ACCT601 Full Course Latest 2020 December

ACCT601 MSAC Capstone

Week 1 Discussion

COMMUNICATION SKILLS AND REPORT WRITING

Using the DeVry University library (Links to an external site.) or other websites available for research, select any article relating to the importance of any aspect of communication in an organization.

The article should relate to some aspect of communication skills and report writing.

Provide a brief synopsis of the article, including the title and web link.

Discuss the relevant items of the article and how it pertains to communication skills and report writing.

 

ACCT601 MSAC Capstone

Week 2 Discussion

CURRENT AND FUTURE ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING

Locate a website (for example, AICPA.org) or find an article referencing the CPA Horizons 2025 Report.

Summarize one or more of the conclusions and predictions of the CPA Horizons 2025 Report.

What’s your perspective of the current issues and potential trends for the future impacting your career?

 

ACCT601 MSAC Capstone

Week 3 Discussion

PROFESSIONAL AND ETHICAL JUDGMENT

Locate a website presenting any code of ethics, code of professional conduct, or similarly documented guidance for an accounting, auditing, or professional oversight organization.

Possibilities include the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA), the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Summarize one or more provisions of the code and address how you see the rules affecting you in your professional accounting or auditing career.

 

ACCT601 MSAC Capstone

Week 4 Discussion

FUTURE AND IMPACT OF IFRS

After reading the most recent IASB Board Meeting Summaries specified in this week’s reading activity, discuss any one topic that you reviewed.

What do you think the impact of this particular topic might be on domestic companies if the United States ultimately adopts IFRS?

 

ACCT601 MSAC Capstone

Week 5 Discussion

REPORTING AND DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS

Referring to the articles you selected and reviewed for this week’s reading assignment, discuss any one topic.

How does this topic impact U.S. companies in general or a specific company that you’ve work for?

 

ACCT601 MSAC Capstone

Week 6 Discussion

FINANCIAL STATEMENT ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

No unread replies.55 replies.

Let’s discuss the interim or final results of the financial statement analysis paper that you’re working on for this week.

Be sure to indicate the company you selected and discuss at least one of the ratios you analyzed.

What was the result, and what does it tell us about the financial health of the organization?

 

ACCT601 MSAC Capstone

Week 7 Discussion

KEYS FOR EFFECTIVE PRESENTATIONS

What are two major points that you would like to present about the content in your Final Term Paper?

How do you plan to clearly and concisely present them in an oral presentation?

 

 

 

 

 

ACCT601 MSAC Capstone

Week 1 Assignment  

Communication Skills and Report Writing Written Assignment

Using the articles that were selected on communication skills and report writing from the Week 1 readings, summarize five aspects of communication skills and report writing that are discussed in the articles that you selected.

Explain why each aspect of communication skills and report writing is vital to an accountant’s professional career.

The summary should be a minimum of five to eight pages (counting the cover page and bibliography).

The font size should be 12-point and the type can be Times New Roman, Verdana, or Arial.

Your paper should be properly cited using APA referencing style. This means that citations should be in a bibliography and in the body of the paper wherever you refer to or directly quote any information or terms from other sources.

You should include a minimum of three references in your paper.

This paper is a research paper—you need to learn something new from this assignment, not just provide your ideas about your experience. Please submit your paper no later than midnight Sunday at the end of Week 1.

 

ACCT601 MSAC Capstone

Week 2 Assignment  

Current Issues Paper Written Assignment

Find and search any website that discusses topics pertinent to FASB, SEC, IFRS, or anything related.

Specifically, describe and discuss the changes that have occurred within the prior 12 months in the standards and rulings issued by one of these standard setting bodies. You could also incorporate the standards that are being contemplated through pending discussion exposure documents.

Your paper should be a minimum of five to eight pages, including a cover page and bibliography.

The font size should be 12-point and the type can be Times New Roman, Verdana, or Arial.

Your paper should be properly cited using APA referencing style. This means that citations should be in a bibliography and in the body of the paper wherever you refer to or directly quote any information or terms from other sources.

You should include a minimum of three references in your paper.

This paper is a research paper—you need to learn something new from this assignment, not just provide your ideas about your experience. Please submit your paper no later than midnight Sunday at the end of Week 2.

 

 

 

ACCT601 MSAC Capstone

Week 3 Assignment  

You Decide Paper

Scenario Summary

You have been invited to attend a meeting where your immediate supervisor will be presenting a draft of detailed financial projections to the chief financial officer and a subsequent meeting with the company president. You’ve not been involved in the preparation of the analysis thus far but understand that you might have some tasks delegated to you after the meeting. In addition, you realize that the company is at a critical juncture from issues such as high attrition of the accounting staff, current economic conditions, and increased competition.

Your Assignment

You have recently been hired in the fairly small accounting department of a corporate business. The department is so small, in fact, that you may be called on at times for tasks ranging from simple bookkeeping to preparation of financial statements and projections, and possibly even serving occasionally on the internal audit staff. One of your first responsibilities is to assist a senior level accountant with a detailed financial projection after receiving input from the chief financial officer and the president of the company.

You Decide

Scenario Your RoleKey PlayersAssignment

Scenario

You have been invited to attend a meeting where your immediate supervisor will be presenting a draft of detailed financial projections to the chief financial officer and a subsequent meeting with the company president. You’ve not been involved in the preparation of the analysis thus far but understand that you might have some tasks delegated to you after the meeting. In addition, you realize that the company is at a critical juncture from issues such as high attrition of the accounting staff, current economic conditions, and increased competition.

Your Role

You have recently been hired in the fairly small accounting department of a corporate business.The department is so small, in fact, that you may be called on at times for tasks ranging from simple bookkeeping, to preparation of financial statements and projections, and to perhaps even filling-in on the internal audit staff. One of your first responsibilities is to assist a senior level accountant with a detailed financial projection after input from the chief financial officer and the president of the company.

Key Players

Photo of Jim Adotar

Jim Adotar

Senior Accountant

 Photo of Stan Fazer

Stan Fazer

Chief Financial Officer

 Photo of Lana Leal

Lana Leal

Company President

Assignment

Given the scenario, your role and the information provided by the key players involved, it is time for you to make a decision.

If you are finished reviewing this scenario, close this window and return to this Week’s You Decide tab, in eCollege, to complete the activity for this scenario.

You can return and review this scenario again at any time.

Activity or Assignment

Assignment

You need to draft a summary of how you will handle the situation. Specific questions that should be addressed are as follows.

Do you feel there might be an ethical issue present? For the moment, assume that no laws have been broken and only focus on any possible ethical issues.

If you were going to report a suspected ethical issue, how would you do so? For instance, to whom would you report? Would you first discuss the matter with anyone in particular?

Would the manner in which you respond vary depending on whether this corporation was privately held or publicly traded?

Does the fact that you have only been recently hired play into your decisions?

What possible sources of guidance might be available from a professional organization or your state’s regulatory body overseeing the accounting profession?

Lastly, assume that you suspect that some state or federal laws may have been broken. In other words, the problems might be beyond just a possible ethical issue. Would this change your handling of the situation?

After reading through the You Decide activity and considering the questions listed here, please prepare a paper in APA format. The paper should include responses to the specific questions posed above, but you may include other points if you so desire. The paper should be double-spaced, 11-point or 12-point type, and between 750 and 1,000 words (three to four pages).

 

 

 

ACCT601 MSAC Capstone

Week 4 Assignment  

FASB/IASB Convergence Paper Written Assignment

Find and search any website that discusses FASB, SEC, IFRS, or IASB.

Describe and discuss the standards and rulings that are being contemplated through pending discussion exposure documents of FASB and IASB.

Your paper should be a minimum of five to eight pages, including a cover page and bibliography.

The font size should be 12-point and the type can be Times New Roman, Verdana, or Arial.

Your paper should be properly cited using APA referencing style. This means that citations should be in a bibliography and in the body of the paper wherever you refer to or directly quote any information or terms from other sources.

This paper is a research paper—you need to learn something new from this assignment, not just provide your ideas about your experience. Please submit your paper no later than midnight Sunday at the end of Week 4.

 

ACCT601 MSAC Capstone

Week 6 Assignment  

Financial Statement Analysis Paper Written Assignment

One basic method that an accountant can use to analyze the financial situation of a business is ratio analysis. This can be a useful tool no matter the type of legal structure of the business and regardless of whether ownership is public or private. To help assure the availability of the necessary data, though, this assignment will be focused solely on a publicly traded company.

As an overview, you will choose a publicly traded company from a list provided at the end of this assignment. Locate the company’s website, retrieve the latest company’s annual report from that site, calculate specific ratios for the latest two fiscal years, and respond to a limited number of analysis questions.

Please note that this entails far more than finding precalculated ratios from a website such as Yahoo! Finance or Google Finance. If you desire, you can use such a site for a reasonableness check on the results of your calculations, but any such comparisons should not be part of your resulting paper. Also, you might not match exactly to their figures anyway because those may include quarterly updates.

The paper should be three to four double-spaced pages (not counting the cover page and bibliography).

The font size should be 12-point and the type can be Times New Roman, Verdana, or Arial.

Your paper should be properly cited using APA referencing style. This means that citations should be in a bibliography and in the body of the paper wherever you refer to or directly quote any information or terms from other sources.

Please submit your paper no later than midnight Sunday at the end of Week 6.

For the section showing the ratio calculations, provide appropriate details regarding the formula used, the source of the data, and the resulting calculations. Although you are certainly welcome and encouraged to use Excel to complete these tasks, copying and pasting from Excel into the Word document is discouraged unless it can be done in a manner that is cosmetically appropriate.

The requirements for the ratio analysis section are as follows.

Compute the following for each of the two most recent years.

Profit margin

Return on shareholders’ equity

Current ratio

Interest coverage ratio

Document your work by properly citing items such as the following.

The website for the company

The web page link for the annual report

The page number of the annual report

Appropriate details of the calculations

The questions that should be addressed in the second section of the paper are as follows.

If you were an accountant for a potential vendor for this company, explain which of these ratios would be of the most interest to you. Would there also be a second ratio of interest to you?

If you were an accountant for a potential investor in this company, explain which of these ratios would be of the most interest to you. In your opinion, what other ratio or ratios beyond the ones listed above should also be considered in an investment context?

What is your overall opinion of this company based on the limited analysis completed via the four ratios? Feel free to mention any questions that you feel should still be considered in view of the ratios or the changes from one year to the next.

Please also consider these suggestions for your success on this assignment.

If you choose a company from the list and have any trouble finding its website, the annual reports, or specific information, consider selecting a different company from the list instead.

If the company has subsidiaries, be sure to use the consolidated financial statements.

Be sure to use the financial statements rather than summaries elsewhere in the annual report.

List of companies (choose one):

Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Intuit Inc.

The Kroger Co.

Macy’s Inc.

Dell Inc.

Family Dollar Stores Inc.

Kodiak Oil & Gas Corp.

Tractor Supply Company

Verizon Communications Inc.

 

ACCT601 MSAC Capstone

Term Paper  

Objectives

The Term Paper is an opportunity for you to conduct research and explore in depth an issue pertinent to the role of an accountant in your chosen area of interest. The objective of the Term Paper is to research, evaluate, and propose practical applications of the concepts you learned from many courses and from your chosen area of interest in your MSAC degree program. Accordingly, you will be able to choose a topic from any of the following broad areas.

Financial accounting and reporting

Governmental accounting and reporting

Nonprofit accounting and reporting

Managerial accounting

Auditing—public

Auditing—internal

Taxation

Fraud

Other topic from a course that you took in your MSAC program

Although the topic areas are fairly open-ended, it is expected that your paper will document theoretical underpinnings as well as practical implications. Suppose, for example, your interest is in auditing for fraud. An ideal paper would include not only a discussion of why fraud occurs but also recommendations for a business or other entity to guard against fraud. Hence, a deeper discussion of internal control procedures and the role of internal and external auditors would be appropriate. In effect, both the why and how of implementing relevant tools, technologies, process, procedures, and policies would need to be addressed.

Guidelines

APA format and citations are required. All DeVry University policies are in effect, including the plagiarism policy. Any questions about this paper may be discussed in the Course Q and A Forum discussion topic. Please note that no late submissions will be accepted for the Final Term Paper or Oral Presentation in Weeks 7 and 8, respectively.

Assignments and Milestones

The work you complete through your research in this course will culminate in a Final Term Paper in APA format along with an Oral Presentation explaining the key aspects of this Term Paper. The Final Term Paper is due in Week 7 and the related Oral Presentation will be presented by you in Week 8. Because the research and writing of the paper is a course-long effort, a number of weekly submissions are required to incrementally complete the multiple sections of the Term Paper. For additional guidance, please download and refer to the Term Paper Grading Rubrics and Term Paper Template documents available in Course Documents located under Introduction & Resources for this course.

Week 1 Term Paper Submission

Select your topic problem statement. Prepare a one-page summary (double-spaced) describing your topic proposal problem statement. You should discuss your overall topic along with three to five areas you plan to analyze and how you plan to approach your research on this topic. Your problem statement should also explain how the topic fits with the course, the degree, and your focus area. Submit your topic proposal problem statement no later than midnight Sunday at the end of Week 1. Your professor will review and approve your topic and provide additional feedback and comments on your topic proposal.

Week 2 Term Paper Submission

Submit a list of five to eight current references, in APA format, that will ultimately be incorporated into your Final Term Paper. Briefly describe the content of each reference and how it relates to your selected research topic. Submit your Week 2 list of references no later than midnight Sunday at the end of Week 2.

References

References are very important. At least five to eight references are required for the Term Paper. Anonymous authors or web pages are not acceptable. At least three of these sources used should be from academic journals or professional publications. All sources should be current within the past 18 to 24 months from the Keller library. All references should be cited within the body of your work and will also be listed on the last page of your Term Paper in a section titled References.

Week 3 Term Paper Submission

Complete the problem statement for your research effort. You should refine and thoroughly discuss the topic problem for your Term Paper and submit this documentation no later than midnight Sunday at the end of Week 3.

Week 4 Term Paper Submission

Research and summarize a review of the literature on your Term Paper topic, briefly describing the literature and how it relates to your Term Paper. Submit your Week 4 Term Paper Literature Review no later than midnight Sunday at the end of Week 4.

Literature Review

The segment referred to as a review of the literature is intended as a starting point for your research. In effect, you should research what other experts and commentators have already analyzed with respect to the problem you are scrutinizing.

Week 5 Term Paper Submission

This week, you will need to submit a draft of detailed analyses and recommendations that will ultimately be included in your Final Term Paper. Submit this draft no later than midnight Sunday at the end of Week 5.

Week 6 Term Paper Submission

This week, you will need to submit a draft of a summary and conclusions that will ultimately be included in your Final Term Paper. Submit this draft no later than midnight Sunday at the end of Week 6.

Week 7 Final Term Paper Submission

Prepare an executive summary, finalize your Term Paper (including the executive summary), and submit the complete, final version of the Final Term Paper. Submit your Week 7 Final Term Paper no later than midnight Sunday at the end of Week 7.

Term Paper Template

To help you complete the Final Term Paper, you should download and apply the Term Paper Template document available in Course Documents located under Introduction & Resources for this course. This template document includes (in APA format) a cover page, table of contents, executive summary, introduction, review of the literature, analysis and recommendations, summary and conclusion, appendix (if you want to include items in an appendix), and references. Appropriate headings should be used to designate the various sections of the paper. The paper should be a minimum of 15 pages, double-spaced, and 10–12-point font size. The page count includes only the content and does not include the cover page, table of contents, appendix or exhibits, or references.

Week 8 Oral Presentation

Prepare a 10–15 minute Oral Presentation summarizing the key points of your Final Term Paper. Submit your Oral Presentation PowerPoint slide deck no later than midnight Tuesday of Week 8 or per other specific guidance provided by your course instructor.

Oral Presentation

Your oral presentation will consist of PowerPoint slides comprised of talking points for a 10–15 minute total presentation duration. No more than 10 slides should be used. The Oral Presentation is intended as a summary of your research, analysis, conclusions, and recommendations.