University Corporate Governance, Accounting, and Compliance Project

This project delves into the multifaceted aspects of corporate governance, accounting, and compliance within a manufacturing context. It examines the importance of adhering to legal and statutory requirements, including those related to product safety, worker safety, and data protection. The project explores the role of accountants in ensuring compliance with regulations, ethical considerations in financial reporting, and the key management processes that support corporate governance, such as transparency and stakeholder engagement. It analyzes internal control methods, valuation techniques, and performance indicators. The project also covers the impact of information technology on accounting practices and the role of software packages like SAP and XERO. Furthermore, it addresses the assessment of corporate governance through stakeholder reviews, the importance of reporting on compliance, and the analysis of potential failures in corporate governance.

By student name
Professor
University
Date: 23 September ,2017

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Contents
Written Activity………………………………………………………………………........2
Project……………..……………………………………………………………………….......4
Question ……….……………………………………………………………………….........8
Refrences……………..………………………………………………………...................11
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Written Activity
1. In case of manufacturing companies there are a lot of legal compliances to be followed. It
compromises of all the legal and corporate requirements, along with all the technical standards
that the manufacturers must follow in order to produce and manufacture a product. There are
various areas in which the compliances becomes very important like the product safety, safety
of the workers, protection of data, export controls etc. These standards have been defined by
particular authorities who work for the overall safety of the company and the workers who work
there. In case of non compliance punishment is given.
2. The current features of the recent legislative and financial and statutory requirements include
compliances with the various set standards and also filling of the required statutory forms and
return in respect to the income tax assessment act 1997 and the Corporations Act 2001, within
the due date that has been given for filling.
3. The current statutory forms can be filled online in the prescribed format by downloading the
form from the net which is generally in doc or pdf format and then filling with the requisite
details, the return can be filled. The company must file the return within the given deadline with
the requisite fees. In case the company fails, late fees need to be paid.
4. There are various ethical considerations that must be considered while filing these returns and
forms. The companies must make sure that while filling this returns they must state the correct
information, so that in any case there must not be any discrepancies. The management of the
company must not give any fake information or cover their reports that might give a false
impression to the investors of the company. It is very important to be ethically and morally
correct while filling these returns.
5. The key management processes that supports corporate governance are that each part of the
management must contribute to make sure that there must be an ethical approach in all their
activities. The management must see to it that there must be equal concern for all the
stakeholders and there must be proper transparency and accessibility in their work. The
companies must see to it that they must spend every year some amount for the corporate social
work as per the standards that have been prescribed.
6. An employee record is a statement in which the employer maintains the record of its employee,
their names and details all are mentioned. There are various ways in which the employer can
maintain these details, like a personal file, a payroll file, employee medical file, I-9 files etc. In all
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these files, the intricate details about the employees are stored. The main function of the
employee records, to provide the employer an overview of the number of employees that are
working with them and various details about the same at any giving point. Whenever they need
any information, they can make use of these files to help them through.
7. The key principles of internal control are to make sure that all the departments of the
organization are working efficiently and there are proper timely checks. The management must
be strict in their approach to make sure that none of the departments are at fault. The various
methods of valuation are LIFO, FIFO, and average method. The various methods of depreciation
are straight line method and written down value method.
8. The performance indicators and key significant results helps in understanding the overall
scenario about how the company is performing and what are the areas where the company
might need some improvements.
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Project
1. a) The manufacturing industry compromises of compliances with so many regulatory and
statutory requirements and all the departments and employees are required to follow the same. In
case of an accountant, while preparing the books, care should be taken to make sure that there are
certain amounts of money that must be transferred to the CSR funds as per the prescribed
standards and the same should be followed accordingly (Visinescu, Jones, & Sidorova, 2017). The
books of the accounts should be prepared as per the prescribed format and the various returns
should be filed in compliance with the regulatory framework.
b) The two audit related practices will include, transferring the statutory amount to the CSR fund
and compliance with the said regulatory framework to make sure that the books of the company are
free from any errors (Werner, 2017). It also includes making sure that the books of the company are
prepared in such a manner that it must be free from all kind of errors. As an accountant care should
be taken to follow the same and make sure that the company does not faults in the same.
2. a) Continuing the scenario from the last year, this year also saw many investors routing for more
aligned approaches to corporate governance across the border to make sure that there is long term
value creation. This will help in development of the better corporate relation inter firm and intra
firms and thus will help in development of the economy as cross border trade will improve.
Particularly those with emerging technologies and nascent corporate practices will be benefited
with better regulation of resources (Linden & Freeman, 2017). Corporate Governance has become a
very important tool in today’s world and every company needs to follow the same. It is important
for the well being of the environment in which the company operates and also for the general public
who are dependent on the company for their overall growth. The companies needs to follow the
statutory rules that the government to make sure these CSR activities are carried on effectively
without any issues involved (Trieu, 2017).
b) Most of the statutory and regulatory requirements have been defined to provide guidance to the
companies in respect with the management of their activities. These laws and requirements have
been stated to make the business ethical and legal and as per the statue in which the company is
operating. It is the responsibility of the managers to make sure that the business is compiling with
these rules and regulations (Hall & Rapanotti, 2017). Effective interpretations of these rules are very
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important to make the overall compliance easy and probable. Management can also take help from
experts that can guide them in assessing these requirements and compiling with the same. In any
case if the management fails or does not work as per the requirements then the company will be
held liable in that regard (Guragai, Hunt, Neri, & Taylor, 2017). There are various penalties that have
been defined in case the company fluctuates and they need to pay the same. These are the few
ways in which the company can interpret these statutory needs and apply the same in their overall
growth and development.
3.a) There are various methods by which the company can analyze these internal control-
Substantive procedures that include analyze of the financial statements to understand whether the
accounts contain data entry errors or other mistakes. Analysis of the audit trails, personal one to
one interactions, calculating the overall flow of the work from one department to the other (Belton,
2017). Risk assessment and analysis is also an important way by which the auditors of the company
can check the relevance of the internal control methods. These methods are important to
understand whether the management has taken effective steps to install controls for the overall
functioning of the company.
b. There are various types of accounting software packages available in the market. SAP is a high end
ERP package that is there to satisfy the needs of big multinational companies and manage large
volume of data (Dichev, 2017). MYOB can be used to manage medium amount of data and software
like XERO is suitable for managing special departments like inventory. It is thus important to select
the right software as per the needs of the company.
c. Information technology has become an integral part of the accounting scenario nowadays where
the companies can use high end ERP software to store large volume of data and use the same for
their overall data analysis (Bromwich & Scapens, 2016). There are many vendors in the market that
sell these types of software that can be customized as per the needs of the company.
d. The various processes that can support governance are the actions of the management and the
directors of the company in this regard and the steps taken by them for the same.
e.The companies needs to study the statue properly and note down all the reports that it needs to
file and then accordingly should make the necessary reporting plans. The company should make
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sure that all the returns must be filed during the given deadline and there must not be any deviation
from the same. These are the few helpful ways that the company can follow.
4)a.The achievement of the performance indicator would be accessed by the reviews of the
stakeholders for whom the performance objectives are being set. This can be qualitative or
quantitative and it needs to be checked whether the objective of sustainability and corporate
governance has been achieved or not. It has to be seen whether the requirements of compliance as
per the corporate governance is being met.
b. The key results areas generally include less of the stakeholders complaint, resources being
utilised efficiently and effectively, percentage of women and children being benefited from the
scheme, contributions to the political parties and otrther non government organisations, the
reporting in the financial statements, etc. All this needs to be compared with the performance
indicators.
c. The compliance with the laws, rules and regulations, their applicability, their implementation, all
of this needs too be reported in the while reviewing the corporate governance plan. In order to
check the compliance, it also needs to be checked that how many times it has been breached and
what is the implication and penalties with regards to the same. Further, it can also be monitored by
regularly analysing its impact on the society and the business environment (Arnott, Lizama, & Song,
2017).
d. The compliance of corporate governance is clearly stated in the law with the prescribed limits.
The compliance preparation procedure can be checked by checking what the activities within its
ambit, whether the disclosure requirements are being met, what are the assumptions being taken
and whether the companies activities are not having any adverse impact on the environment as well
as the stakeholders.
e. The two failures which may be analysed in terms of corporate governance is the regulatory
compliance which is required by law to be followed like the minimum wages or the minimum health
conditions for the employees and the other can be the internal control being managed in the
company. Both of them can be enhanced by having a legal control in the company such that they is a
regulatory committee and internal audit team in place to keep up the inefficiencies, if any, before
the management at the right time (Abbott & Kantor, 2017).
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5)a.The assessment which is being carried out in the entity must show up that consistent accounting
policies and procedures are being followed to keep the track of the common office equipments, the
software and the consumables and such that the company is keeping it abreast with the latest
technological developments in order to have continuous growth (Alexander, 2016).
b. There should alos be an integrated financial software system which is being implemented by the
entity to have the reserves of data at one place and such that there is no leakage of data and few
specific personnel are having the access to the data points since it is confidential. The software
system can be in the nature of ERF software or the SAP and should be compatible with the business
environment.
c. As a part of the SOX process and documentation, a company should make standard operating
procedures for each of the function and activities being carried out at the entity. This will ensure
that the process is not deviated with by anybody in the system and the appropriate audit trail can be
there. There should be a system which enables how the system works based on a standard policy
being followed uniformly in the company.
Question
1.Good governance is a term that specifies how the companies are managing the public affairs and are
working for their overall growth. Governance is the process of making effective decisions and then
implementing them for best results. It is important for the companies to be ethical in their approach for
overall success.
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2.Statutory means anything that has been stated or prescribed by the statue and all the companies need
to follow them under the governance of that state. The work regulatory in context of the existent and
regulatory framework means something that has been formed to regulate some things.
3.Internal audit is something that has been done by the management of the company to make sure that
the internal controls of the company are functioning properly. External audit is the type of audit that is
done by external auditors that has been appointed by the management of the company to comment on
the overall fairness of the company and its accounts.
4.The various corporate governance reporting trends can be identified from the total amount of money
that is company is spending every year in the various CSR activities and whether proper records has
been taken in the company to imply the same.
5.A compliance program might involve compliance with some statutory requirements that the company
must follow. Compliance programs are mostly designed industry wise and all the companies who are
functioning in that particular industry must comply with those standards and requirements. In case the
companies fail to follow the same they will be penalized.
6.The primary goal of the information and technology governance is to make sure that is proper security
of data that is being transferred over the internet (Kew & Stredwick, 2017). The companies must make
sure that all the cyber related laws and requirements must be followed, to make sure that data is saved
and not leaked.
7.The financial reports consist of various details about the financials of the company. In general it
consists of the income statement, the balance sheet, the equity and financial statements and the cash
flow statements. It gives an overview about the performance of the company stating its overall profit
and the balance of all its particulars consisting of both assets and liabilities.
8.Reviewing corporate governance compliance involves reviewing the various actions of the company in
respect of the various corporate social practices. It is important to see whether the company has
functioned as per the set standards and what are the areas in which they might lack. It is important to
review the various directors’ declaration for the same (Linden & Freeman, 2017).
9.It is very important to have a strong performance goals for the company as it will help the
management and the employees in understanding their duties and they will work in that field to make
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sure that the company is able to achieve those goals. This will help in long term development of the
company.
10.Few questions that can be asked while looking at the financials of any company are –
a) What are the steps that the company has taken to maintain the required liquidity position?
b) What are the areas in which the company can improve to earn more from its current revenue?
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References
Abbott, M., & Kantor, A. (2017). Fair Value Measurement and Mandated Accounting Changes: The Case
of the Victorian Rail Track Corporation. Australian accounting Review.
Alexander, F. (2016). The Changing Face of Accountability. The Journal of Higher Education, 71(4), 411-
431.
Arnott, D., Lizama, F., & Song, Y. (2017). Patterns of business intelligence systems use in organizations.
Decision Support Systems, 97, 58-68.
Belton, P. (2017). Competitive Strategy: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. London: Macat
International ltd.
Bromwich, M., & Scapens, R. (2016). Management Accounting Research: 25 years on. Management
Accounting Research, 31, 1-9.
Dichev, I. (2017). On the conceptual foundations of financial reporting. Accounting and Business
Research, 47(6), 617-632.
Guragai, B., Hunt, N., Neri, M., & Taylor, E. (2017). Accounting Information Systems and Ethics Research:
Review, Synthesis, and the Future. Journal of Information Systems: Summer 2017, 31(2), 65-81.
Hall, J., & Rapanotti, L. (2017). A design theory for software engineering. Information and Software
Technology, 87, 46-61.
Kew, J., & Stredwick, J. (2017). Business Environment: Managing in a Strategic Context (second ed.).
London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Linden, B., & Freeman, R. (2017). Profit and Other Values: Thick Evaluation in Decision Making. Business
Ethics Quarterly, 27(3), 353-379.
Trieu, V. (2017). Getting value from Business Intelligence systems: A review and research agenda.
Decision Support Systems, 93, 111-124.
Visinescu, L., Jones, M., & Sidorova, A. (2017). Improving Decision Quality: The Role of Business
Intelligence. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 57(1), 58-66.
Werner, M. (2017). Financial process mining - Accounting data structure dependent control flow
inference. International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, 25, 57-80.
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