QUESTION 1: AUDITING, ASSURANCE & THE PROFESSION

You work in the audit division of BOD, a large professional services firm. You have been approached for advice by Campbell Kirkby, who has been running a small business, successfully for a number of years. He tells you that:

“I decided it was time I started enjoying the results of all my hard work, so I sold 40% of the shares in the business to some friends who thought it a good investment. At our first shareholders’ meeting, we all agreed to appoint a general manager in my place to run the business and a finance manager to handle accounting, tax and financial matters. We also agreed that we would like to appoint a firm like yours to check our financial statements on an annual basis, to give us some assurance that the new managers are running the business properly.”

Campbell is excited about this new phase for his business. He tells you he would like to know more about the business environment, accounting and assurance as these may affect him in the future. Parts of the “Required” below reflect what he has asked you to clarify.

Required: 1.1 Researchers seeking to explain the demand for assurance have developed a number of theories or hypotheses. State and explain which theory best explains Campbell’s reason for requiring annual assurance?

1.2 Explain to Campbell what an assurance engagement entails. Your explanation should: a) Identify the elements of an assurance engagement and relate these to Campbell’s circumstances; b) State what two levels of assurance can be offered to Campbell and his fellow shareholders and identify the type of engagement associated with each of these levels;

1.3 Explain to Campbell what the External Reporting Board is, with reference to its two sub-boards and what each of these is responsible for doing.

Audience Demographics

A variety of factors go into defining a target market. Many of the basic factors are demographic. Questions like the following are usually asked:

Gender: Is the target market composed of males, females, or both? Age: What age range does the target market fall into? (e.g. 18 – 24) Income: What is the annual salary range of the end user? (e.g. $50,000 – 74,999) Cultural/Ethnic Background: Are the end users primarily Caucasian, Asian, immigrants, citizens, etc.? Language: What languages/dialects will be required to communicate with customers?

Geographic Region: Where are customers/potential customers located? Are they in urban, suburban, or rural areas? Or for larger companies, what continental regions are customers located in (city, state, province, country)?

Other Factors: the customers’/potential customers’ personality, occupations, values, hobbies, interests, etc. all have to be gauged by the business and the marketing professional

Example: Sephora Gender: primarily female

Age: appeals to a wide range of ages, preteen to mid-40s, as they offer funky, trendy makeup and anti-aging products

Income: mid- to high-income range; significant percentage of disposable income Cultural/Ethnic Background: customers come from a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds

Geographic Region: North American and Western European countries, in urban areas, though customers in rural and more remote areas can purchase products online

Other Factors: Sephora’s end users are discerning. They want access to quality products, niche brands, and extensive selection. They are willing to pay a premium for this kind of access. Most of the customers in the 25+ age range will be professional women who choose to wear make up to the workplace. The high school and college-aged clients will have active social lives and be interested in standing out in a crowd (e.g. at a club, bar, etc.) 5

1. Decide who your target consumer(s) is. Write down the demographic characteristics of this person(s). Refer to this section in the textbook.

2. Learn more about your target consumer(s) by examining their psychographic characteristics. “Psychographics are kind of like demographics. Psychographic information might be your buyer's habits, hobbies, spending habits and values. Demographics explain ‘who’ your buyer is, while psychographics explain ‘why’ they buy.”

a. Create a five-question survey that enables you to find out about your target consumer’s (s’) habits, hobbies, and more without asking directly, “What are your hobbies?”, for example. Then, ask people from your target demographic to fill out your psychographic questionnaire. Try to get at least five people to respond to your survey.

b. Compile the questionnaire results and then add the psychographic characteristics to the demographic profile(s) you have already created.

Two people are playing an exciting game in which they take turns removing marbles from a bag. At the beginning of the game, this bag contains some red marbles and some blue marbles. The bag is transparent so at any time during the game, the players know exactly how many red and how many blue marbles are in the bag.

The players alternate taking turns. On a player’s turn, he or she must remove some marbles from the bag. The player chooses which marbles to remove, under the condition that he or she remove at least one marble and the marbles removed in a single turn are all the same color. The player to remove the last marble from the bag during his or her turn wins.

Assume that player 1 is playing the game with player 2, and player 1 makes the first move. If you were player 1, what optimal strategy could you use to play this game? Under what starting conditions would this optimal strategy guarantee a win, and why? What can you say about the outcome of the game if these starting conditions are not met?

(Hint: Try thinking of an invariant you could maintain during certain points of the game)

Creating Enumerations In this section, you create two enumerations that hold colors and car model types. You will use them as field types in a Car class and write a demonstration program that shows how the enumerations are used.

1. Open a new file in your text editor, and type the following Color enumeration: enum Color {BLACK, BLUE, GREEN, RED, WHITE, YELLOW};

2. Save the file as Color.java.

3. Open a new file in your text editor, and create the following Model enumeration: enum Model {SEDAN, CONVERTIBLE, MINIVAN};

4. Save the file as Model.java. Next, open a new file in your text editor, and start to define a Car class that holds three fields: a year, a model, and a color.

public class Car {

private int year;

private Model model;

private Color color;

5. Add a constructor for the Car class that accepts parameters that hold the values for year, model, and color as follows:

public Car(int yr, Model m, Color c) {

year = yr;

model = m;

color = c;

}

6. Add a display() method that displays a Car object’s data, then add a closing curly brace for the class.

public void display() {

System.out.println("Car is a " + year + " " + color + " " + model);

}

}

7. Save the file as Car.java.

8. Open a new file in your text editor, and write a short demonstration program that instantiates two Car objects and assigns values to them using enumeration values for the models and colors.

public class CarDemo {

public static void main(String[] args) {

Car firstCar = new Car(2014, Model.MINIVAN, Color.BLUE);

Car secondcar = new Car(2017, Model.CONVERTIBLE, Color.RED);

firstCar.display();

secondcar.display();

}

}

9. Save the file as CarDemo.java, and then compile and execute it.

the output should be something like

"Car is a 2014 BLUE MINIVAN

Car is a 2017 RED CONVERTIBLE"

in Java

Questions:

1. Explain two things in the procedure that may reduce the final percent yield.
2. The K₃[Fe(C₂O₄)₃]·3H₂O crystals are green. The compound absorbs light at 675 nm.
   1. What color of light does this correspond to in the visual light section of the electromagnetic spectrum?

2. Compare your answer in part a to the observation of green crystals. Is the color you see the absorbed color or transmitted color?

Frances Newberry is the payroll accountant for Pack-It Services of Jackson, Arizona. The employees of Pack-it Services are paid semimonthly. An employee, Glen Riley, comes to her on November 10 and requests a pay advance of $750, which he will pay back in equal parts on the November 15 and December 15 paychecks. Glen is married with eight withholding allowances and is paid $50,000 per year. He contributes 3% of his pay to a 401(k) and has $25 per paycheck deducted for a Section 125 plan. Compute his net pay on his November 15 paycheck. The state income tax rate is 4%. Use the Wage Bracket Method Tables for Income Tax Withholding in

What is net pay?

Design Activity #1—Project Proposal: In the designated project activity Word file, please create a written report (single-spaced, minimum of 600 additional words, small paragraphs) that describes a new proposed product for a B2C or B2B app. Your report should include the following sections: Title of your project, Author name & date, Description of the intended product (the intended look and feel of the product (via a simple sketch), and how it will function for the user), Intended delivery platform (PC, smart phone, etc.), Description of the intended user audience, Rationale for the product (what market need is being addressed), How you might go about designing your product, How you might go about developing your product. Please be sure to include sub-headings (underlined) and a line space between each section of your report.

1. You have been mandated to come up with an IT Governance Strategy
Document for your organization. Detail how you would use 3 IT
Governance Frameworks to come up with your IT Governance Strategy,
tailor made for your organization. Please provide your answer in the
form of a simplified project document.

Explain the difference deemed appropriate for government intervention in addressing the state of the economy between Keynesian and Classical theorists. Do they have a sharply different perspective on the role of the government and if so what are the positions of each group regarding using government intervention to affect the state of the economy.

Were the actions taken thus far by the federal government to address the dire impact of Covid19 on the state of the economy more Keynesian or Classical in principle? What is your personal opinion as to the actions that have been, and will be, taken by the federal government to address the state of the economy?

Describe a time when you had to make a difficult decision in your life (personal, school, work, etc). Describe how you made that decision. Please use specific detail in your response to ensure you thinking is clear. Your response should be approximately 200 words.