Module 1 Flashcards
All Companies engage in four types of activities:
- ) They plan business activities.
- ) They finance those activities.
- ) They invest in those activities.
- ) They engage in operating activities.
Business Forces are:
Market constraints and competitive pressures.
Prior financial statements:
Provide crucial input for strategic planning.
Current financial statements:
Provide information about the relative success of those plans.
The strategic decisions of a company involve:
Company financing, asset investment and management, and daily operations.
Business Strategy:
A company’s strategic (or business) plan reflects how it plans to achieve its goals and objectives.
Historical financial statements provide:
Important relevant information that allows managers to effectively plan their company’s business for the upcoming year.
To properly analyze the information contained in financial statements:
It is important to understand the business context in which the information is created.
Financial statements provide:
Substantial information that is used in all phases of the planning process, including the way in which the company is financed and the way investments are pursued.
Financial statements provide:
Important input into the evaluation of the company’s success in carrying out its strategic plan.
Managers and employees:
Interested in the company’s current and future financial health.
Investment analysts and information intermediaries:
Are interested in predicting companies’ future performances. Accounting information is the bedrock for equity analysis.
Creditors and suppliers:
Demand financial accounting information to help determine loan terms, loan amounts, interest rates, and required collateral.
Covenants:
Contractual requirements that restrict the borrowers behavior in some fashion.
Stockholders and directors:
Demand financial accounting information to asses the profitability and risks of companies and other information useful in their investment decisions.
Fundamental analysis:
Uses financial information to estimate company value to form buy-sell stock strategies.
Customers and strategic partners:
Demand accounting information to assess a company’s ability to provide products or services and to assess the company’s staying power and reliability.
Regulators and tax agencies:
Demand accounting information for antitrust assessments, public protection, setting prices, import-export analyses, and setting tax policies.
Voters and their representatives:
Need accounting information for policy decisions. The decisions can involve economic, social, taxation, and other initiatives. They also use accounting information to monitor government spending.
Supply of Financial Accounting Information:
The quantity and quality of accounting information that companies supply are determined by managers’ assessment of the benefits and costs of disclosure.
Form 10-K:
The audited annual report that includes the four basic financial statements with explanatory notes and the management’s discussion analysis (MD&A) of financial results.
Form 10-Q:
The unaudited quarterly report that includes summary versions of the four financial statements and limited additional disclosures.
Privately Held Companies:
Audits, reviews, and compilations, include the four basic financial statements as well as other information depending on the type of report.
Benefits of Disclosure:
The benefits of supplying accounting information extend to a company’s capital, labor, input, and output markets.
-Cost of capital (as reflected in lower interest rates
or higher stock prices)
-Recruiting efforts in labor markets
-The ability to establish superior Supplier-customer relations in the in the input and output markets.
Is company management demonstrating good stewardship of the resources that have been entrusted to it?
Stockholders and directors.
What product lines have performed well compared with competitors?
Managers and employees.
What regulated price is appropriate given the company’s financial condition?
Regulators and tax agencies.