Financial Reporting and Analysis of Harvey Norman

Running head: FINANCIAL REPORTING AND ANALYSIS
Financial Reporting and Analysis
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

1FINANCIAL REPORTING AND ANALYSIS
Executive Summary
The main objective of this report is the analysis and evaluation of the latest annual report of
Harvey Norman. Different parts of the analysis show that the company has complied with the
required accounting and financial reporting principles for the purpose of their financial reporting;
and for this reason, they have disclosed all of their financial information in their annual report.
Moreover, there is a connection between the developed business strategies of the companies with
the adopted accounting principles.

2FINANCIAL REPORTING AND ANALYSIS
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Summary of Activities.....................................................................................................................3
Key Accounting Policies.................................................................................................................4
Flexibility of Management..............................................................................................................4
Accounting Strategies......................................................................................................................6
Quality of Disclosures.....................................................................................................................7
Questionable Accounting Numbers.................................................................................................8
Undo Questionable Accounting Numbers.......................................................................................9
Financial Press Discussion..............................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

3FINANCIAL REPORTING AND ANALYSIS
Introduction
Financial Reporting is considered as a major aspect for the financial success of the
business organizations. The process of financial reporting is considered as a formal record of the
financial activities as well as financial position of the businesses (Nobes 2014). While preparing
and presenting financial statements, the companies are needed to comply with all the required
financial rules and regulations of the available accounting conceptual framework. It implies that
the companies are needed to follow all the accounting policies for the development of effective
accounting strategies to achieve the financial objectives (Beatty, Liao and Yu 2013). In the
process of financial reporting, the annual report of the companies play a crucial part as the
companies are required to provide all the financial information along with the adopted financial
policies in them so that the investors can access them to gain understanding about the financial
position of the companies (Bentley, Omer and Sharp 2013). The main aim of the report is to
conduct an analysis and evaluation on the financial reporting process of one of the Australian
companies; and Harvey Norman is taken into consideration for this report. Different parts of
this report analyze different aspects of the financial reporting process of Harvey Norman.
Summary of Activities
Harvey Norman is a large Australia based multinational organization. The company was
established in the year of 1982 and it is headquartered at Homebush West, New South Wales,
Australia. Accordant to the latest annual report of Harvey Norman that is the 2017 Annual
Report, the principal activities of the company can be seen in the areas of integrated retail,
franchise, property and digital system. More specifically, the main activities of the company can
be seen in the selling of different products like furniture, computers, bedding, communication
and consumer electrical products (static1.squarespace.com 2018). Apart from this, the
involvement of the company can also be seen in the fields of franchisor, investment in property,
lease of different premises, media placement, provision of consumer finance and many others.
The annual report of the company states that the main operating areas of the company are
Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Slovenia, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Croatia. It
can be seen in the 2017 Annual Report of Harvey Norman that there has not been any significant