternal debate, it might be telling that Sarbanes-Oxley effectively did nothing. It seems this could indicate that stronger incentives for whistleblowers (such as Dodd-Frank and perhaps other whistleblower protection regimes) are very necessary given the extreme social costs. This conclusion may be hasty, however, given the short time period between the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley and the crash. Not only is the status of Sarbanes-Oxley still in flux over a decade later, but one has to consider the substantial learning and switching costs associated with a regime with such a substantial ruach. Certainly, this is not to say that additional protections may in fact be necessary given the putative reluctance of lawyers to report fraud, but Sarbanes-Oxley likely needed more time to really crystalize and provide some level of predictability before it can be declared a bust.
In 2002, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) to strengthen corporate governance and restore investor confidence. The act’s most important provision, §404, requires management and independent auditors to evaluate annually a firm’s internal financial-reporting controls. In addition, SOX tightens disclosure rules, requires management to certify the firm’s periodic reports, strengthens boards’ independence and financial-literacy requirements, and raises auditor-independence standards.
Throughout the past several years major corporate scandals have rocked the economy and hurt investor confidence. The largest bankruptcies in history have resulted from greedy executives that “cook the books” to gain the numbers they want. These scandals typically involve complex methods for misusing or misdirecting funds, overstating revenues, understating expenses, overstating the value of assets or underreporting of liabilities, sometimes with the cooperation of officials in other corporations (Medura 1-3). In response to the increasing number of scandals the US government amended the Sarbanes Oxley act of 2002 to mitigate these problems. Sarbanes Oxley has extensive regulations that hold the CEO and top executives responsible for the numbers they report but problems still occur. To ensure proper accounting standards have been used Sarbanes Oxley also requires that public companies be audited by accounting firms (Livingstone). The problem is that the accounting firms are also public companies that also have to look after their bottom line while still remaining objective with the corporations they audit. When an accounting firm is hired the company that hired them has the power in the relationship. When the company has the power they can bully the firm into doing what they tell them to do. The accounting firm then loses its objectivity and independence making their job ineffective and not accomplishing their goal of honest accounting (Gerard). Their have been 379 convictions of fraud to date, and 3 to 6 new cases opening per month. The problem has clearly not been solved (Ulinski).
The rise of Enron took ten years, and the fall only took twenty days. Enron’s fall cost its investors $35,948,344,993.501, and forced the government to intervene by passing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) 2 in 2002. SOX was put in place as a safeguard against fraud by making executives personally responsible for any fraudulent activity, as well as making audits and financial checks more frequent and rigorous. As a result, SOX allows investors to feel more at ease, knowing that it is highly unlikely something like the Enron scandal will occur again. SOX is a protective act that is greatly beneficial to corporate America and to its investors.
The report on internal controls, according to ExxonMobil’s CEO, Treasurer and Controller, states they are solely “responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over (ExxonMobil’s) financial reporting.” They evaluated the effectiveness of internal controls over financial reporting based on COSO’s framework and concluded that controls were effective (MD&A, F-22). The report in internal controls acknowledged us—ExxonMobil’s independent public accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC)—stating that the Corporation maintained effective internal control over financial reporting for 2009 and 2010 as it is the responsibility of management to maintain and assess its effectiveness. We, PwC, are responsible only to express an opinion on internal controls, which we opined in 2009 as unqualified (MD&A, F-22).
To require the disclosure of meaningful information about a security and its issuer to allow investors to make intelligent investment decisions.
According to the conceptual framework, the potential users of financial statements are investors, creditors, suppliers, employees, customers, governments and agencies, and the general public (Financial Accounting Standards Board, 2006). The primary users are investors, creditors, and those who advise them. It goes on to define the criteria that make up each potential user, as well as, the limitations of financial reporting. The FASB explicitly states that financial reporting is “but one source of information needed by those who make investment, credit, and similar resource allocation decisions. Users also need to consider pertinent information from other sources, and be aware of the characteristics and limitations of the information in them” (Financial Accounting Standards Board, 2006). With this in mind, it is still particularly difficult to determine whom the financials should be catered towards and what level of prudence is necessary for quality judgment.
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.
The success of a company is very dependent upon its financial accounting. In accounting there are numerous Regulatory bodies that govern the accounting world. These companies are extremely important to a company because they set the standards when it comes to the language and decision making of a company. These regulatory bodies can be structured as agencies, associations, commissions, and boards. Without companies like the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), Internal Accounting Standards Board (IASB), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and other regulatory bodies a company could not make well informed decisions. In this paper the author will look at only four of them.
Nowadays with the implementation of new emerging technologies, the way businesses keep this financial information has become computerised. At the moment businesses use computers with a computerised accounting system in order to perform many other new activities than what they were able to do in the past. Businesses can access financial information from different department in the organisation, access to the information through computers and find financial data very fast, being more efficient. (Beliss, 2013)