Managing Cash Flow By John Olson

DQ 1:   What are the differences between the direct and indirect presentation of cash flows?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of the direct and indirect methods and which does the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) favor and why?

cash provides an investor with a way to control risk as well as gain a return on their investment

Before reading this book titled Accounting Now by Mark Sasscer, I was merely familiar with a few elements of leadership skills that I obtained from my professional experiences. I recognized that becoming a great leader; one must be confident, communicate effectively, compassionate and be able to solve problems. However after reading this book, I discovered it was essential to have these elements along with other essentials and approach that will improve and reinforce my leadership skills now and in the future. According to Mark Sasscer, there are “Ten principles of Personal Leadership” that a leader can abide in order to be a successful leader. I will describe the ten principles, including my thoughts and the elements that significantly impacted my perception of accountability and leadership.

The word “fraud” was magnified in the business world around the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002. No one had seen anything like it. Enron, one of the country’s largest energy companies, went bankrupt and took down with it Arthur Andersen, one of the five largest audit and accounting firms in the world. Enron was followed by other accounting scandals such as WorldCom, Tyco, Freddie Mac, and HealthSouth, yet Enron will always be remembered as one of the worst corporate accounting scandals of all time. Enron’s collapse was brought upon by the greed of its corporate hierarchy and how it preyed upon its faithful stockholders and employees who invested so much of their time and money into the company. Enron seemed to portray that the goal of corporate America was to drive up stock prices and get to the peak of the financial mountain by any means necessary. The “Conspiracy of Fools” is a tale of power, crony capitalism, and company greed that lead Enron down the dark road of corporate America.

Although the income statement and balance sheet provide measures of a company’s success in terms of performance and financial position, cash flow is also vital to a company’s long-term success. Disclosing the sources and uses of cash helps creditors, investors, and other statement users evaluate a company’s liquidity, solvency, and financial flexibility. Financial flexibility is the ability of a company to react and adapt to financial adversities and opportunities. McDonald’s cash flow is

In the documentary video, Bethany McLean stated that Enron’s Financial Statements does not makes sense; “the company was producing little cash flow, and debt is rising”. Fraud was present. “The company's lack of accuracy in reporting its financial affairs, followed by financial restatements disclosing billions of dollars of omitted liabilities and losses, contributed to its downfall”(Effects of Enron, 2005). This is dishonesty at its best in accounting world.

Saying things you know are not true: Goldman’s analysts said many things that were not true to investors including saying that a security was a good investment when indeed it was not.

2. Magnetronics had $7,380 invested in accounts receivables at year-end 1999. Its average sales per day were $133,614 during 1999 and its average collection period was 55.23 days. This represented an improvement from the average collection period of 58.68 days in 1995.

class he had missed had been devoted to a lecture and discussion of the statement of cash flows, and

Even the small profits reported by Enron in 2000 were eventually determined to be only a illusion by court-appointed bankruptcy examiner Neal Batson. Batson’s report reveals that over 95% of the reported profits in these two years were attributed to Enron’s misuse of MTM and other accounting techniques. But while financial analysts could not be expected to know that the company illegally manipulated the earnings, the reported profit margins in 2000 were so low and were declining so steadily that they should have merited ample skepticism from analysts about the company’s profits.

Enron executives and accountants cooked the books and lied about the financial state of the company. They manipulated the earnings and booked revenue that never came in. This was encouraged by Ken Lay as long as the company was making money. Once word got out that they were disclosing this information, their stock plummeted from $90 to $0.26 causing the corporation to file for bankruptcy.

      The Statement of Cash flows is a very useful financial statement that can benefit investors, managers and even auditors. The statement of cash flows has not been around as long as the other financial statements such as the balance sheet or income statement. It basically “illustrates the way accounting evolves to meet the requirements of users of financial statements.” (Marshall, 2003) The statement of cash flows is designed to provide important information about the cash that a company has received or has paid out during a certain time period. It provides a reason for the changes of cash received and paid by a company by taking into

The management of cash is essential to the survival of any organization. Managing an organization’s financial operation requires knowledge of the economy and ways to maximize revenue. For any organization to operate on a daily basis adequate cash flow is required. Without cash management the organization will be unable to function because there is no cash readily available in case of inconsistencies in the market. Cash is also needed to keep the cycle of the company’s operations going.

Enron's entire scandal was based on a foundation of lies characterized by the most brazen and most unethical accounting and business practices that will forever have a place in the hall of scandals that have shamed American history. To the outside, Enron looked like a well run, innovative company. This was largely a result of self-created businesses or ventures that were made "off the balance sheet." These side businesses would sell stock, reporting profits, but not reporting losses. "Treating these businesses "off the balance sheet" meant that Enron pretended that these businesses were autonomous, separate firms. But, if the new business made money, Enron would report it as income. If the new business lost money or borrowed money, the losses and debt were not reported by Enron" (mgmtguru.com). As the Management Guru website explains, these tactics were alls designed to make Enron look like a more profitable company and to give it a higher stock price.

The project proposal will be critical analysed before it will established in South Korea. In the first assignment will looked in depth in political, country risk, FDI theories and motive for the project. In the second assignment, the cost of capital for the project was calculated, stating the risk for both the parent and subsidiaries.