Chapter 8

Financial Reporting and Management Reporting Systems

The General Ledger System - the general ledger system (GLS) as a hub
connected to the other systems of the firm through spokes of information flows.

THE JOURNAL VOUCHER - The source of input to the general ledger is the journal
voucher.

THE GLS DATABASE - The GLS database includes a variety of files. Whereas these will
vary from firm to firm
General ledger master file - is the principal file in the GLS database. This file is
based on the organizations published chart of accounts.
General ledger history file - has the same format as the GL master. Its primary

purpose is to provide historical financial data for comparative financial reports.

Journal voucher file - is the total collection of the journal vouchers processed in
the current period.
Journal voucher history file - contains journal vouchers for past periods. This
historical information supports managements stewardship responsibility to
account for resource utilization.
Responsibility center file - contains the revenues, expenditures, and other
resource utilization data for each responsibility center in the organization.
Budget master file - contains budgeted amounts for revenues, expenditures,
and other
Resources for responsibility centers.

The Financial Reporting System

SOPHISTICATED USERS WITH HOMOGENEOUS INFORMATION NEEDS
Financial statements are prepared on the proposition that the audience
comprises sophisticated users with relatively homogeneous information needs.

FINANCIAL REPORTING PROCEDURES

1. Capture the transaction - Within each transaction cycle, transactions are recorded in
the appropriate transaction file.
2. Record the Special Journal - Each transaction is entered into the journal. Recall that
frequently occurring classes of transactions, such as sales, are captured in special
journals.
3. Post to subsidiary ledger - The details of each transaction are posted to the affected
subsidiary accounts.
4. Post to general ledger - Periodically, journal vouchers, summarizing the entries made
to the special
journals and subsidiary ledgers, are prepared and posted to the GL accounts.
5. Prepare the unadjusted trial balance - At the end of the accounting period, the
ending balance of each account in the GL is placed in a worksheet and evaluated in total
for debitcredit equality.
6. Make adjusting entries - Adjusting entries are made to the worksheet to correct errors
and to reflect
unrecorded transactions during the period, such as depreciation
7. Journalize and post adjusting entries - Journal vouchers for the adjusting entries are
prepared and
posted to the appropriate accounts in the GL.
8. Prepare the adjusted trial balance - From the adjusted balances, a trial balance is
prepared that
contains all the entries that should be reflected in the financial statements.

9. Prepare the financial statements -The balance sheet, income statement, and
statement of cash flows
are prepared using the adjusted trial balance.
10. Journalize and post the closing entries - Journal vouchers are prepared for entries
that close out the
income statement (temporary) accounts and transfer the income or loss to retained
earnings.
11. Prepare the post-closing trial balance - A trial balance worksheet containing only
the balance sheet
accounts may now be prepared to indicate the balances being carried forward to the
next accounting
period.

XBRLReengineering Financial Reporting

eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) - is the Internet standard
specifically designed for business reporting and information exchange.
XML (eXtensible Markup Language) - is a metalanguage for describing markup
languages. The term extensible means that any markup language can be created using XML.
XBRL - is a XML-based language that was designed to provide the
financial community with a standardized method for preparing, publishing, and
automatically exchanging
financial information, including financial statements of publicly held companies.

Controlling the FRS

Sarbanes-Oxley legislation requires that management design and implement
controls over the financial reporting process. This includes the transaction processing
systems that feed data into the FRS. In previous chapters we studied control techniques
necessary for the various transaction systems. Here we will examine only the controls that
relate to the FRS. The potential risks to the FRS include:
1. A defective audit trail.
2. Unauthorized access to the general ledger.
3. GL accounts that are out of balance with subsidiary accounts.
4. Incorrect GL account balances because of unauthorized or incorrect journal
vouchers.

SAS 78/COSO CONTROL ISSUES

Transaction Authorization -

The journal voucher is the document that authorizes

an entry to the general ledger. Journal vouchers have numerous sources, such as the cash
receipts processing, sales order processing, and the financial reporting group.
Segregation of Duties - The task of updating the general ledger must be separate
from all accounting and asset custody responsibility within the organization.

Individuals with access authority to GL accounts should not:

1. Have record-keeping responsibility for special journals or subsidiary ledgers.

2. Prepare journal vouchers.
3. Have custody of physical assets.
Access Controls - Unauthorized access to the GL accounts can result in errors, fraud,
and misrepresentations in financial statements. SOX legislation explicitly addresses this area
of risk by requiring organizations to implement controls that limit database access to
authorized individuals only.
Accounting Records - The audit trail is a record of the path that a transaction takes
through the input, processing, and output phases of transaction processing.
The general ledger and other files that constitute the audit trail should be detailed and rich
enough to:
1. Provide the ability to answer inquiries, for example, from customers or vendors

2.
3.
4.
5.

Be able to reconstruct files if they are completely or partially destroyed

Provide historical data required by auditors
Fulfill government regulations
Provide a means for preventing, detecting, and correcting errors.
Independent Verification - The FRS produces two operational reportsjournal
voucher
listing and the GL change reportthat provide proof of the accuracy of this process.
INTERNAL CONTROL IMPLICATIONS OF XBRL - Although the potential benefits
of XBRL and associated Web technologies have been extensively researched, less attention
has been given to the potential control implications of using XBRL.
There are three areas of specific concern
TAXONOMY CREATION. Taxonomy may be generated incorrectly, which results in an
incorrect
mapping between data and taxonomy elements that could result in material
misrepresentation of financial
data. Controls must be designed and put in place to ensure the correct generation of XBRL
taxonomies.
TAXONOMY MAPPING ERROR. The process of mapping the internal database accounts to
the taxonomy tags needs to be controlled. Correctly generated XBRL tags may be incorrectly
assigned to
internal database accounts resulting in material misrepresentation of financial data.
VALIDATION OF INSTANCE DOCUMENTS. As noted, once the mapping is complete and
tags
have been stored in the internal database, XBRL instance documents (reports) can be
generated. Independent verification procedures need to be established to validate the
instance documents to ensure that appropriate taxonomy and tags have been applied before
posting to a Web server.

The Management Reporting System

Management reporting is often called discretionary reporting because it is not
mandated, as is financial reporting.

Factors That Influence the MRS

Designing an effective MRS requires an understanding of the information that

managers need to deal with the problems they face.
A. MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES - Management principles provide insight into
management information needs.
1. Formalization of Tasks = The formalization of tasks principle suggests that
management should structure the firm around the tasks it performs rather than
around individuals with unique skills.
2. Responsibility and Authority = The principle of responsibility refers to
an individuals obligation to achieve desired results.
3. Span of Control = A managers span of control refers to the number of
subordinates directly under his or her control.
4. Management by Exception = The principle of management by exception
suggests that managers should limit their attention to potential problem areas (that
is, exceptions) rather than being involved with every activity or decision.
B. MANAGEMENT FUNCTION, LEVEL, AND DECISION TYPE - he
planning function is concerned with making decisions about the future activities of
the organization. Planning can be long range or short range.

1. Strategic Planning Decisions the top-level managers make

strategic planning decisions,

Strategic planning decisions include:

Setting the goals and objectives of the firm.

Determining the scope of business activities, such as desired market share,
markets the firm wishes to enter or abandon, the addition of new product lines
and the termination of old ones, and merger and acquisition decisions.
Determining or modifying the organizations structure.
Setting the management philosophy
Characteristiccs of strategic planning decisions:
They have long-term time frames. Because they deal with the future,
managers making strategic decisions require information that supports
forecasting.
They require highly summarized information. Strategic decisions focus on
general trends rather than detail-specific activities.
They tend to be nonrecurring. Strategic decisions are usually one-time events.
As a result, there is little historical information available to support the specific
decision.
Strategic decisions are associated with a high degree of uncertainty. The
decision maker must rely on insight and intuition. Judgment is often central to
the success of the decision.
They are broad in scope and have a profound impact on the firm. Once made,
strategic decisions permanently affect the organization at all levels.
Strategic decisions require external as well as internal sources of information.

2. Tactical Planning Decisions - Tactical planning decisions are subordinate

to strategic decisions and are made by middle management. These decisions are
shorter term, more specific, recurring, havemore certain outcomes,and have a lesser
impact on the firm than strategic decisions.
3. Management Control Decisions - Management control involves
motivating managers in all functional areas to use resources, including materials,
personnel, and financial assets, as productively as possible.
4. Operational Control Decisions - Operational control ensures that the
firm operates in accordance with pre-established criteria. Operational control
decisions are narrower and more focused than tactical decisions because they are
concerned with the routine tasks of operations.
STANDARDS. Standards are pre-established levels of performance that managers
believe are attainable.
PERFORMANCE EVALUATION. The decision maker compares the performance of
the operation
in question against the standard. The difference between the two is
the variance.
TAKING CORRECTIVE ACTION. After comparing the performance to the standard,
the manager
takes action to remedy any out-of-control condition.
C. PROBLEM STRUCTURE - The structure of a problem reflects how well the
decision maker understands the problem.

3 Elements
1. Data - the values used to represent factors that are relevant to the problem.
2. Procedures - the sequence of steps or decision rules used in solving the problem.
3. Objectives - the results the decision maker desires to attain by solving the
problem.

D.

Unstructured Problems

E.

TYPES OF MANAGEMENT REPORTS

Problems are unstructured when any of the three

characteristics identified previously are not known with certainty.
Reports - are the formal vehicles for conveying information to managers.

Report Objectives

2 general reporting objectives:

(1) to reduce the level of uncertainty associated with a problem facing the
decision maker
(2) to influence the decision makers behavior in a positive way.

Management reports
Two broad classes:
1. Programmed Reporting - provide information to solve problems that
users have anticipated
2 subclasses of Programmed Report:
a. Scheduled reports the MRS procedures scheduled reports according to
an established time frame. This could be daily, weekly, quarterly, and so
on.
b. On-demand reports - are triggered by events, not by the passage of
time.
Report Attributes - To be effective, a report must possess the following
attributes: relevance, summarization, exception orientation accuracy,
completeness, timeliness, and conciseness.
RELEVANCE. Each element of information in a report must support the
managers decision.
SUMMARIZATION. Reports should be summarized according to the level of
the manager within the organizational hierarchy.
EXCEPTION ORIENTATION. Control reports should identify activities that are
at risk of going out of control and should ignore activities that are under
control.
ACCURACY. Information in reports must be free of material errors. A material
error will cause the user to make the wrong decision (or fail to make a
required decision).
COMPLETENESS. Information must be as complete as possible. Ideally, no
piece of information that is essential to the decision should be missing from
the report.
TIMELINESS. If managers always had time on their side, they may never
make bad decisions.
CONCISENESS. Information in the report should be presented as concisely as
possible.

2. Ad Hoc Reports
F. RESPONSIBILITY ACCOUNTING - The responsibility accounting system

personalizes performance by saying to the manager, This is your original budget,

and this is how your performance for the period compares to your budget.
two phases of responsibility accounting:
1. Setting Financial Goals: The Budget Process - The budget
process helps management achieve its financial objectives by establishing
measurable goals for each organizational segment. This mechanism conveys to
the segment managers the standards that senior managers will use for measuring
their performance.
2. Measuring and Reporting Performance - Performance
measurement and reporting take place at each operational segment in the firm.

This information flows upward as responsibility reports to senior levels of

management.
Responsibility Centers - To achieve accountability, business entities
frequently organize their operations into units called responsibility centers. The
most common forms of responsibility centers are cost centers, profit centers, and
investment centers.
a. COST CENTERS - cost center is an organizational unit with responsibility
for cost management within budgetary limits.
b. PROFIT CENTERS - A profit center manager has responsibility for both
cost control and revenue generation.
c. INVESTMENT CENTERS - The manager of an investment center has the
general authority to make decisions that profoundly affect the
organization.

BEHAVIORAL CONSIDERATIONS

Goal Congruence -

carefully structured MRS plays an important role in

promoting and preserving goal congruence.

Two pitfalls that cause managers:

Information Overload -

Inappropriate Performance Measures

occurs when a manager receives

more information than he or she can assimilate.