As long-distance rates and revenue declined, the debt and expenses piled up and put pressure on WorldCom’s ability to meet key-performance indicators and earnings forecasts (J. Randel Kuhn & Sutton, 2006). The line cost was the biggest expense for WorldCom and half of its total expenses. Management committed to achieve a low line cost to revenue ratio because lower ratio meant better performance and higher ratio meant poorer performance. Management focused on lowering the line cost level expense (J. Randel Kuhn & Sutton, 2006). It carried out two improper accounting methods to reduce the amount of line costs (Beresford, Katzenbach, & C.B. Rogers, 2003). First, it released the accruals, the amounts kept aside on WorldCom’s financial statements to pay expected bills which is also called “cookie jar reserve” from 1999-2000 (Beresford, Katzenbach, & C.B. Rogers, 2003). These accruals were supposed to reflect the estimate line costs and other expenses that WorldCom had not yet paid (Beresford, Katzenbach, & C.B. Rogers, 2003). Releasing the accrual is appropriate when it turns out that less is needed to pay the bills than has been expected to pay. Instead, WorldCom provided offset against reported line costs when the accrual was released which reduced reported expenses and increased pre-tax income (Beresford, Katzenbach, & C.B. Rogers, 2003).
When the accruals started to run out, WorldCom came up with another method, capitalization of line costs. WorldCom started classifying
Normally at the end of each month, Worldcom would estimate the costs of using “Off-net” facilities and connections. Worldcom would accrue these liability estimates. Line cost accrual estimates were very difficult to estimate with precision, especially for international services.
With the use of Traditional Absorption Costing (TAC) which means Wilkerson Company is now only put the costing of direct labor and material in place. As we can
Though this may not be out of the ordinary for WorldCom, this is not a correct accounting practice. The way the entries were made does not comply with the proper account practice according to GAAP. Detailed support is an important part of providing support to a journal entry and it explains the reason or purpose as to why the journal entry was created.
Review of ABC Company and the directions it is targeting. The strategy of the company is to lift the expected sales in an aggressive fashion, with the expected end target being to triple the current levels. The plan is to push sales into the targeted range of $3 million within 3 years versus the current amount which sits at $1.2 million. We will identify the perceived risk factors that may impact this aggressive strategy and its successful execution. The following will be those risk factors:
2. Considering your answer to item 1, the first three exhibits, and related introductory discussion, is it likely that the accounting system may distort product profit significantly? Why? (Ignore general, selling, and admin expense.)
Moving onto the income statement portion of the common-size financial statements, an increase in cash and equivalents (3.20% of total assets in 1997 to 5.97% in 2001) and receivables (2.69% of total assets in 1997 to 3.22% in 2001) coupled with a decrease in inventory signify Costco’s improving efficiency over this five year period. It is important to mention two points. First, the decrease in inventory as a percentage of total assets from 30.8% in 1997 to 27.14% in 2001 signifies an increase in the turnover rate, perhaps due to
One of the best aspects of the way the time-driven ABC system was put into place at Kemps was how efficiently and accurately management determined the main issues with the current cost system and responded with appropriate and relevant solutions. For example, one of the greatest problems the company was facing was that many of its operating costs were spread out equally over a customer base that was growing more diverse and demanding more personalized and varied service, effectively cutting or potentially eliminating entirely Kemps’ profit margins for a product. Therefore,
For example the extra charge for maintenance accumulated from last year and for this year should be equally divided and not charged to the first quarter only. Similarly, cost of relocating the Southern Paper Sioux Springs office that has been charged to the first quarter, had been the expenditure incurred last year. It should not have been included in the first quarter. No doubt these are good accounting practices but nevertheless reverting the charges to their respective results would not compromise GAAP practice. Unrealized income would be better off transferred to the next or the last quarter as the income received would not materialize until at the end of the year. Including the dividend from the company's Brazilian unit would not help increase profitability at the end of the year unless the company is assured of its profitability. As of now it needs to balance its accounts before it can estimate correct profit level at the end of the year. With regard to the obsolete inventories, there is no alternative course of action but to write-off from this
Amid the 1990 's, the organization begins to develop through arrangement of effective obtaining and merger. In any case, amid the late 1999, the organization 's execution starts to slip because of elevated rivalry, overcapacity and decreased interest for telecom administrations at the onset of the monetary subsidence and the fallout of the website air pocket breakdown. Other than that, falling information transfers organizations and new participants were definitely lessening their costs drives WorldCom. Every one of these weights brought on WorldCom to include in accounting
“Blake Romney became Chief Executive Officer of Peters Inc. two years ago. At the time, the company was reporting lagging profits, and Blake was brought in to "stir things up." The company has three divisions, electronics, fiber optics, and plumbing supplies. Blake has no interest in plumbing supplies, and one of the first things he did was to put pressure on his accountants to reallocate some of the company’s fixed costs away from the other two divisions to the plumbing division. This had the effect of causing the plumbing division to report losses during the last two years; in the past it had always reported low, but acceptable,
After analyzing Wal-Mart’s annual report for 2010, attention has been brought to several items that require closer examination. A common “red flag” to questionable accounting has been found within Wal-Mart’s statement of cash flows and income statement. There is an increasing gap between the company’s reported income and the cash flow from operating activities. In the year 2008 reported income and cash flow from operating activities differed by $484 million. However the difference increased a considerable $2,249 and $4,183 billion in the years 2009 and 2010 respectively. This increasing gap is a significant warning sign that the company may be changing accrual estimates.
After closely reviewing the financial and production data, our accounting team has found that your traditional cost allocation is faulty and misleading. The costs of products A and C were over allocated and products B and D were under allocated causing deceptive information on the true profits of the company. Also, product B appears to be
Conversely, looking at the income statement for PMWL, operating income shows healthy gains of $45,862, which means the operating expenses are significantly lower in comparison to AWBL’s. However, PMWL’s cost of goods sold appear abnormally high, which makes an investor question whether this company is at it’s maturity phase in the product life cycle, and how much additional capital is necessary to bring this figure down to a number that leverages economies of scale and allows for profit maximization.
HP in 1994 decided not to integrate the ABC in the Cost Accounting Information System (abbreviated CAIS) for a number of reasons. The first reason is that at that time the CAIS was implemented in all HP business units worldwide. This system was considered very complex and difficult to change. Because ABC was only used in one business unit it was thought to be insensible to change the whole system. The second reason is connected to the codification of the operations in the CAIS. If the ABC would be integrated this system would have to be reorganized and all the employees would have to learn to operate the new
There are two possible sources of discrepancies we would like to disclose in this introduction: financial histories and restructuring charges. The first source of some discrepancies throughout the paper is a lack of some financial history. In the 1998 Darden Restaurants Annual Report, there was some inconsistency in whether history from FY 1996 was used or not. For this reason, we have been forced to omit FY 1996 in some