Weekly Homework
The primary reading material source is http://www.principlesofaccounting.com/
(For additional information, use the OpenStax textbook available within LEO as a secondary resource.)
SCENARIO: You are a new hire for a major corporation completing your eight-week rotation related to accounting, financial reporting, budgeting, cost control, and profit maximization. As part of your rotation you are learning about the accounting process and how to use accounting information to make managerial decisions.
Read the assigned chapters to learn the accounting concepts, then submit a written report in the LEO assignment folder summarizing your knowledge of the week’s concepts. You should create this report to provide documentation/evidence of your assigned chapter readings and self-assessment exercises (Fill in the Blanks, and Multiple Choice questions at end of each chapter). (A series of projects focused on your SEC10K corporation will be completed and submitted separately.)
REQUIREMENT: As described above, upon completion of the readings and quizzes (the week’s assigned chapters are detailed below) write a report as a Word document and upload it to this week’s Homework assignment folder. Summarize what you learned through your readings and practice quizzes. Demonstrate an understanding of the week’s concepts. The more detailed writeups documenting a solid understanding of the material will earn the highest homework points.
Week 4:
A. Read and complete the self-graded questions for ch 10, 11, & 14 at PoA.
B. Review your SEC 10-K company’s statement of owner’s equity. Your SEC 10-K company has a statement of owners’ equity (or a similar name such as statement of retained earnings, or statement of stockholder’s equity, etc.).
The change in value of retained earnings from the beginning of the year to the end of the year is reported in this statement.
What is retained earnings? What does the retained earnings balance represent?
What is it an accumulation of over the life of a corporation?
When cash dividends are paid, they are funded from the accumulated profits of the corporation (retained earnings). Thus, dividends decrease retained earnings. If net income and other ‘credits’ to retained earnings exceed the value of dividends paid during the period retained earnings may increase.
If they do not exceed the amount of dividends paid, retained earnings likely decreases.
What do you learn about dividends for your SEC 10-K company? Did they issue dividends?
What are the risks and opportunities of issuing dividends to shareholders each year?
Financial Statement order of preparation. – Financial statements are always prepared in a particular order:
Income Statement
Statement of Owner’s Equity
Balance Sheet
Statement of Cash Flows
Discuss the reason for the order of the reports.
Additionally, provide a summary of the accounting concepts learned through the readings and practice quizzes for this week.
Demonstrate your understanding of the week’s concepts. If you need ideas regarding topics to discuss, see ideas below.
The more detailed your write-up documenting your understanding the higher it will be graded. (See Rubric for details.)
Complete the report below as a Word document and submit in the Assignment Folder for week 1 Homework.
Additionally, here are some topics to consider:
Discuss recording property, plant, and equipment at its historical cost and then recording depreciation over the useful life. Why not record the entire purchase cost as an expense at time of purchase?
Discuss types of intangible assets reported as a long term asset.
What are the components of stockholder’s equity (what types of transactions affect owner’s equity)?
When a corporation buys previously issued stock back off the market, what is it called? How does it impact owner’s equity?
What topic(s) gave you trouble this week (if any)?/What topic(s) do you feel you were able to grasp? Post questions in the homework discussion thread!
The most important aspect of this write-up is to document your understanding of the week’s concepts!
Remember all submissions and postings in our class must be in your own words. Deliverables are to be single spaced with double spacing between paragraphs. These are business reports, thus proper spelling, grammar, and professional writing is expected.
Your report submission serves as your new hire eight-week rotation report to your supervisor regarding the knowledge learned for this week’s material related to accounting and financial reporting.
SEC 10-K Project: Statement of Stockholder’s Equity
Respond to one or more question(s) from each of the three categories below.
Category: Capital stock
1. Describe the composition of your corporation’s contributed capital [Hint: contributed capital includes common and preferred stock plus any paid in capital in excess of par (or stated value)].
2. Describe any other accounts reported in the Stockholder’s Equity section of the Balance Sheet.
3. Discuss Treasury Stock transactions during the current year, if any.
Category: Retained Earnings
1. Use the following equation and show how the Retained Earnings account has changed during the year. [Hint: the beginning balance of Retained Earnings is also equal to the ending balance of Retained Earnings in the prior year.]
Retained earnings, beginning balance
+ Net Income
– Dividends
= Retained earnings, ending balance
[Note: if the Statement of Stockholder’s Equity shows other accounts in the computation of Retained Earnings, please ask the professor for guidance]
Category: Analysis
1. Calculate the following ratios for the most current year, and interpret/comment on what those results of your ratio analysis indicate about the financial aspect measured. Show your calculations.
a. Return on stockholder’s equity
b. Earnings per share
