Sahira has received employee complaints about the lengthy time it takes for her team to create financial reports. Her team explains that the computers are the problem and that the software programs are too difficult to use and that many hours of manual manipulation of data are required to complete monthly reports (Colorado State University-Global Campus, 2014, p. 6, ¶3). The management dilemma can be described as: Delays in financial reporting? (Appendix, Worksheet box 1). Upon further examination, the specific management question to be addressed is: Can financial data management be made more efficient? (Appendix, Worksheet box 2). Consequently, the research questions are: 1) How to streamline data for financial reporting? and 2) Is a new accounting software system needed? (Appendix, Worksheet box 3). Finally, a key accounting and financial management theory at play here is that of efficiency in data management to improve efficacy and timeliness of financial reporting.
Management Dilemma: Delays in Financial Reporting
Financial reporting delays have long been a problem for companies (Abbas, 2009). In some instances reporting delays reach crisis levels, so that owners and shareholders, as well as senior management, do not have accurate and timely financial information on company performance (Pasquali, 2012). It is also not uncommon, as in Sahira’s case, that the data needed for financial reporting has not kept up with technology, requiring manual input or manipulation of the data, or “re-keying” of data into the company’s accounting software to produce financial reports (Financial Executive, 2012), and thus delaying the timeliness of financial reporting (Pasquali, 2012), and often resulting in errors in reporting (Karabi...
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Management accounting in organisation is very important for decision-making and to make the business more efficient and therefore increasing its profits. Is the process of preparing accounts that can help managers to make day-to-day and short-term decisions, by providing them with accurate and timely key financial and statistical information...
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The annual report or 10-K of a company is a useful source of information for many agents outside of the corporation. Shareholder’s can view the contents of an annual report to get a more comprehensive idea of what the company is built upon. Additionally, annual reports show a company’s progress over the past financial periods and give a detailed breakdown of company investing and operations. The 10-K and all related documents are easily accessible on a company’s website for the public to view. i
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XBRL, the eXtensible Business Reporting Language, is an open standards-based reporting system built to accommodate the electronic preparation and exchange of business reports around the world. XBRL started back in 1999 with 12 organizations as the founding members. There are now in excess of 450 organizations worldwide in over 30 countries involved in its development. It provides major benefits in the preparation, analysis and communication of business information. It offers cost savings, greater efficiency and improved accuracy and reliability to all those involved in supplying or using financial data. The idea behind XBRL, eXtensible Business Reporting Language, is simple. Instead of treating financial information as a block of text - as in a standard internet page or a printed document - it provides an identifying tag for each individual item of data. This is computer readable. For example, company net profit has its own unique tag. The introduction of XBRL tags enables automated processing of business information by computer software, cutting out laborious and costly processes of manual re-entry and comparison. Computers can treat XBRL data "intelligently" as they can recognize the information in a XBRL document, select it, analyze it, store it, exchange it with other computers and present it automatically in a variety of ways for users. XBRL greatly increases the speed of handling of financial data, reduces the chance of error and permits automatic checking of information. Companies can use XBRL to save costs and streamline their processes for collecting and reporting financial information. Consumers of financial data, including investors, analysts, financial institutions and regulators, can receive, find, ...
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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...
Since technology is getting more developed time after time, many of life aspects has been influenced by the presence of computer as a remarkable innovation in human history. The emerging of a new concept called Computerized Accounting Information System (CAIS) particularly, is one example of this “cutting-edge calculator’s” intervention on bookkeeping activities. As many companies tend to apply this new frame to treat their transaction recordings, many accounting software developers try to provide an advanced computer program as the main engine of the companies’ CAIS. Some of the softwares are declared that it does not need anymore accountant assistances in dealing with financial matters. This claim has sparked a heated debate about whether or not companies could use software as a substitusion to accountant in the future. This essay will discuss arguments from both sides and describe the reasons why accountants still play an important role in making an economical decission.
After having gone through the process of completing a content analysis assignment, there are a number of things I have learned throughout the experience. First, I discovered that it can be difficult in some instances to find the correct documents (in this case newspaper articles) needed to complete the content analysis procedure. Even though we as a class were given specific directions on how and where to find the desired articles, I still had difficulty gaining access to news articles from The Wall Street Journal due to the need for a subscription. I eventually did find access to relevant articles, but I did not find them in the way that was outlined in class. In a true, academic content analysis research study, I would have to follow exactly what the coding scheme says in order to get accurate and consistent results.
Block, S. B., & Hirt, G. A. (2005). Foundations of financial management. (11th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
I am currently majoring in Finance Management. Most of the time people think of finance as just managing money. However, finance is needed for so much more! The finance industry deals with starting businesses, developing new products, expanding markets, as well as everyday things like saving for retirement, purchasing a home, and even insurance. The stock market, asset allocation, portfolio analysis, and electronic commerce are all key aspects in finance. In this paper, I will explain how these features play a vital role in the industry, along with the issues that come with these factors.
Financial theories are the building blocks of today's corporate world. "The basic building blocks of finance theory lay the foundation for many modern tools used in areas such asset pricing and investment. Many of these theoretical concepts such as general equilibrium analysis, information economics and theory of contracts are firmly rooted in classical Microeconomics" (Oaktree, 2005)
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)