Answer Guide To The Management Accounting Simulation

Aug 04, 2015  First, simulation methods are widely used as powerful tools within management accounting and management control: for example, the use of simulation for evaluating operational and financial risks has a long tradition, simulation helps to estimate errors incorporated in accounting numbers; and in a nutshell, what-if analyses and sensitivity.

The Introduction to Accounting and Finance simulation familiarizes your students with the basics of accounting in the context of a fully functioning enterprise.
The simulation is highly integrated and provides an ideal platform from which you can discuss and illustrate the fundamentals of accounting.

Content

Students will work within a multifunctional business setting where they experience the challenges of resource allocation, activity-based costing, pro forma accounting, profitability analysis, and financial ratios analysis. The decision content includes:

  • Finance and Accounting
  • Basic Marketing
  • Distribution
  • Human Resources
  • Basic Manufacturing

Storyline

In the Introduction to Accounting and Finance simulation, your students are provided with the seed capital to start up their new business. They have limited financial resources and complete accounting responsibility. They build a factory, open up distribution channels, select a product portfolio and advertising budget. They hire workers and decide on the compensation packages, deal with demand projections and the basic concepts of production scheduling. After several quarters in business, your students’ firms can receive additional funding from the Venture Capitalists. They can invest this money in new R&D, bring out improved products, expand their distribution and production capacity in order to maximize their business performance.

Time frame

6 decision rounds, with each round taking 30 to 60 min per student.

Grading

Grading is based on the balanced scorecard that measures financial performance, customer satisfaction, market share in the targeted market segments, human resource management, manufacturing productivity, financial risk, asset management, preparedness for the future and wealth.

Play options

Your students can compete against their peers or against computer-generated competitors.

The 'play against computer' option allows each student to work at his or her own pace and there is no need to coordinate the progress of all of the students.

Languages

English and Spanish - 'Play against Peers' option Ease acoustic software crack site.

English and Spanish - 'Play against Computer' option

Consolidation accounting is the process of combining the financial results of several subsidiary companies into the combined financial results of the parent company. This method is typically used when a parent entity owns more than 50% of the shares of another entity. The following steps document the consolidation accounting process flow:

  1. Record intercompany loans. If the parent company has been consolidating the cash balances of its subsidiaries into an investment account, record intercompany loans from the subsidiaries to the parent company. Also record an interest income allocation for the interest earned on consolidated investments from the parent company down to the subsidiaries.

  2. Charge corporate overhead. If the parent company allocates its overhead costs to subsidiaries, calculate the amount of the allocation and charge it to the various subsidiaries.

  3. Charge payables. If the parent company runs a consolidated payables operation, verify that all accounts payable recorded during the period have been appropriately charged to the various subsidiaries.

  4. Charge payroll expenses. If the parent company has been using a common paymaster system to pay all employees throughout the company, ensure that the proper allocation of payroll expenses has been made to all subsidiaries.

  5. Complete adjusting entries. At the subsidiary and corporate levels, record any adjusting entries needed to properly record revenue and expense transactions in the correct period.

  6. Investigate asset, liability, and equity account balances. Verify that the contents of all asset, liability, and equity accounts for both the subsidiaries and the corporate parent are correct, and adjust as necessary.

  7. Review subsidiary financial statements. Print and review the financial statements for each subsidiary, and investigate any items that appear to be unusual or incorrect. Make adjustments as necessary.

  8. Eliminate intercompany transactions. If there have been any intercompany transactions, reverse them at the parent company level to eliminate their effects from the consolidated financial statements.

  9. Review parent financial statements. Print and review the financial statements for the parent company, and investigate any items that appear to be unusual or incorrect. Make adjustments as necessary.

  10. Record income tax liability. If the company earned a profit, record an income tax liability. It may be necessary to do so at the subsidiary level, as well.

  11. Close subsidiary books. Depending upon the accounting software in use, it may be necessary to access the financial records of each subsidiary and flag them as closed. This prevents any additional transactions from being recorded in the accounting period being closed.

  12. Close parent company books. Flag the parent company accounting period as closed, so that no additional transactions can be reported in the accounting period being closed.

  13. Issue financial statements. Print and distribute the financial statements of the parent company.

If a subsidiary uses a different currency as its operating currency, an additional consolidation accounting step is to convert its financial statements into the operating currency of the parent company.

Given the considerable number of steps, it is useful to convert them into a detailed procedure, which the accounting department should follow religiously as part of its closing process. Otherwise, a key step could be missed, which would throw off the financial statement results.

Some of the tasks noted here can be automated, or at least made simpler, in order to produce financial statements more quickly. However, to some degree, the higher level of precision required to produce more accurate financial statements requires additional consolidation effort, and therefore more time.

Related Courses

Business Combinations and Consolidations
CPA Firm Mergers and Acquisitions
Mergers and Acquisitions