When the shareholders of Ann Taylor Stores, a national retailer of upscale women's clothing, brought suit against company management, the company was accused of misleading investors by hiding the fact that it had accumulated huge amounts of excessive and overvalued inventory. Although the company reported disappointing results, surprising Wall Street, management denied any wrongdoing. The financial press often reports incidents where management uses inventory accounting to manipulate earnings. What are the important topics and considerations related to inventory accounting?

When the shareholders of Ann Taylor Stores, a national retailer of upscale women's clothing, brought suit against company management, the company was accused of misleading investors by hiding the fact that it had accumulated huge amounts of excessive and overvalued inventory. Although the company reported disappointing results, surprising Wall Street, management denied any wrongdoing. The financial press often reports incidents where management uses inventory accounting to manipulate earnings. What are the important topics and considerations related to inventory accounting?

Auditing: A Risk Based-Approach (MindTap Course List)

11th Edition

ISBN:9781337619455

Author:Karla M Johnstone, Audrey A. Gramling, Larry E. Rittenberg

Publisher:Karla M Johnstone, Audrey A. Gramling, Larry E. Rittenberg

Chapter11: Auditing Inventory, Goods And Services, And Accounts Payable: The Acquisition And Payment Cycle

Section: Chapter Questions

Problem 28CYBK

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When the shareholders of Ann Taylor Stores, a national retailer of upscale women's clothing, brought suit against company management, the company was accused of misleading investors by hiding the fact that it had accumulated huge amounts of excessive and overvalued inventory. Although the company reported disappointing results, surprising Wall Street, management denied any wrongdoing. The financial press often reports incidents where management uses inventory accounting to manipulate earnings. What are the important topics and considerations related to inventory accounting?
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Suppose an accountant discovers that the company holds substantial amounts of inventory that are now obsolete and worthless. Should the accountant report the truth, write off the inventory as an asset, and take a loss on obsolete inventory in earnings? Suppose the accountant also knows that the company is already in distress. Should the accountant seek ways to avoid or delay recognizing inventory losses that will cause the company to report lower earnings and thereby experience a drop in stock price and potential bankruptcy? What if the accountant knows the company is growing quickly and generating healthy profits?
1. (Political Motivations for Policies) Ever since the unethical actions of some employees of Enron Corp. first came to light, ethics in accounting has been in the news with increasing frequency. The unethical actions of the employees essentially involved their selection of certain accounting policies for the company. In many instances, GAAP does allow firms some flexibility in their choice of legitimate accounting policies. This is true, for example, in choosing an inventory cost formula. However, the company's choice of policies may ultimately be influenced by several specific factors. Instructions State three of these factors and explain why each of them may influence an accounting policy choice.
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A former chairman, CFO, and controller of Donnkenny, Inc., an appeal company that makes sportswear for Pierre Cardin and Victoria Jones, please get guilty to financial statement fraud. These manager used false journal entries to record fictitious sales, head inventory and public warehouses so that it could be recorded as sold and required sales orders to be backdated so that the sale could be moved to an earlier period.the combined effect of these actions caused 25 million out of 40 million and quarterly sales to be phony. A. Why might control procedures listed in this chapter be insufficient in stopping this type of fraud? B.Would an audit committee made up of representatives from Senior Management be effective in stopping this type of fraud?
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An accounting intern for a local CPA firm was reviewing the financial statements of a client in the electronics industry. The intern noticed that the client used the FIFO method of determining ending inventory and cost of goods sold. When she asked a colleague why the firm used FIFO instead of LIFO, she was told that the client used FIFO to minimize its income tax liability. This response puzzled the intern because she thought that LIFO would minimize income tax liability. Required: What would you tell the intern to resolve the confusion?
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected one of your customers, NEST Ltd adversely. Even though the economies are fast recovering, they have contacted your company to request to purchase on credit instead of cash on delivery. Your boss, Alan, the Marketing Manager has instructed you to review their request. He has asked you to review NEST Ltd’s latest set of financial statements. (a)In addition, identify other information(other than balance sheet, incomes statement and cash flow statement) that will be helpful in deciding whether to accede to NEST Ltd’s request? (b)You have also noticed that compared to last year, the allowance for bad debt for Nest Ltd has increased from 2% to 4 % of the accounts receivable. Discuss how this information will impact your review.
You read that there is no generally accepted definition of ‘earnings management’. Using your accounting knowledge, your own research and textbook reading to define, describe, and analyze: When will earnings management be acceptable? When will earnings management become a fraud? Fraudulent earnings management is often identified by two adjectives. What are the two adjectives? How should each of the two adjectives be defined in the context of this week’s lessons on ‘financial reporting fraud’? Include a biblical application in your analysis.