...Groupon Case 25 points This case is to be completed individually by each student in the class. No collaboration or discussion of the case with any other student in the class is permitted. The due date for the case is at the beginning of class on Monday, April 29, 2013 (the last day of class). Only hard copies of the case should be turned in. If you will be absent for class on that day, have somebody else in class turn it in or put it in the professor’s mailbox on the 5th floor of the RCB building. No email submissions of the case will be accepted. The two accounting standards pertaining to the case, SAB 101(SEC) and EITF 99-19 (FASB) have been posted on Desire2Learn in the same folder as the case. Students will receive an extra credit of 5 points for filling out a questionnaire about the case at the end of the semester. The Case of Groupon’s Revenue Recognition: The Bottom Line on Top Line Revenues Groupon is the extraordinary company that has revolutionized the world of coupon marketing. In November 2008, at the age of 27, Andrew Mason, a music major from Northwestern University, launched Groupon – a name that is a blend of “group” and “coupon”. Gross billings increased from $30 million in 2009 to $713 million in 2010 (Pepitone 2011). In 2010, Forbes declared Groupon as the “fastest growing company ever (Steiner 2010). By 2011, the company had a subscriber base of over 150 million, gross billings of $1.2 Billion, and went public, raising $750 million in...
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...ACTG 630 – Case Assignment Due: Wednesday, December 3 Please submit one assignment per group. No more than 3 students per group. Read “Growing Pains at Groupon” by Dutta, Caplan and Marcinko (2014) and complete the questions included in the Case Requirements section (beginning on page 238). Instructions for accessing the FASB Codification database: 1. Go to http://aaahq.org/ascLogin.cfm 2. User ID: AAA51526 3. Password: x43AYtX ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING EDUCATION Vol. 29, No. 1 2014 pp. 229–245 American Accounting Association DOI: 10.2308/iace-50595 Growing Pains at Groupon Saurav K. Dutta, Dennis H. Caplan, and David J. Marcinko GROWING PAINS AT GROUPON s an undergraduate music major at Northwestern University, Andrew Mason eagerly sought a version of rock music that would fuse punk with the Beatles and Cat Stevens. Little did he imagine that within ten years he would be the CEO of one of history’s fastestgrowing businesses. After Northwestern and faded dreams of rock stardom, Mason, a self-taught computer programmer, was hired to write code by the Chicago firm InnerWorkings. InnerWorkings was founded in 2001 by Eric Lefkofsky, who had built several businesses around call centers and the Internet. In 2006, Lefkofsky became interested in an idea of Mason’s for a website that would act as a social media platform to bring people together with a common interest in some problem— Saurav K. Dutta is an Associate Professor and Dennis H. Caplan is an Assistant Professor, both at University...
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...Growing Pains at Groupon As an undergraduate music major at Northwestern University, Andrew Mason eagerly sought a version of rock music that would fuse punk with the Beatles and Cat Stevens. Little did he imagine that within ten years he would be the CEO of one of history’s fastest growing businesses. After Northwestern and faded dreams of rock stardom, Mason, a self-taught computer programmer, was hired to write code by the Chicago firm InnerWorkings. InnerWorkings was founded in 2001 by Eric Lefkofsky who had built several businesses around call centers and the Internet. In 2006, Lefkofsky became interested in an idea of Mason’s for a website that would act as a social media platform to bring people together with a common interest in some problem—most often some sort of social cause. Lefkofsky provided Mason with $1 million of capital to develop the concept that became known as “The Point.” Virtually no one associated with The Point initially envisioned commercial aspirations for the venture. In the fall of 2008, at the height of financial crisis, ventures with little or no commercial aspirations were in jeopardy. Lefkofsky and Mason faced a decision on how to proceed with The Point. Lefkofsky seized on an idea proposed by a group of users on The Point. This group attempted to identify a number of people who wanted to buy the same product, and then approach a seller for a group discount. Mason had originally mentioned group-buying as one application of The Point, and...
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...Chapter 1 The Canadian Financial Reporting Environment Prepared by: Dragan Stojanovic, CA Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto The Canadian Financial Reporting Environment Role of Financial Reporting • Financial statements and financial reporting • Accounting and capital allocation •Stakeholders Objective of Financial Reporting •Management bias •Users’ needs Standard Setting • Need to develop standards • Parties involved in standard setting • Standard setting in a political environment GAAP • GAAP hierarchy •Professional judgement • Role of ethics Challenges Facing Financial Reporting • Globalization of companies and capital markets • Impact of technology • Changing nature of the economy • Increased requirement for accountability 2 The Canadian Financial Reporting Environment Role of Financial Reporting • Financial statements and financial reporting • Accounting and capital allocation •Stakeholders Objective of Financial Reporting •Management bias •Users’ needs Standard Setting • Need to develop standards • Parties involved in standard setting • Standard setting in a political environment GAAP • GAAP hierarchy •Professional judgement • Role of ethics Challenges Facing Financial Reporting • Globalization of companies and capital markets • Impact of technology • Changing nature of the economy • Increased requirement for accountability 3 Characteristics of Accounting 1. Identification, measurement, and communication of financial information about; 2...
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...Seattle, Washington January 26, 2012 Dear Shareholders: You are cordially invited to attend the Starbucks Corporation 2012 Annual Meeting of Shareholders on March 21, 2012 at 10:00 a.m. (Pacific Time). The meeting will be held at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall at the Seattle Center, located on Mercer Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues, in Seattle, Washington. Directions to McCaw Hall and transportation information appear on the back cover of the notice of annual meeting and proxy statement. Under the Securities and Exchange Commission rules that allow companies to furnish proxy materials to shareholders over the Internet, Starbucks has elected to deliver our proxy materials to the majority of our shareholders over the Internet. This delivery process allows us to provide shareholders with the information they need, while at the same time conserving natural resources and lowering the cost of delivery. On January 26, 2012, we mailed to our shareholders a Notice of Internet Availability of Proxy Materials (the “Notice”) containing instructions on how to access our proxy statement for our 2012 Annual Meeting of Shareholders and fiscal 2011 annual report to shareholders. The Notice also provides instructions on how to vote online or by telephone and includes instructions on how to receive a paper copy of the proxy materials by mail. The Notice will serve as an admission ticket for one shareholder to attend the 2012 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. On January 26, 2012, we also first...
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