Wiley Accounting Updates

Posted December 12th, 2022 by Brent White & filed under Fraud.

Description: Well, you have to give marks for ingenuity, even though the results are unpleasant. Thieves have figured out a new scam in which they adhere a barcode for a card they already own to the back of a card sitting among the gift cards at a retailer. So you may think you are picking up a $50 Amazon card to give a friend but, in reality, the card racks up $50 on the fraudster’s PlayStation card. The best advice to protect yourself seems to be to check the back of your gift cards for any signs of tampering prior to purchase, and, ensure that the type of card you think you are buying shows up on both the cashier’s screen and your sales receipt.

Date: December 9, 2022

Source: ctvnews.ca

Link: https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/it-s-a-scam-guelph-woman-warns-of-gift-card-tampering-1.6188682

Discussion points:

1) Were you surprised by this latest scam?

2) What strategies could retailers implement to prevent this type of fraud?

3) In Chapter 7 of Wiley’s Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision-Making we read about the fraud triangle. How could you apply the three sides of the fraud triangle to this situation?

Posted December 12th, 2022 by Brent White & filed under Accounting Careers, Auditing.

Description: The auditor general of Ontario has found that the provincial real estate regulator – RECO – is falling down on its job of protecting buyers and sellers. In her value-for-money audit of RECO, auditor general Bonnie Lysyk found various problems with the organization, including a lack of follow-up on consumer complaints and faulty processes around inspections of real estate brokers. RECO has received close to 12,000 complaints over the last few years. Lysyk determined that RECO’s system had no categorization or description for 55 percent of the complaints received.

Date: December 8, 2022

Source: cbc.ca

Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/reco-ontario-real-estate-audit-marketplace-1.6677790

Discussion points:

1) Do you know of anyone who has launched a complaint about a real estate transaction?

2) Have you ever considered a career as a value-for-money auditor?

3) Chapter 8 of Wiley’s Understanding Financial Accounting deals with long-term assets. What is an exception to the accounting treatment for land in comparison to other real-estate assets?

Posted December 12th, 2022 by Brent White & filed under Marketing & Strategy, Student life.

Description: It may seem a bit strange, but cassettes are now showing up again in music stores. With artists such as Taylor Swift and The Weekend including this retro-form as a medium of distribution for their new offerings, there’s definitely some shelf space opening up for a format once thought to be obsolete. Part of the challenge with cassettes is finding the right gear to play them on.

Date: December 4, 2022

Source: wired.com

Link: https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-start-cassette-collection/?utm_brand=wired&utm_mailing=WIR_120622_GadgetLab_HowTuesday&bxid=5bd6743724c17c104800c5b3&cndid=33552549&esrc=MC_load&source=EDT_WIR_NEWSLETTER_0_GADGET_LAB_ZZ&mbid=mbid%3DCRMWIR012019%0A%0A

Discussion points:

1) Do you or any of your university classmates own a cassette player and listen to music on cassette?

2) What do you think is behind the return of the cassette?

3) Page 5-17 of Wiley’s Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision-Making mentions Best Buy, a major electronics retailer. Do a bit of research to see if Best Buy stocks any cassette players. If you were a decision-maker at Best Buy would you advise the company to pursue the cassette market?

Posted December 5th, 2022 by Brent White & filed under Contemporary Business Issues.

Description: If you ordered from Pizza Hut in Vancouver, it could be that your eats were delivered by Angie, Hugo or Raja: three delivery robots. The robots were part of a two-week pilot project at only one location, but customers expressed a high satisfaction rate of 95%. In case you are wondering if someone could hijack the hot pizza on its way down the sidewalk, rest easy. The customer is given a unique code that unlocks the device once it arrives at the home.

Date: December 4, 2022

Source: ctvnews.ca

Link: https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/food-delivery-robots-hit-canadian-sidewalks-but-many-challenges-delay-mass-adoption-1.6180362

Discussion points:

1) Would you be interested in having a robot deliver your food order?

2) Do you think the rise of delivery robots will impact union organizing attempts in the food sector?

3) PepsiCo is mentioned a number of times in Wiley’s Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision-Making. In 1977 Pizza Hut was acquired by Pepsi. Does Pepsi still own Pizza Hut today?

Posted December 5th, 2022 by Brent White & filed under Financial Reporting and Analysis, Student life.

Description: After shopping around for potential buyers, Suncor has decided to keep, rather than sell, fuel retailer Petro-Canada. Suncor had been seeking a cash purchase price in the range of $3.8 billion to $5.7 billion. Though Petro-Canada has the largest market share in its class in Canada, no buyer was interested in paying the price.

Date: November 29, 2022

Source: globalnews.ca

Link: https://globalnews.ca/news/9311689/suncor-energy-keep-petro-canada-retail/

Discussion points:

1) Which retail gas supplier seems to be the market leader in your university town?

2) Why do you think Suncor was unable to find a buyer?

3) On page 9-47 of Wiley’s Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision-Making we see problem E9.13 in which we are asked to determine which company is Suncor by analyzing the three ratios provided. Which one of the two companies do you think is Suncor?

Posted December 5th, 2022 by Brent White & filed under Student life.

Description: How financial literate do you feel you are? November was financial literacy month in Canada and some high schools in Canada are adding this important life-skill area to the curriculum. With the economic pressures facing Canadians, and the clear correlation between financial health and mental health, some observers are calling for mandatory financial literacy courses in our high schools.

Date: November 30, 2022

Source: cbc.ca

Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/financial-literacy-high-school-1.6668510

Discussion points:

1) How financially literate are you and your classmates?

2) Do you believe financial literacy should be a mandatory subject for high school students?

3) The inset box “How Sharp Are Your Decision-Making Skills?” on page 1-17 of Wiley’s Managerial Accounting : Tools for Business Decision-Making deals with the importance financial information in making decisions. What type of information do you consider in evaluating your choices in post-secondary education?

Posted November 28th, 2022 by Brent White & filed under Accounting Careers, Managerial Accounting, Student life.

Description: Cyclesmith, a Halifax bike shop, has been paying all of its 31 full-time employees a “living wage” of at least $23.50 an hour. Andrew Feenstra, the owner of the business, implemented this policy in September 2021, and he has noted its positive impact on employees who no longer have to live paycheque to paycheque. The additional cost of about $250,000 per year is worth it according to Feenstra as it helps with recruitment and retention.

Date: November 24, 2022

Source: globalnews.ca

Link: https://globalnews.ca/news/9303216/ns-bike-shop-living-wage/

Discussion points:

1) Would a living wage help you in your studies, similar to the story of Kieran Sharpe of Cyclesmith?

2) What do you think are some of the benefits and costs of paying employees a living wage?

3) Chapter 2 of Wiley’s Managerial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision-Making discusses the concept of direct and indirect labour. If you were an accountant at Cyclesmith, how might you make a distinction between costs of direct labour and indirect labour?

Posted November 28th, 2022 by Brent White & filed under Financial Accounting, Student life.

Description: Workers at six Starbucks locations in Alberta and British Columbia have formed unions. But so far, only in one store in Victoria has the new union actually reached a collective agreement with management. Until that first contract is in place, union members do not pay dues. It will be interesting to watch ongoing developments around the unionization of service workers in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Date: November 23, 2022

Source: cbc.ca

Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/starbucks-union-canada-1.6661667

Discussion points:

1) Have you ever worked at a Starbucks? Was there interest in unionizing?

2) Why do you think it has been difficult for unions to organize in this restaurant sector?

3) In chapter 10 of Wiley’s Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision-Making we learn about accounting for various payroll deductions. How would union dues deducted from employees be accounted for by an employer?

Posted November 28th, 2022 by Brent White & filed under Auditing, Student life.

Description: In a special report on the Laurentian University financial crisis, Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk showed that senior management at the school erred by declining government assistance and heading straight to bankruptcy. Lysyk found that the Laurentian senior management and board of governors relied on external advisors in opting for the bankruptcy route, rather than pursuing financial support from the government and working with its labour unions to resolve difficulties. These various advisors have been paid roughly $30 million. The auditor general summarized things nicely in her press release statement that “one has to question whether paying more than $30-million and counting for external legal and financial advisers would not have been better spent on educating students.”

https://auditor.on.ca/en/content/news/specials_newsreleases/newsrelease_LaurentianU_SR_en.pdf

Date: November 17, 2022

Source: yahoo.com

Link: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/bad-decisions-laurentian-university-led-171453338.html

Discussion points:

1) Are you a Laurentian student or do you know anyone attending or working at Laurentian?

2) Do you know anything about the financial health of your university? How understandable are its financial statements?

3) Section 14-10 of Wiley’s Auditing: A Practical Approach discusses assurance engagements other than financial statement attest audits. What type of engagement do you think Bonnie Lysyk’s report on Laurentian University would be categorized as?

Posted November 21st, 2022 by Brent White & filed under Financial Accounting, Marketing & Strategy.

Description: Taylor Swift called it “excruciating.” That’s her take on the fiasco that saw frustrated fans struggling to secure tickets for her upcoming tour after waiting it out for hours. Swift and others see this as a signal that Ticketmaster – and its parent company Live Nation – are broken. Calls are emerging to investigate the domination of ticket sales by the Live Nation/Ticketmaster combo.

Date: November 17&18, 2022

Source: msn.com; nbc.com

Link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/i-knew-you-were-trouble-the-taylor-swift-ticket-fiasco-is-a-sign-to-fix-ticketmaster/ar-AA14h03j

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tennessee-ag-investigating-ticketmaster-taylor-swift-ticket-chaos-rcna57629

Discussion points:

1) What sort of experiences have you and your classmates had with Ticketmaster and Live Nation?

2) What do you think can be done to fix these ticket acquisition issues?

3) Problem 2.1 A on page 2-38 of Wiley’s Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision-Making introduces us to the statement of financial position of Live Nation Entertainment Corp. Can you solve this problem?