...Current Business Practices Audit Kimberly Johnson, Richard Siemienczuk, Karen Graham, and Chad Smestad MGT/360 December 3, 2012 Vicki Bauer Current Business Practices Audit The learning team conducted an audit of Riordan Manufacturing’s current business practices at its processing plants located in California, Georgia, Michigan, and China. The business sustainability worksheets used to complete the evaluation aided the team in locating common areas of non-sustainable practices relating to land, water, and air pollution. The three non-sustainable practices evaluated further are solid waste, and hazardous waste causing land pollution, hazardous waste causing water pollution, and gaseous waste causing air pollution. These areas are the most harmful to the immediate population, which includes the plant workers and the communities. Solid Waste and Hazardous Waste Causing Land Pollution One of the non-sustainable practices is adding to land pollution. Currently, off-spec materials are sent to the landfill (Apollo, 2012). In addition to this, scrap plastic managed as waste goes to the landfill (Apollo). The biggest problem is that plastic is not biodegradable. When plastic and off-spec products are sent to the landfill, breakdown occurs but at minimal rates and these take longer to biodegrade over time. To remain compliant with government regulations, Riordan Manufacturing is required to identify hazardous waste generated each month if it exceeds 2,200 pounds (Apollo...
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...Canadian National Railways July 22, 2013 University of Calgary Business Management “Mind Your Business” Executive Summary This report assesses CN’s quality as an employer and as an investment prospect. Mind Your Business used both primary and secondary research using publically available sources, with no contact with CN, its employees, or financial analysts, to complete this analysis. CN is a public company with 22,000 employees, and has the longest railway system in North America. Industry circles consider CN an increasingly profitable business. The Canadian Transportation Safety Board ensures CN abides by all laws and regulations. CN continually improves safety and environmental impact, which leads to better profits in the long run, particularly now that pipelines are becoming politically toxic in the eyes of the public. Recent environmental catastrophes such as the BP oil spill and the recent train explosion in Quebec, means CN must be careful with the public’s recent sensitivity to these types of environmental incidents that affect communities and their members. The company focuses highly on corporate social responsibility, with environment, education, health & safety, and community as a top concern. Rail emits less greenhouse gas emissions than heavy trucks, and CN also funds sustainability programs. The company uses state-of-the-art technology to ensure safety while improving operations, emphasizing on engineering, mechanical...
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...Riordan Current Business Practices Audit MGT/360 University of Phoenix Riordan Current Business Practices Audit Riordan Manufacturing is a global plastics manufacturer with locations in California, Georgia, Michigan, and China. The vice president of operations decided to develop a sustainability plan. Team A has been assigned the task to conduct a business audit to evaluate the Riordan’s current business practices at each location. The audit provides valuable information to identify the nonsustainable business practices and how each effects the environment. The subject in this paper is how Riordan Manufacturing will identify their nonsustainable practices, federal regulations, mandatory, and voluntary actions necessary to implement a successful sustainability plan. Nonsustainable Business Practices The business practice audits brought to light three nonsustainable practices. The three practices highlighted by the audit include wasted energy from the plants, the use of toxic cleaning solvents, and spilled ink. These three business practices can be very harmful to the environment. Burning fossil fuels for energy creates gases such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and volatile organic compounds. These gases cause air pollution. They can cause several kinds of air pollution, particular matter, smog, and ozone (New Energy Alternative, 2008). Air pollution can travel thousands of miles and can harm areas that burn fossil fuels sparingly. The next nonsustainable...
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...1 Session 4 Audit Planning; Materiality and the audit risk model Auditing: Principles and Methods 2 After studying this session you should be able to: 1. Discuss why adequate audit planning is essential 2. Make client acceptance decisions and perform initial audit planning 3. Gain an understanding of the client’s business and industry 4. Assess client business risk 5. Perform preliminary analytical procedures 6. Apply the concept of materiality to the audit 7. Define risk in auditing and the audit risk model Auditing: Principles and Methods 3 8. Consider the impact of engagement risk on acceptable audit risk 9. Discuss the relationship of risks to audit evidence 10. Answer the Review Questions Auditing: Principles and Methods 1. Audit Planning 4 Why is adequate audit planning essential? “The auditor must adequately plan the work and must properly supervise any assistants”. There are three main reasons why the auditor should properly plan engagements: to enable himself to obtain sufficient appropriate evidence, to keep audit cost reasonable and to avoid misunderstanding with the client. Auditing: Principles and Methods 1. Audit Planning 5 An important part of audit planning is assessing acceptable audit risk and inherent risk because it helps determine the amount of evidence that will need to be accumulated and staff assigned to the engagement. Acceptable audit risk is a measure of how willing the auditor is to accept that the FSs...
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...corporate office with 4 Business divisions, each running multiple Business Units. The Divisions are labelled A, B, C and D with D being the one not matured and has an unstable income flows. Division A is most concentrated with 40 business units whereas Division D is least concentrated with only 5 business units. All expect units 6 and 7 of Division B vows to have management with the required abilities and skills to organize the business operations effectively. Each business unit maintains all its recording and proceeds of transactions, general ledger and other accounting information at the business unit level. Of the many business units, few are to meet the Statutory Audit requirement by the competent state authority. The management teams meet up periodically to discuss the development and performance of business units and divisions in particular along with regular meetings with management at the consolidated level. All activities and performance indicators are adjusted for changes in the business environment and outlook. Alongside the regular meet-ups, Corporate Management team examines the business operations and financial results primarily through 2 key performance indicators. 1. Revenue of each business unit 2. Earnings before taxes Certain business units encounter several problems which lead to disturbing performance indicators. Division D tends to have the highest per Unit revenue mainly because no as such problem has been identified in the business operation at the Unit...
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...“Audit” is defined as an independent evaluation implementation by an independent expert of a particular activity or event. There are many types of audits such as financial, operational, technological etc. The most popular reference to audits, however; are the ones that examine financial statements. Auditing is the examination and systematic structural evaluation of an organized business. The evaluation is made up of operations within the business organization and the products and developments of production occurring within the business system. An investigation into past history of a business is involved in auditing. Records and data about a company are also involved, in order to measure and discover the legality of the business's transactions operations, tax reporting, and thorough handling of finances. To be blunt, audits test the financial legitimacy claimed by a business entity. According to R. Gene Brown’s “Changing Audit Objectives and Techniques”, (The Accounting Review, Vol. 37, No. 4), reviewing the history of auditing helps to provide a basis for analyzing and interpreting the changes which have occured in audit objectives and procedures over the years. Fundamentally, this review shows a recent significant correlation between expanded reliance on internal controls and a decrease in detailed testing. The future of auditing will probably consist primarily of a procedural or systematic review, with the analysis of effectiveness of internal controls providing the major...
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...close relationship with them. 5. Intimidation threat- intimidates the auditor to give an unqualified opinion otherwise not re-appoint him. Areas of risks Financial interests Family relationships Business relationships Loans Fees Undue independence Gifts and hospitality Second opinion Provision of other services Auditors specific threats to their independence and objectivity 1. Dependence on income from a particular client or group of clients may impair objectivity and independence. Implications- auditor may not qualify the audit report when qualification is required because this will upset client who may move to another audit firm and thus cause loss of significant income. Safeguards Do not accept certain assignments. Resign from certain assignments. Do not stand for reappointment as auditor. Reduce non audit work with a view to control gross practice income from that particular client. As a general rule, recurring fees paid by one or group of connected clients should not exceed the threshold of the gross practice income as follows: Listed: 10% Non Listed: 15% 2. Family or other personal relationships- problems may arise where a practice or anyone closely connected with it has a mutual business interest with a client or with the employee of a client. Implications- auditor loses independence as he has a conflict between maintaining professional standards and personal...
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...likely considered by Deloitte and other audit firms when assessing engagement risk? How, if at all, are auditors’ professional responsibilities affected when a client poses a higher than normal degree of engagement risk? Engagement risk is composed of three broad categories: the entity’s business risk, the auditor’s audit risk, and the auditor’s business risk. Each subtopic has its corresponding factors in regards to an audit. * Entity’s Business Risk “Financial trends are the most important part of [an] entity’s business risk (Ethridge).” The main business risk of an entity is that their continuity is threatened. Furthermore, they may not be profitable to continue doing business in the future. As an example in this case, Ligand Pharmaceuticals’ stock price increased by 600% within one year ($4/share in early 2003 to $24/share in early 2004), despite not ever reporting an operating profit. Stock prices are a thin barrier to use, and the volatility of the market could cause Ligand to collapse due to insufficient funding. There is another example of entity business risk in the case where Ligand Pharmaceuticals had questionable accounting of its sales returns, because although wholesalers had the right to return any products, they did not “sell through” to their customers. An increase in return allowance could throw off the balance sheet as well as the stated income. “Special” treatment of accounts can mask or pad losses, so audit partners and staff must be aware of surrounding...
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...over the audit of Smackey Dog Foods, Inc. Solution: The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) has substantial influence on the audit of Smackey Dog Food, Inc. This can be seen in the audit standards that have to be followed by the established independence of the auditors involved in the Smackey audit. In the audit of public listed companies which includes Smackey, the auditors need to observe several principles. Independence is one of the six principles exhibited by the AICPA and the others include responsibilities such as the public interest, integrity, objectivity and independence, due care, and scope and nature of services. An audit team is required to be objective and independent with regard to professional responsibilities and by being independent in fact and appearance when providing auditing and other attestation services. Under the Sarbanes – Oxley, auditors have to be objective and independent otherwise legal sanctions can be pursued and incurred. Q2: Discuss the essential activities involved in the initial planning of an audit. How do these all specifically to the Smackey Dog Food client? Solution: The following are several essential activities involved in the initial planning of an audit and how they are specifically related to Smackey Dog Food, Inc. : 1. First understand the client’s business and industry. The audit firm can get the full benefit of its experience in auditing other food manufacturers in planning and doing the audit for Smackey...
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...the record keeping requirements for a business in Australia? All businesses are required to keep records and documents for tax purposes in relation to their business operations. Some of the main reasons for keeping accurate and up-to-date financial records are: Financial records provide information to allow you to monitor the performance of your business; By law, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) requires you to keep certain business records and penalties may apply if you do not comply; Business is required to keep financial records for a minimum of five years after they are prepared; The obligations to keep records for five years continue even if you sell, close, or retire from the business; The records need to be in plain English and allow for ease of access should the tax office ever wish to see them; If you maintain good financial records, it will be easier and faster to complete the business activity statements and other tax obligations when they are due. 2. What is an audit and how often can a business be audited by the tax office? An audit is the examination of the financial report of an organization - as presented in the annual report - by someone independent of that organization. The financial report includes a balance sheet, an income statement, a statement of changes in equity, a cash flow statement, and notes comprising a summary of significant accounting policies and other explanatory notes. The purpose of an audit is to form a view on whether the information...
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...source of advice on efficiency, effectiveness and overall economy of an establishment. Auditing starts its journey where accounting end. In today’s society the exercise of an auditor’s to the economic and ethical leadership sets the bounding standard or in other words equips an auditor in such a way that recognizes him as a reliable body. With the growing conscious recognition of the importance of financial data in the ordering of everyday business and economic life, the need of basic economic facts is providing a constantly enlarging opportunity for the accounting profession. The auditors' reports have an especial capacity to fulfill the need for reliable and authoritative financial material not only because of the reputation or prestige of the certified statements, but also because of the significance generally attached by the business man to the functions of the auditor and his reports. These functions, and the scope of these reports, have in the past been definitely related to the character of and changes in business activity. Audits and reviews are basically procedures performed on the financial statements of a company, for the purpose of determining whether the financial statements include any material misstatements. Misstatements are essentially wrong numbers due to numerical errors, fraud, or errors in interpreting the accounting...
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...risks common to such businesses. How should these risks affect the audit planning decisions for such a client? For the large, high-volume retail stores, I identified the following internal control risks common to such businesses: * Management operating strategy is the top source of all the issues. Most retail stores are pretty decentralized and may not pay much attention to the detailed operating procedures, thus may lead to some potential opportunities for staffs to steal or break the rules. * Inventory is a big issue in large high-volume retail stores, particularly people may intentionally misstate the inventory when counting and valuing it in order to steal or manipulate the earnings. * Cash is also a potential problem for such businesses. The large high-volume stores also tend to have a high volume of cash and transactions as well as some petty cash, so the handling of cash and the cut-off of transactions near period end are issues. * High turnover of the staffs is another issue of retailing industry. Since many entry-level positions has a very high turnover and low pay, those workers may not get well trained and operate as designed In planning the audit, the auditors should give extra attention to the controls surrounding cash and inventory, cut-off procedures, and the year-end inventory counts. Moreover, all of these control environment issues would increase control risk and so the audit procedures would have to be increased to offset these risks so that...
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...tradition, internal auditing’s testing of controls has been performed on months once business activities have occurred. Internal auditors need to respond effectively to the demands of a fast changing business environment, while assisting organizations comply with growing regulatory mandates. This pressures internal auditors to provide more timely and ongoing assurance that controls are working effectively and risk is being mitigated. Today, IAs use continuous auditing as a method to perform control and risk assessments automatically on a more frequent basis. According to Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), Continuous Auditing is defined as a methodology that enables independent auditors (both internal & external) to provide written assurance on a subject matter using a series of auditors’ reports issued simultaneously with, or a short period of time after, the occurrence of events underlying the subject matter (Searcy and Woodroof, 2003). The Institute of Internal Auditors' (IIA) Global Technology Audit Guide (GTAG 3) defined continuous auditing as any method used by auditors to perform audit-related activities (including control and risk assessments) on a more continuous (occurring without interruption) or continual (occurring at repeated intervals.) basis. Continuous auditing requires specialized skills of audit personnel to monitor information electronically and incorporate the use of intelligent...
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...Gemma Wood and Lauren Hulme, Richard, Wood and Hulme LLP (“RWH”) is a financial services firm offering audit and taxation services to its clients with a mission of delivering excellent service and improving clients’ internal controls. Being a “team player” is an essential trait of a RHW employee because client audits are completed by teams. The client fee is flat, so the more efficiently and effectively the team members’ work, the higher the margins the firm realizes. The firm does not tolerate those with poor teamwork behaviors as evidenced by the fact that RWH has terminated only a handful of employees since the firm’s inception, and those terminations were mainly because those individuals were not able to work effectively in teams. The case is set in the Fall of 2008 at the height of the North American financial crisis and at a time when some of RWH’s clients are filing for bankruptcy and others are demanding reductions in audit fees. During this difficult economic time, RWH is opting to maintain existing staffing levels and as a result is losing money. However, RWH views an event scheduled to occur in 2011, the conversion of Canadian financial reporting standards from GAAP to IFRS, as an attractive business opportunity and wants to maintain its current staffing level to take advantage of this future opportunity. During the Fall of 2008, RWH commenced the audit for Spector Industries Limited (“Spector”), an important client not due to the revenue it produces for...
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...Case #3.4 – Sunbeam – Incentives and Pressure to Commit Fraud I. Technical Audit Guidance To maximize the knowledge acquired by students, this book has been designed to be read in conjunction with the post-Sarbanes-Oxley technical audit guidance. All of the post-Sarbanes-Oxley technical guidance is available for free at http://www.pcaobus.org/Standards/index.aspx. In addition, a summary of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is also available for free at http://thecaq.aicpa.org/Resources/Sarbanes+Oxley/Sarbanes-Oxley+–+The+Basics.htm. II. Recommended Technical Knowledge PCAOB Auditing Standard No. 5 Paragraph #9 Paragraph #11 Paragraphs #29-30 Paragraph #32 Paragraph #A8 (in Appendix A) III. Classroom Hints This case provides students with an opportunity to apply their technical knowledge about inherent risk and fraud risk to Sunbeam's business model during the 1990's. By providing details about Sunbeam business during this time, students are able to see the relationship between an audit client's business strategy and inherent risk assessment at the financial statement assertion level. In addition, this case provides students with an opportunity to think about fraud risk assessment during times of significant change at an audit client. To meet these objectives, this case illuminates a number of relevant issues about the development of Sunbeam. In particular, the case focuses on the changes that occurred at Sunbeam after hiring Albert J. Dunlap as...
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