You are a member of a large accounting firm which is responsible for preparing financial reports, including statements and notes to the accounts; and for advising staff in client firms who are...

You are a member of a large accounting firm which is responsible for preparing financial reports, including statements and notes to the accounts; and for advising staff in client firms who are responsible for preparing financial reports. The firm only deals with large Australian companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. One of your key tasks is to monitor the changes and developments in the financial reporting environmentand summarise them in a regularly published newsletter.
Required:
Prepare a2
page
newsletterthat identifies and summarises developments and changes in the financial reporting environmentfor the period23 July 2012 - 27 August 2012, inclusive.
Detailed guidelines for completing this question:

1. Monitoring of changes and developmentsThis will involve regular monitoring of a number of sources over the required period. The sources should be varied in range, as you will need to identify and consider developments/changes relating to:

• Technical issues such as issue of new accounting standards, exposure drafts or other pronouncements or interpretations.


• Regulation and monitoring of financial reporting.


• Political influences or other potential developments (such as identification of any reporting failures) that could impact or may be of interest to staff (such as Enron or Parmalat failure). 'Political' does not only mean action from politicians – it would also include lobbying/actions by other groups to promote their own interests – for example there may be articles about companies, or particular interest groups such as Group of 100, saying that if certain accounting standards are introduced this will disadvantage or have a negative impact.

You will need to consider both local (Australian) and international sources and developments. A section on 'international' items/developments must be included in the newsletter. This should not be restricted to the IASB.2. Potential sourcesGiven the scope of the potential influences on financial reporting you will need to monitor a range of sources. Below is a list of sources that may be of interest, note that this list is not exhaustive, students should search for sources outside of these. As this assignment considers current developments and, of course we do not know what changes/developments will occur during the period, the relative usefulness of specific individual sources cannot be predicted. Students should not rely on any one type of source, but a range of sources from each category, i.e. do not just look at websites, also check journals, newspapers etc. Examples of possible information sources include:(i) Websites such as those of:

• Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB)


• Australian Securities and Investment Commission


• International Federation of Accountants


• Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia


• CPA Australia


• International Accounting Standards Board


• Financial Accounting Standards Board


• Websites of large accounting firms.

(ii) Professional publications:

• In the Black (CPA)


• Charter (ICAA)

(iii) Newspapers/journals3. ContentsThe restriction of a2 page summarymeans thatyouneed to use your own judgement as to whether to include information about specific changes and developments and how much information to include.It is not intended that you provide complete details of changes/developments (although you may consider in particular cases that more detail is needed). The purpose of the newsletter is to alert staff to changes and developments that may impact on their work and provide enough information about these changes/developments to satisfy the following:

• For staff (the intended audience) to understand the nature of the development/change and its potential impact (so staff can decide whether they need to investigate further given the nature of their own work),


• Provide sufficient information for staff to be able to obtain further information on the development/change if they wish to,


• The newsletter should where possible be inyour own wordswith sources adequately referenced using the appropriate referencing system.

Some examples ofsignificant items to be considered include:

• Revised or reissued accounting standards or interpretation (both national and international),


• ASIC reviews on financial reporting,


• New ASX disclosures for listed companies.

Although it is required that you include all major developments/changes, not all developments/changes necessarily need to be included. You should also consider the interest and needs of your potential audience when selecting developments/changes to include and the purpose of the newsletter. You may decide to include additional sections that are sometimes found in such newsletters such as:

• 'Query/question for the period',


• Profile/interview of a person involved in financial reporting arena.

Given the target audience, it would be assumed that they have a working knowledge of common terms and abbreviations (such as AASB, FASB) so abbreviations may be used.Don't be afraid to be creative. The effectiveness of a newsletter is impacted by how interesting the readers find it.
What not to consider?
Students need to take care that the developments and the changes considered and included in the newsletter are relevant to the objective, in particular the issues/developments that directly relate to the preparation of financial reports for large companies listed on the Australian stock exchange. The newsletter SHOULD NOT consider areas only INDIRECTLY related to the preparation of financial reports such as (and this is not an exhaustive list):

• Fraud,


• Auditing,


• Taxation,


• Other disclosures by listed companies such as:Industry disclosures required by peak organisations, Voluntary disclosures in the area of corporate social responsibility, Voluntary Environmental disclosures.

4. FormatThe newsletter should be in the following format:

• The top of the newsletter must include the title (you need to decide on what to call your newsletter) and details of the period the newsletter is considering.


• The newsletter should not read as one continuous 'essay'. It must include headings and sub-headings that assist in identifying the nature of changes/developments and help to guide the reader, and also enable the reader to distinguish between items of interest and the relative importance of changes.


• You must refer the reader to specific sources so that they are able to obtain more detailed information of the development/change.


• The newsletter must be printed in minimum font ofTimes New Romanset at11 points(You may wish to use larger fonts etc for headings etc). You may wish to set your newsletter out using columnsbutthis is optional. Apart from minimum font size, there are no specific requirements in relation to line spacing, margins etc. However, you should note that simply reducing line spacings, margins to 'fit more in' may impact on the presentation and effectiveness of the newsletter.


• There isnospecific 'word limit'. The newsletter must beno longer than 2 pages. In cases where the newsletter exceeds the 2 page limit, only the first 2 pages will be marked.