...Case 1.9 ZZZZ Best Company, Inc. 1. A review is similar to an audit but is less in scope and only provides limited assurance in regards to the presentation of the financial statement. This differs with an audit that gives reasonable assurance that no material errors or illegal acts are detected. The objective of an audit is to provide a reasonable basis for expressing an opinion regarding the financial statements taken as a whole. A review does not provide a basis for the expression of such an opinion because a review does not involve obtaining an understanding of the internal control structure or assess control risk, tests of accounting records and of responses to inquiries by obtaining corroborating evidential matter through inspection, observation or confirmation, and certain other procedures ordinarily performed during an audit. A review mostly involves inquires of client personnel and analytical procedures. In a review an accountant does not give an opinion as to the fair presentation of the financial statements, reasonable assurance. Instead the accountant states that no material modification came to his/her attention in order for the statements to be in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles, limited assurance. 2. As it relates to the assertion of occurrence and existence, third-party confirmations are usually highly reliable and auditors normally seek these out for a complete audit. While these forms of evidence can be reliable this isn’t...
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...Auditing Concepts ZZZZ Best Company, Inc Case Solutions: 1. A review is performed to obtain a reasonable basis for providing limited assurance that the client's financial statements have been prepared in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles. An independent audit is designed to provide a reasonable basis for expressing an opinion concerning whether or not a client’s financial statements have been prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. There is also a major difference between a review and an audit in terms of the scope of work performed. When a review is done, the main evidence collection techniques are analytical procedures and inquiries of client personnel. Whereas, in an audit, the full range of evidence collection techniques available to an auditor is likely to be used. A review does not assess control risk, tests of accounting records and responses to inquiries by obtaining validating evidence through inspection, observation or any other audit procedure. It can point out significant matters of the financial statements but does not provide assurance of their accuracy. Because reviews are generally not as rigorous as audits, considerably less evidence is typically collected in a review than in a comparable audit engagement. The issue with ZZZZ Best case is that the auditors review was not sufficient enough to review any material misstatements on the financial statements. 2. Third party confirmations should...
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...Case 1.9 Case 1.9 Question 1: Ernst & Whinney never issued an audit opinion on financial statements of ZZZZ Best but did issue a review report on the company’s quarterly statements for the three months ended July 31, 1986. How does a review differ from an audit, particularly in terms of the level of assurance implied by the auditor’s report? Answer: A review report does not assess the control risk of a company, which means Ernst & Whinney could have not gotten the proper risk that a material misstatement could occur within a relevant assertion. The report could have pointed out problems in the financial statements but it would not give the audit teams assurance of their accuracy. Ernst & Whinney never investigated ZZZZ Best’s internal control either, if they had done so they may have caught onto some of the fraudulent acts that were being committed. The main difference between an audit opinion and a review is an audit opinion provides assurance on the financial statements that they are accurate. Question 2: SAS No. 106, “Audit Evidence,” indentifies the principal “management assertions” that underlie a set of financial statements. The occurrence assertion was particularly critical for ZZZZ Best’s insurance restoration contracts. ZZZZ Best’s auditors obtained third-party confirmations to support contracts, reviewed available documentation, performed analytical procedures to evaluate the reasonableness of the revenues recorded on the contracts, and visited selected...
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...CASE 1.9 ZZZZ Best Company, \nc. On May 19,1987, a short article in The Wall Street Journal reported that ZZZZ Best Company, Inc., of Reseda, California, had signed a contract for a $13.8 million insurance restoration project. This project was just the most recent of a series of large restoration jobs obtained by ZZZZ Best (pronounced "zee best"). Located in the San Fernando Valley of southern California, ZZZZ Best had begun operations in the fall of 1982 as a small, door-ta-door carpet cleaning operation. Under the direction of Barry Minkow, the extroverted 16-year-old who founded the company and initially operated it out of his parents' garage, ZZZZ Best experienced explosive growth in both revenues and profits during the first several years of its existence. In the three-year period from 1984 to 1987, the company's net income surged from less than $200,000 to more than $5 million on revenues of $50 million. When 72ZZ Best went public in 1986,Minkow and several of his close associates became multimillionaires overnight. By the late spring of 1987,the market value of Minkow's stock in the company exceeded $100 million, while the total market value of 72ZZ Best surpassed $200 million. The youngest chief executive officer in the nation enjoyed the "good life;which included an elegant home in an exclusive suburb of Los Angeles and a fire-engine red Ferrari. Minkow's charm and entrepreneurial genius made him a sought-after commodity on the television talk show circuit and caused...
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...Zzzz Best Company, Inc. Case 1.9 Zzzz Best Company, Inc. Case 1.9 Case 1.9 ZZZZ Best Company, Inc. Delta. Describe the elements of the Fraud Triangle that apply to this case. Assume you are the perpetrator. Is there a better way to perpetrate this fraud? If there is, describe your method. Specify practical recommendations for the client to prevent this fraud from occurring in the future. The first element of the Fraud Triangle in the case of ZZZZ Best, case 1.9 is Incentives/Pressure. Incentives/Pressure- As a result of the pressure placed on a person who is only a teenager in a tough business, one who faced a lack of working capital, the lack of assets and little profit make it difficult for a person of this stature to achieve financing to produce cash flow for sustaining of operations. One quickly realizes that through fraud a person could obtain funding to sustain operations. Through credit card fraudulent charges and check kiting and to stage theft to fleece one’s insurance company, producing more cash flow, one can raise Is this essay helpful? Join OPPapers to read more and access more than 600,000 just like it! get better grades quick and easy money. Through this experience with these types of fraud, it is realized quickly that one could bypass internal controls and create assets to bolster the company’s financial statements. From this point, with beating the system proving to be so easy, the next step is to forge friendships and acquaintances...
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...Transcript of ZZZZ Best Company, Inc ZZZZ Best Company, Inc Case 1.9 Audit Review VS Full Audit Review • The accountant is not aware of any misstatements or material modifications that need to be made • Limited assurance • Auditor has no opinion on the financial statements, just looks them over Barry Minkow- 16 years old 1982 Carpet cleaning business turned insurance restoration Tom Padgett and Interstate Appraisal Services Ernst & Whinney- elaborate scheme to convince them History 1. Client imposed audit limitations 2. Limitations of audit evidence 3. Importance of auditor communication when one resigns & 8K filing Key Issues Audit- • Auditor obtains a high level of assurance • Auditor can express an opinion about the accuracy and level of assurance • Auditor tests internal controls and tests for misstatements and obtains and understanding of the entities internal control and fraud risk Matt Sepiol Samantha Claysen Limitations of Audit Evidence AU 326- Audit Evidence Auditors Used Confirmation, Documentation, and Analytical Procedures AU 326.08- Information from outside sources is better than from internal sources Confirmations were made by Tom Padgett who was involved in the scheme. Interstate Appraisal Services and Assured Property Management provided the Documentation Was Involved in Fraud Collusion amongst outside Parties Gives Evidence Limitations The client receiving payment doesn't prove the existence of those contracts. No third...
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...CASE 1.9 ZZZZ Best Company, \nc. On May 19,1987, a short article in The Wall Street Journal reported that ZZZZ Best Company, Inc., of Reseda, California, had signed a contract for a $13.8 million insurance restoration project. This project was just the most recent of a series of large restoration jobs obtained by ZZZZ Best (pronounced "zee best"). Located in the San Fernando Valley of southern California, ZZZZ Best had begun operations in the fall of 1982 as a small, door-ta-door carpet cleaning operation. Under the direction of Barry Minkow, the extroverted 16-year-old who founded the company and initially operated it out of his parents' garage, ZZZZ Best experienced explosive growth in both revenues and profits during the first several years of its existence. In the three-year period from 1984 to 1987, the company's net income surged from less than $200,000 to more than $5 million on revenues of $50 million. When 72ZZ Best went public in 1986,Minkow and several of his close associates became multimillionaires overnight. By the late spring of 1987,the market value of Minkow's stock in the company exceeded $100 million, while the total market value of 72ZZ Best surpassed $200 million. The youngest chief executive officer in the nation enjoyed the "good life;which included an elegant home in an exclusive suburb of Los Angeles and a fire-engine red Ferrari. Minkow's charm and entrepreneurial genius made him a sought-after commodity on the television talk show circuit and caused...
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...Case 1.9 Question 1: Ernst & Whinney never issued an audit opinion on financial statements of ZZZZ Best but did issue a review report on the company’s quarterly statements for the three months ended July 31, 1986. How does a review differ from an audit, particularly in terms of the level of assurance implied by the auditor’s report? Answer: A review report does not assess the control risk of a company, which means Ernst & Whinney could have not gotten the proper risk that a material misstatement could occur within a relevant assertion. The report could have pointed out problems in the financial statements but it would not give the audit teams assurance of their accuracy. Ernst & Whinney never investigated ZZZZ Best’s internal control either, if they had done so they may have caught onto some of the fraudulent acts that were being committed. The main difference between an audit opinion and a review is an audit opinion provides assurance on the financial statements that they are accurate. Question 2: SAS No. 106, “Audit Evidence,” indentifies the principal “management assertions” that underlie a set of financial statements. The occurrence assertion was particularly critical for ZZZZ Best’s insurance restoration contracts. ZZZZ Best’s auditors obtained third-party confirmations to support contracts, reviewed available documentation, performed analytical procedures to evaluate the reasonableness of the revenues recorded on the contracts, and visited selected...
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...Emilia Skupiewska-Drozd Acct. 723 Prof. A. Dignam Case 1.9 ZZZZ Best Company, Inc Question 1. Audits are expensive. For small business, the cost of an audit will run into the thousands of dollar, for large corporations the cost may exceed a million dollars. The most common reason for a small business to incur the cost of an audit is the influence exerted by a bank that insists upon audited financial statements as a condition for granting a bank loan. Sometimes the cost of audit would exceed its benefit. The alternative is to retain a public accounting firm to perform other services such as review of financial statements. A review of financial statements by public accounting firm is substantially less in scope than an audit and is designed to provide limited assurance on the credibility of the statements. It stresses inquiries by the CPA and comparison of amounts in the statements to comparable financial and nonfinancial data. These comparisons, which are referred To us as analytical procedures, are useful in bringing to light possible misstatements of financial statements amounts. The distinctions between a review and an audit are as follows: Review: • It gives limited assurance that the financial statements do not have any known errors of departures from GAAP. • It generally base on analytical procedures and inquiries. • It does not consider the client’s internal controls. Audit: • It gives reasonable assurance that the financial statements...
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...Knapp Case 1.9- ZZZZ Best Company, Inc. 1. A review consists of an auditor performing analytical procedures and inquiries to provide a reasonable basis for obtaining limited assurance. In a review, the auditor does not give an opinion on the financial statements. He/she merely looks over the statements for any material misstatements or modifications that need to be made. Contrarily, in terms of the level of assurance, during an audit an auditor obtains a high level of assurance, expresses an opinion on accuracy and level of assurance, and tests for misstatements and the client’s internal controls. 2. The occurrence assertion is very important, especially in this case, to ensure that the financial statements of a company faithfully represent actual transactions, assets, and liabilities of the company. There were certain limitations of the evidence gathered by the procedures performed in the ZZZZ Best case with regard to the assertion of occurrence: a. Confirmations- The information obtained through George Greenspan’s confirmation seems invaluable to me based on the fact that the confirmation was only sent to Tom Padgett, especially since Tom Padgett was paid by Minkow to confirm contracts. Even though there was no way for Mr. Greenspan to know that Mr. Padgett was being paid off, I believe that he should have found more valuable information through his confirmations by sending them out to more than one person involved in the company. b. Analytical Procedures-...
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...CONTEMPORARY AUDITING REAL ISSUES & CASES MICHAEL C. KNAPP SEVENTH EDITION MAKE IT YOURS! SELECT JUST THE CASES YOU NEED Through Cengage Learning’s Make It Yours, you can — simply, quickly, and affordably — create a quality auditing text that is tailored to your course. • Pick your coverage and only pay for the cases you use. • Add cases from a prior edition of Knapp’s Contemporary Auditing. • Add your course materials and assignments. • Pick your own unique cover design. We recognize that not every program covers the same cases and topics in your auditing course. Chris Knapp wrote his case book for people to use either as a core e book or as a supplement to an existing book. If you would like to use a custom auditing case book or supplement the South-Western accounting book you are currently using, simply check the cases you want to include, indicate if there are other course materials you would like to add, and click submit. A Cengage Learning representative will contact you to review and confirm your order. G E T S T A R T E D Visit www.custom.cengage.com/makeityours/knapp7e to make your selections and provide details on anything else you would like to include. Prefer to use pen and paper? No problem. Fill out questions 1-4 and fax this form to 1.800.270.3310. A Custom Solutions editor will contact you within 2-3 business days to discuss the options you have selected. 1. Which of the following cases would you like to include? Section...
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...A CONTEMPORARY AUDITING REAL ISSUES AND CASES Seventh Edition Michael C. Knapp University of Oklahoma ; \ 1% SOUTH-WESTERN CENGAGE Learning- Australia • Brazil • Japan • Korea • Mexico • Singapore • Spain • United Kingdom • United States CONTENTS SECTION 1 Comprehensive Cases 1 Case 1.1 Enron Corporation 3 Arthur Edward Andersen established a simple motto that he required his subordinates and clients to invoke: "Think straight, talk straight." For decades, that motto sewed Arthur Andersen & Co. well. Unfortunately, the firm's association with one client, Enron Corporation, abruptly ended Andersen's long and proud history in the public accounting profession. K Y TOPICS: history of the public accounting profession in the United States, scope of E professional services provided to audit clients, auditor independence, and retention of audit workpapers. ; Case 1.2 Just for FEET, Inc. 23 In the fall of 1999, just a few months after reporting a record profit for fiscal 1998, Just for Feet collapsed and filed for bankruptcy. Subsequent investigations by law enforcement authorities revealed a massive accounting fraud that had grossly misrepresented the company's reported operating results. Key features of the fraud were improper accounting for "vendor allowances" and intentional understatements of the company's inventory valuation allowance. K Y TOPICS: applying analytical procedures, identifying inherent risk and control risk E factors, need for auditors to monitor...
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...www.it-ebooks.info www.it-ebooks.info Learn to Program Second Edition Chris Pine The Pragmatic Bookshelf Raleigh, North Carolina Dallas, Texas www.it-ebooks.info Pragmatic Bookshelf Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial capital letters or in all capitals. The Pragmatic Starter Kit, The Pragmatic Programmer, Pragmatic Programming, Pragmatic Bookshelf and the linking g device are trademarks of The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC. Every precaution was taken in the preparation of this book. However, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages that may result from the use of information (including program listings) contained herein. Our Pragmatic courses, workshops, and other products can help you and your team create better software and have more fun. For more information, as well as the latest Pragmatic titles, please visit us at http://www.pragprog.com Copyright © 2009 Chris Pine. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. ISBN-10: 0-9766940-4-2 ISBN-13: 978-1-934356-36-4...
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...Internet Texas Hold'em Winning Strategies from an Internet Pro First Edition By Matthew Hilger Introduction “If you can't spot the sucker in your first half-hour at the table, then you are the sucker.” This is a common poker saying spoken by Matt Damon in the classic poker movie Rounders. I used to play in a tournament every Sunday night in Costa Rica with some of the best players in the world. Unfortunately, I had no idea at the time who those players were. Hopefully this book will help you spot the sucker rather than be the sucker. It takes a lot of experience and study of the game before one realizes what it takes to play at an advanced level. Everyone needs to start somewhere. This book should increase your learning curve, but there is no substitute for experience. The Internet is an excellent vehicle to develop your game, no matter if you just play low limits a few hours a week or strive to develop into a world-class player. The following story gives you a glimpse into my poker life and the struggles I went through before I started playing on the Internet. My first memory of poker is sneaking out into the woods when I was about eight or nine years old to play penny poker with my friends. In middle school, I remember getting sent to the principal's office for playing craps in the bathroom. In high school, I was assistant manager at a local movie theater and one night my friends and I played poker in the projectionist booth while the movies were playing. To my...
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...THE INTELLIGENT INVESTOR A BOOK OF PRACTICAL COUNSEL REVISED EDITION B E NJAM I N G RAHAM Updated with New Commentary by Jason Zweig To E.M.G. Through chances various, through all vicissitudes, we make our way. . . . Aeneid Contents Epigraph iii Preface to the Fourth Edition, by Warren E. Buffett viii A Note About Benjamin Graham, by Jason Zweig x Introduction: What This Book Expects to Accomplish COMMENTARY ON THE INTRODUCTION 1. 1 12 35 The Investor and Inflation 47 COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER 2 3. 18 COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER 1 2. Investment versus Speculation: Results to Be Expected by the Intelligent Investor 58 65 COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER 3 4. A Century of Stock-Market History: The Level of Stock Prices in Early 1972 80 General Portfolio Policy: The Defensive Investor 88 COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER 4 5. 101 124 Portfolio Policy for the Enterprising Investor: Negative Approach 133 COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER 6 7. 112 COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER 5 6. The Defensive Investor and Common Stocks 145 iv 155 COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER 7 8. Portfolio Policy for the Enterprising Investor: The Positive Side 179 The Investor and Market Fluctuations 188 v Contents COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER 8 9. Investing in Investment Funds COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER 9 213 226 242 10. The Investor and His Advisers 257 COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER 10 272 11. Security...
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