THE USEFULNESS OF AN ACCOUNTING REPORT IN A PUBLIC COMPANY
TABLE OF CONTENT
Title page
Approval page
Dedication
Acknowledgment
TABLE OF CONTENT
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background of the study
1.2 Objective of the study
1.3 Statement of the problem
1.4 Scope/Limitation of the study
1.5 Significance of the study
1.6 Definition of the terms
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 Literature review
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Purpose of accounting reports
2.3 Objective of financial statement
2.4 Parties interested in financial statement
2.5 Constituent of accounting report
2.6 Method of interpretation or analysis of accounting report
2.6.1 Ratio analysis
2.6.2 Type of ratio
2.7 Application of accounting ratio
2.8 Significant of accounting ratio
2.9 Limitation of ratio analysis
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 Research methodology
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Brief Historical background of Guinness Nigeria Plc
3.3 Questionnaire design and assumptions
3.4 Research instrument and techniques
3.5 Conduct of the field work
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0 Data presentation and analysis of findings
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Analysis
4.3 Test of Hypothesis
4.4 Interpretation of findings
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Summary
5.3 Recommendation
5.4 Bibliography
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 An account report consists of items that are contained in the annual report of a company, these reports are also termed “financial statements” these reports are necessary and compulsory in any business organization, they show the true and fair position of such company at a given period of time. They are usually on annual basis and they provide information to the user of the report to give an informed judgement about a company. these report include the profit and loss account, which show the profit that is and for whole year before and after tax and also a profit is to be retained in the business, they also include the balance sheet which is the statement of asset and liabilities included in the financial report are:
a. statement of source and applications of funds
b. value added statement
c. auditors report
e. five years financial summarize (etc)
Not only the management directing the affairs of the company but also by the shareholders in order to measure the performance of the management needs, these accounting reports therefore, accounting has been defined “as the process of identifying, measuring and communicating economic information to enable it users to make necessary decision and judgment, public company as it will be throughout this study will refer to public limited liability whose shares are quoted in the stock exchange market”.
Various users including owners, managers, creditors, government agencies, employees, supplier, tax authority etc are interested in the financial statement of a company. these entire group are interested in the ability of a company to pay its debts as at when due and to earn a reasonable amount of income. These deal concept or objectives of a company are referred to as factors of “insolvency and profitability”. A company who fails to meets the standard expected of him by the creditors on timely basis likely to experience difficult in obtaining credit which will eventually lead to a deadline in its profitability similarly, a company whose earning is lower than those of its competitors is likely to be at a disadvantage in obtaining new capital from stockholders. Accounting report are of great important to any company.
With reference to the specific problem to be addressed as highlighted below in 1.3 it is necessary to provide a premise for the justification of this study unto usefulness of various accounting report to a company.
Since accounting report also known as financial report is part of the annual report that is expected of a company i.e. public judgment will be made, it is necessary to undertake this study in order to know how to interpret the various reports and their usefulness for a long time, it has been compulsory to prepare an annual report. From which we have various account reports used by a company in evaluating itself. Thus, this study will attempt to appraise the usefulness of accounting report to the public company and their various interpretation, it would also attempt to know the usefulness of these accounting reports to various users since their objectives are different.
1.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The aim of this studies to examine the usefulness of accounting report its affect in a public company and the reason why it is necessary.
Discussion so far in this study have shown the importance of accounting reports to public company in terms of providing information, which will enable the users to give reasonable judgment in the account of the company.
This study will try to ascertain what extents the accounting report have been to help users to give judgment. It would also show various instruments that are used in interpreting that financial statements. This study will also try examine the various information contain in the various accounting report.
1.3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
This study is specifically undertaken to examine the contribution and usefulness of accounting report to a public company it should be noted that information provide by the various accounting report sometimes might not be accurate thereby causing a setback in its ability to give informed judgment.
This study will also attempt the examinations of various instruments used to give interpretations to this accounting reports.
In order to show this liquidity position of company and show how solvent it is therefore, it shall examine:
i. Whether accounting reports are eventually useful to the public company.
ii. Whether the various information’s provided there is factual of factious.
iii. Whether the information provided has a constraint
iv. Whether the tools used in analyzing actually give good result.
1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY AND LIMITATION
The focal point of this study is to examine the various accounting reports kept by public company such as Guiness Nigeria Plc, lighting the usefulness of these accounting reports and there characteristics. The scope of this study restricted to it Lagos office of Guiness Nigeria plc. This due to the fact that they keep the same accounting record.
This study will not deal with anything beyond accounting report and its usefulness. Tool used in interpreting these accounting reports will limit to be restricted to the barest minimum it will limit to the lagos office due to constraint of time and the distance of other branches of Guiness Nigeria plc. In Benin, Aba etc.
1.5 SIGNIFICANT OF THE STUDY
The study is significant in as much as it attempt to achieve the objectives spelt out in (section 1-4) in other words the significance are:
a. To know the various accounting report used by a public company.
b. To know the extent of its fullness
c. To know the report are being evaluated for an informed judgment to be given by the users.
1.6 DEFINITION OF TERMS
In this study various terms will be used in other to give a true knowledge of the research work these terms are analyzed below.
a. Expenses: This is cost, which has being expenditure in the production of revenue referred to as an overhead cost.
b. Balance sheet: this is a statement of account which show the true financial position of the business entity in a giving the detailed summary of the assets and owner equity for a given period.
c. Dividend: this is referred to as the contribution paid to the shareholders as a specific amount per share of capital stock.
d. Financial statement: this is an accounting report which summarizes the financial position and operating result of a company.
e. Owners: this is the amount of owners operation of transaction which has been net investment plus profits from successful retained in the business.
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