Internal Control, Corporate Governance, and Financial Legislation

1. Corporate Governance
This refers to the system of rules, practices, and processes that are geared controlling
and directing a firm. Corporate Governance primarily involves balancing the interests of
different stakeholders of an organization, for instance, shareholders, debt owners,
customers, supplier, and public among others. Different stakeholders have different
interests which differ in intensity and urgency, thus corporate governance tend to
balance such interest to those can be affected by an action taken by the organization. It
involves setting have rules, controls, policies, and resolutions that that dictates the
behavior of an organization.
2. Most important recognized and sanctioned authoritative bodies in the
Australian financial service industry.
Australian financial regulatory framework consists of three agencies each with specific
functional responsibilities. They are
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) which is responsible for deposit
taking organizations, friendly societies life, and general insurance.
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission whose function is to enforce and
administers roles and regulations relating to financial markets, financial products, and
financial sector intermediaries
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), whose functions relates to Monetary Policies and
stabilization of the financial system. It has to deal with threats to the financial stability
that could interfere with the confidence consumers and investors.
3. Internal Control
Refers to procedures and policies put into place to ensure there are Solid accounting
system and continued reliability. Internal control is positioned to ensure the fraud are not
committed and to direct any error before it causes an error.
4. Responsibilities of an Accounts Manager
Although the duties of the Accounts Manager differ from an organization to another, the
common responsibilities include the following:
To foster clients relationship through working with sales and marketing team to prepare
presentations and sales pitches, design marketing strategies and mean of advertising,
receive clients information, manage them, prepare clients report and communicate the
clients' agendas to other members of staff.

Monitoring budgets, spending, and revenue and also explaining the cost of managing
clients
Identifying new potential customers and business opportunities in the market as well as
coming up with the strategies to provide goods and services.
5. Balance Sheet and its Purpose
Balance is a snapshot of organization's accounts at a specific date. It consists of assets,
liabilities and shareholders' equity. It portrays the financial position of an organization at
a particular period.
What the purpose of the balance sheet also called the statement of financial position is
revealing the financial status of an organization at a specific point in time. The
statement shows the assets owned by the business and who finances the assets, that is
shareholders or debt holders.
The current assets are compared with current liabilities to evaluate whether the firm is
capable of meeting short-term obligations.
The long term debts are compared with shareholders' equity to compute the gearing
ratios for creditors to ascertain whether the further extension of credit might result in bad
debts.
6. Stakeholder
A stakeholder refers to a person or an organization that has an interest or a concern in
an organization. Different stakeholders are affected by the organization's policies,
objectives, and actions. Examples of stakeholders in an organization include the
following; shareholders, creditors, management, employees, financial institutions,
customers, etc. The organization does not give the same treatment to all stakeholders,
but it entails to provide fair trading practices. Different stakeholders have a different
interest in an organization.
7. The practical method of Internal Control Procedures
Duty separation- To make employees impossible to commit fraudulent acts, the
organization should separate the responsibilities of auditing, bookkeeping, reporting,
depositing and any other.
This is because each a transaction is passed through different independent before thus
in case fraud is committed, it can be recognized in the course of the process.

8. Policy monitoring procedure
 Identification of baseline policy issues by conducting situation analysis.
 Engagement of stakeholders in developing a common policy agenda.
 Develop policy.
 Official government endorsement of the policy.
 Implementation of policy.
 Evaluation of policy implementation.
9. Corporate Governance Strategy guidelines
Strengthening management and supervisory functions of directors- Should discuss
middle and long term strategies of the organization and draft relevant plan.
Emphasis on the characteristics of the directors but not their number
Increasing the objectivity and systematization of personal attitude towards the
management position
Developing an environment that will facilitate the strengthening of CEOs leadership
10. Key performance indicators
These are measurable values that show how effectively the firm is achieving its key
objectives. They include.
 Profit
 Cost of operations.
 Comparison between projected and actual revenue
 Customer satisfaction and retention
 Sale volume
11. Audit trail for accounting purpose
Refers to all records that document every step made in business transactions. It is used
to detect and analyze any error or fraud done in an organization book of records.