Author: chris

Individual Project 4-6 pages

In the health care industry, change occurs quickly and many times without warning. In an effort to address such changes, contingency planning is a key step in the strategic planning process. Contingency planning follows a 7-step process to achieve maximum effectiveness. Assume that you are formulating the contingency plans for an outpatient surgical center.

• Identify the 7 steps in the contingency planning process, and explain how each step will be addressed for the surgical center.
• Be sure to provide a properly cited response that includes references

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Discussion Board 3-4 paragrphs

Part of successfully implementing a strategic plan is involving everyone in the organization in the plan. You work as an admission coordinator for an assisted living facility that just enacted its 5-year strategic plan. However, no one has communicated any of the components of the plan to any departments, including yours. Instead, management has chosen to include only senior-level management.

• What do you think of this implementation approach?
• Do you think it will be an effective strategy? Why or why not?
• What would you do differently to ensure the successful implementation of the assisted living facility’s strategic plan?
• Direct your comments specifically to an assisted living facility’s characteristics and how a strategic plan might be implemented in such an organization

• After you have downloaded this document from the Midterm Exam Assignment, please save a copy of this document and rename it using your own name as the file name so that I can keep them separate on my machine (i.e., “Jim Peters Mid.doc”).
• Type all your answers in this document.
• Once you have completed the exam, submit your completed Word files by attaching them to the Midterm assignment in LEO by midnight, November 1st.I will assess a 5% per day late penalty for late exams.
• If you need clarification on the wording of any question on the exam, you can e-mail me or call me at the phone numbers listed in my contact information.
• I will not accept direct quotes in your answers.If you use outside sources, you need to paraphrase the material in your own words.
• I will deduct points for not following these instructions.For example, I will deduct points if you do not type your answers in this document and submit some other type of file; if you do not attached your file to the assignment; or if you do not rename your file as instructed above.

I have posted a spreadsheet file, which I refer to as a grading checklist, with this exam.  That spreadsheet file shows you how I have allocated points to questions.  When grading your exams, I will fill in a copy of this file for each student and return it with your graded exam.  When I grade exams, I embed comments in the Word documents to explain why I am deducting points.

Course Policy on Collaboration and Individual Work

This exam is an individual assignment.  You are not to discuss it with anyone other than myself.  It is also open book and open note.  However, it is not a research assignment and I want you to base your answers to the questions on the material I have included in the exam, the text for the course, and the materials I have handed out in class.

Questions

None of these questions has a style component, thus you don’t have to write in complete sentences and well-formed paragraphs.  You can use lists where appropriate if you want.

1)             You are a partner in a medium-sized, regional CPA firm and have been approached by XYZ, Inc., a relatively small, public company, to do their audit for next year.  XYZ is registered with the SEC and has filed audited 10-Ks for the last 10 years since they went public.  They haven’t indicated why they are switching auditors.

XYZ specializes in developing shale gas using fracking technology.  Fracking technology involves drilling wells into shale formations and injecting high pressure water containing special chemicals into the well to fracture the shale formation and release the trapped natural gas.

You and your firm currently are members of the AICPA.  All the partners and managers are licensed CPAs in the state of New Mexico and also members of the AICPA.  Your firm has limited experience with oil and gas extraction and has no other fracking clients.  However, your firm has offices that can cover the physical locations where the prospective client does business.

1. a) Develop a checklist of five areas or issues that you would want to research before you accepted this firm as an audit client. For each area or issue, explain why you would want to research it and give an example of where you might go to get some information about each issue.
2. i) Issue 1 –

1. ii) Issue 2 –

iii)           Issue 3 –

1. iv) Issue 4 –

1. v) Issue 5 –

1. b) Describe two reasons why a firm like this firm would want an audit even if they were not required to do so by the SEC. I am looking for substantive reasons that show you understand the importance of auditing in capital markets and why possible stakeholders like lenders and investors would want a firm like this to have an audit.

1. c) Describe three organizations, boards, or groups that have legal authority to regulate aspects of your audit of this client and discuss how that organization, board, or group would regulate your work on this audit.

2)             Describe how the following fit into an overall regulatory framework that guides external audits:  the Auditing Standards Board’s (ASB’s) 10 Generally Accepted Auditing Standards, SAS (The ASB’s Statements of Auditing Standards), PCAOB rules, and ISA (International Standards on Auditing).  By “fit into a regulatory environment” I mean that I want to you cover the organizations that promulgates these standards, how those organizations and the standards relate to each other, and what types of audits they apply to.

3)             For of the following situations, indicate whether it violates the AICPA’s Code of Professional Conduct.  If it violates the Code, indicate the rule is most directly violated and explain why.  That is, I want you to select the rule that is most clearly violated by the specifics of the case.  If you don’t think it violations a rule, explain why as well.  Use the rule numbers cited in the text and not paragraph numbers from the codification.  In all cases you are a CPA and member of the AICPA.

1. a) You are a former partner for Sullivan and Peters, CPAs. You left that firm two years ago and to become the CFO for one of its financial services clients.  While you worked for Sullivan and Peters, you were the only expert in the financial services industry.  Therefore, Sullivan and Peters have maintained a relationship with you and occasionally pays you consulting fees to advise them on their financial service client audits.

1. b) You provide a variety of non-audit services to one of your audit clients to include bookkeeping and tax preparation. You also provide informal advice on tax planning issues for the client’s management and sometimes attend their Board of Directors meetings.  The client’s CEO considers you one of the firm’s major business advisors.  The client is not publicly traded.

1. c) You have just completed your first audit of a new client. During the audit, you identified an area of their tax return that you believe could be handled differently that would result in a refund for the client.  You offer to advise them on preparing a amended tax return and state that you will charge them 50% of any refund that they obtain by following your advice.  The client accepts your offer.

1. d) You are working to build you client base of non-profit organizations for the CPA firm of which you are a partner. You take out an ad in a local newspaper where you claim that you audit 40% of the largest non-profit organizations in the region.  You also state that your average fees when related to the size of the non-profits you audit is the lowest in the region.

4)             For each of the following situations, describe how the auditor should modify the audit report for the firm’s financial statements and provide an explanation of why you made the choice you did.  Just cover the report on the financial statements and ignore any reference to the report on internal controls.  By “modify the audit report,” I mean what modifications the auditor would make to any paragraph of the report because of the information described.  Make sure your answer either states clearly that no modifications to any paragraph are needed and explains why or describes what modifications would be needed to which paragraphs of the report and explains why.

1. a) The auditor wishes to emphasize that the auditee has engaged in significant related party transactions. The information on the related party transaction is fully disclosed in the footnotes to the financial statements.

1. b) The auditor has substantial doubt about the auditee’s ability to continue as a going concern, but the circumstances are fully disclosed in the financial statements. Cover both the case where the auditor believes the situation is severe enough to undermine the credibility of the financial statements taken as a whole and where the auditor believes the situation is less severe and the overall credibility of the financial statements are not impaired.

1. c) The auditee experienced a computer failure during the year being audited and the auditor was not able to verify the ending inventory balance. Inventory is material to the auditee’s financial statements, but not pervasively material

1. d) You complete the audit of KLM, Inc. and, in your opinion, the financial statements are fairly presented. On the last day of the audit, you discover that one of your supervisors assigned to the audit has a material investment in KLM.

5)             Your annual audit of OPQ, Inc. had the following issues:

• Even though OPQ had significant long-term debt, all of which were bank loans secured by various fixed assets and some of which included restrictive covenants, you decided not to confirm the debt with the banks that issued the debt.You had auditing the firm for years and their balance sheet listed the same loans as last year, just reduced by the amount of the principle they paid during the year.  However, management didn’t tell you that the firm had incurred a major new loan to compensate for a significant drop in its operating cash flows.  Thus, you ended providing a clean opinion on a set of financial statements that materially understated long-term debt.
• You were aware that all of the banks that had issued loans to OPQ in the past required audited financial statements as part of their loan approval process.
• Shortly after you had issued your report, OPQ’s cash flow problems continued to deteriorate.The tried to compensate in two ways.  First, they took out another large bank loan from one of the banks that held other bank notes from the firm, using your audited financial statements as support for the loan.  Second, they sold additional stock to raise additional capital.  The used your audit financial statements in the prospectus they issued to support the new stock sale.  OPQ’s stock is publicly traded and subject to SEC regulation.
• Approximately six months after OPQ executed both the new loan and the stock sale, they declared bankruptcy because their operating cash continued to deteriorate to the point they could no longer make the debt payments.Because of the bankruptcy, trading was suspended on OPQ’s stock because its value had dropped by 98% and the banks could only recover 20% of the remaining balances on their loans.
• Both the bank that had issued the new loan and several major stockholders that had purchased stock from the new offering sued you to recover their losses.

Answer the following questions and justify your answers with specific references to the appropriate laws and legal principles.  Be thorough in covering all the issues concerning both if they bank will prevail.

1. a) Will the bank be successful in their law suit against you for:
2. i) ordinary negligence?

1. ii) fraud?

1. b) Will the stockholders who purchased their stock in the stock offering for which OPQ used your audit financial statements succeed in against you under each of the following bodies of law?
2. i) Common Law

1. ii) Federal securities law (be sure to indicate which statue)

6)             The following is a list of independent situations that may affect an auditor’s report on a firm’s internal controls under PCAOB rules for such reports.  For each situation, describe how the auditor should modify the audit report for the firm’s internal controls and provide an explanation of why you made the choice you did.  By “modify the audit report,” I mean what modifications the auditor would make to any paragraph of the report because of the information described.  Make sure your answer either states clearly that no modifications to any paragraph are needed and explains why or describes what modifications would be needed to which paragraphs of the report and explains why.  Note that the text isn’t very clear on how to handle scope limitation in the internal control report.  Modifications to the internal control report for scope limitations are the same as those required for scope limitations on financial statement audit reports.

1. a) The auditor identified several significant deficiencies in internal control. Because of these significant deficiencies, the auditor believes that there is a reasonable possibility that internal controls will not prevent or detect a material misstatement on a timely basis.

1. b) The auditee installed a new control procedure over inventory near the end of the audit year. Inventory makes up 15% of the auditee’s total assets.  The auditor believes that the control has not been in place long enough to be adequately tested as of the balance sheet date.

Questions 7 and 8 were taken from the CPA exam and reprinted in the text.  My normal warnings about attempting to access the solutions apply.  For each question, selected the best answer and then explain why it is better than all the alternatives.  Your explanations should cover all the alternatives in the question and explain why each one of is not as good as the answer you select.

7)             Because of the risk of material misstatement due to fraud (fraud risk), an audit of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards should be performed with an attitude of

1. a) impartial conservatism
2. b) independent integrity
3. c) professional skepticism
4. d) objective judgment

Answer:

Explanation:

8)             Which of the following statements reflects an auditor’s responsibility for detecting fraud?

1. a) An auditor should design the audit to provide reasonable assurance of detecting errors and fraud that are material to the financial statements.
2. b) An auditor should plan the audit to detect fraud caused by departures from GAAP.
3. c) An auditor is not responsible for detecting fraud unless the application of the auditing standards would result in such detection.
4. d) And auditor is responsible for detecting employee errors and simple fraud, but not for discovering fraudulent acts involving employee collusion and management override.

In this assignment, integrate all the pieces of work you have drafted and formally turn it into the capstone strategy audit.

In previous assignments, you performed multiple, specified analyses of your company (or any company of your choosing). Those individual analyses provide the needed research to successfully complete the following LASA.

Part I: Strategy Audit Report

Using the tools and framework learned in class and throughout the program, prepare a 15-page strategy audit of your company with a companion presentation. The strategy audit is a comprehensive analysis of the company’s business strategy and operating performance, and culminates in a series of recommendations for improving your company’s performance based on the findings and conclusions of your analysis.

A strategy audit involves assessing the actual direction of a business and comparing that course to the direction required to succeed in a changing environment. A company’s actual direction is the sum of what it does and does not do, how well the organization is internally aligned to support the strategy, and how viable the strategy is when compared to the external market, competitors, and financial realities. These two categories, the internal assessment and the external or environmental assessment, make up the major elements of a strategy audit.

In your strategy audit:

• Provide a high-level analysis of the company’s business strategy and operating performance. Be sure to complete the following:
  • Analysis of the company value proposition, market position, and competitive advantage
  • External environmental scan/five forces analysis
  • Internal environmental scan/organizational assessment
  • SWOT Analysis
  • Balanced scorecard/strategy scorecard
• Recommend specific tactics for improving your company’s strategic alignment and operating performance.
  • Recommendations can include but are not limited to tactics in marketing, branding, alliances, mergers/acquisitions, integration, product development, diversification or divestiture and globalization (if you recommend your company go global, you must include a supply chain analysis and an analysis of your firm’s global capabilities).
  • Explain how the recommendations will help the company achieve its strategy and vision.

You are to write this report as though you are a consultant to your company, and are addressing the executive officers of this company. You will collect and analyze a large amount of data in producing your report, but your final product will be condensed and focus on presenting your analysis findings and conclusions.

Your report should consist of the following sections in the given order.

1. Executive summary (1 page): A concise and insightful summary of the significant findings of your analysis and the recommendations you have for your executive team.
2. Strategic issues and recommendations(5 pages): Identify 5–7 most important strategic issues facing your business unit. Strategic issues arise from a mismatch between internal capabilities and external trends such that important opportunities are not being pursued or significant external threats are not being addressed under the current strategy.The strategic issues list should integrate your SWOT analysis, your Five Forces analysis, and the organizational assessment and external environmental scan completed earlier during the course. These detailed analyses are the foundation for your final set of findings and recommendations presented to the executive team.

   In developing your recommendations for addressing each strategic issue, consider misalignments that might be apparent in different operating areas:

   1. Product portfolio: Are there changes to the target market segment, value proposition, or positioning of the product or service line needed?
   2. Structure: Are the organizational roles and responsibilities, decision-making authority, skill requirements, and work assignments properly configured and aligned to support the strategy?
   3. Organizational culture or behavior: Does the organizational culture inspire behaviors that support the strategy? Are the mission, vision, and values clearly articulated and aligned with the strategy? What new behaviors are needed?
   4. Value chain activities: Does the organization value chain fully align with the strategy? Are their activities that should be added, eliminated, or modified significantly?
   5. Performance measures: Do the organization’s performance measures focus on the key drivers of strategic success? Is there a strategy scorecard that ties the main elements of the strategy to specific operating capabilities, including goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) that give an indication of incremental or predictive progress toward reaching strategic goals?

   Your recommendations should fall into these general categories, but should be specific in terms of scope and expected impact.

   These sections have been completed earlier in the course, and should appear as appendices:

3. SWOT analysis (2 pages—completed in Module 4): SWOT matrix illustrating strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
4. Balanced strategy scorecard (4 pages—completed in Module 4): Develop a Balanced Scorecard for your business unit that reflects the key drivers for your business strategy.
5. Organizational assessment (3 pages—completed in Module 3)
6. External environmental scan and five-forces analysis (3 pages—completed in Module 2)
7. Market position analysis (3 pages—completed in Module 1)

Use information from your previous assignments to support your conclusions and recommendations and conduct additional research when needed. Make sure you properly reference and cite so that the location of information is clear.

Submit your 15-page report in Word format. Apply APA standards to citation of sources. Use the following file naming convention: LastnameFirstInitial_M5_A2.doc.

Part II: Companion Presentation

Finalize the companion with a 10-slide Power Point Presentation that summarizes the audit and recommendations in a compelling manner that persuades senior management to explore and possibly implement your recommendations. The elements of the presentation should include the following:

• Title
• Agenda
• Summary of audit
• Recommendations
• Key measurements
• Risks and benefits
• Call to action
• Next steps

Must  be written about Sherwin Williams Paint Company

HSA 500 wk 5 discussion question only

“Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Using Public and Private Health Services”  Please respond to the following:

• Categorize the various levels in the joint public-private responsibility structure of the U.S. health care service. Compare the pros and cons of public and private roles played in promoting health care, in terms of state and federal funding, in a time of threats from bioterrorism and disease-resistant pathogens.

no apa format needed only need a few paragraphs single spaced.  With recent references thanks

You will select a company from this list, and you will analyze the company’s financial performance, highlighting accounting principles and methods . This project requires you to present, review, and analyze the organization’s published annual reports and related footnotes for the last 2 years. Specifically, your paper will cover the following:

• Discuss methods used to account for assets, liabilities, and shareholder equity, and explain how the company’s inventory valuation method affects reported results.
• Explain the company’s approach to internal controls, and assess its compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley.
• Prepare and interpret the results of horizontal and vertical analyses of the financial statements.
• Prepare and interpret the results of at least 5 ratios, 1 from each of the following categories:
  • Profit Ratios
  • Debt Ratios
  • Efficiency Ratios
  • Equity Ratios
  • Liquidity Ratios
• Assess the company’s overall financial performance and the integrity of its internal controls.You will select a company from this list, and you will analyze the company’s financial performance, highlighting accounting principles and methods . This project requires you to present, review, and analyze the organization’s published annual reports and related footnotes for the last 2 years. Specifically, your paper will cover the following:
  • Discuss methods used to account for assets, liabilities, and shareholder equity, and explain how the company’s inventory valuation method affects reported results.
  • Explain the company’s approach to internal controls, and assess its compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley.
  • Prepare and interpret the results of horizontal and vertical analyses of the financial statements.
  • Prepare and interpret the results of at least 5 ratios, 1 from each of the following categories:
    • Profit Ratios
    • Debt Ratios
    • Efficiency Ratios
    • Equity Ratios
    • Liquidity Ratios
  • Assess the company’s overall financial performance and the integrity of its internal controls.
  • Discuss how various stakeholders—internal and external—use information contained in the financial statements for decision making.

  Include the last 2 years of published financial statements as Appendices to your report. Do not include the entire Annual Reports.

  Present your findings as a Word document of 5–6 pages formatted in APA style.

Include the last 2 years of published financial statements as Appendices to your report. Do not include the entire Annual Reports.

Present your findings as a Word document of 5–6 pages formatted in APA style.

Porsche’s Analysis [CLOs: 2,6]

Read the Porsche case provided in the course materials section and describe the company’s history, products, and major competitors in a paragraph or two. Assess the financial performance and condition of the organization. Then, conduct a SWOT analysis detailing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that may affect the organization. Finally, assess the quality of the decisions made by the company and provide recommendations for improvement. (NOTE: This will become part of your final paper).

Your paper must be five to six pages in length (excluding the title and reference pages), incorporate at least two scholarly sources from the Ashford University Library (other than the case and textbook), and be formatted according to APA style guidelines as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

Carefully review the Grading Rubric for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment

To complete the following assignment, go to this week’s Assignment link in the left navigation.

Porsche’s Analysis [CLOs: 2,6]

Read What’s Driving Porsche? and History of Porsche AG – FundingUniverse and describe the company’s history, products, and major competitors in a paragraph or two. Assess the financial performance and condition of the organization. Then, conduct a SWOT analysis detailing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that may affect the organization. Finally, assess the quality of the decisions made by the company and provide recommendations for improvement. (NOTE: This will become part of your final paper).

Use the literature review titled: Five Attitudes of a Servant Leader By Larry Boone and Sanya Makhani

NO NAKED PARAGRAPHS. PLEASE CITE ALL EVIDENCE.

1. Determine the author’s strategy or criteria for selecting works to be reviewed, how the presentation of the works is organized (for example, by time, by focus, or by methodology), the levels of analysis used in describing the research (individual, group, organization, or industry), and the author-identified limitations, implications, and recommendations. Write a brief summary of the article(s) discussing these elements.

2. Construct a Concept Map (see examples I will attach) that portrays some of the key articles reviewed by the author of the literature review you found, and explain the organizational strategy you used in constructing this. Include the concept map diagram and organizational strategy in your summary (including diagram), and conclude the write-up with a comment about what you learned from creating a concept map. Use apa citation with concept map also.

Submit your summary and concept map in the assignment area. Also, attach a copy of the literature review article you used for this assignment.

Here is the criteria required to get a good grade:
a.Determines critical strategies or criteria used by authors in scholarly works, and thoroughly understands the underlying relevance of these.
b.Identifies levels of analysis used in describing research and demonstrates the relevance of their use.
c.Articulates an understanding of limitations, implications, and recommendations as identified by authors of scholarly works. Understanding is articulated with exceptional clarity and is convincing at a superior level.
d.Communicates with superior effectiveness and closely follows APA formatting guidelines throughout.
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Added on 31.10.2015 16:45
Pleas use the The MEAL Plan (Main idea, Evidence, Analysis, and Link) when constructing the paragraphs. Identify the (M)(E)(A)(L) in the paragraph at the beginning of the sentence in that paragraph. In the MEAL order..

Dear Writer:
In order to do this essay you should follow those instruction:
1- the essay must be in APA format.( APA information: http://owl.english.
purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ )
2- you must use this text book: Tabloski, P. A. (2014). Gerontological nursing (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
3- Include a minimum of 3 references (all reference from a nursing peer reviewed journal article within the last 5 years)

Ms. Young’s mother had osteoporosis. She is concerned about her own risk of osteoporosis. Her health history revealed a diet low in calcium and an inactive lifestyle most of her life. She is white, 65 years old, and small-framed. She has hypothyroidism.
A) Design a teaching plan for Ms. Young, intending to increase her knowledge of osteoporosis and decrease her risk of it.
B)Discuss the pharmacological management and nursing responsibilities related to the older person with common musculoskeletal problems, including osteoporosis.
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Added on 31.10.2015 16:40
Dear Writer:
In order to do this essay you should follow those instruction:
1- the essay must be in APA format.( APA information: http://owl.english.
purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ )
2- you must use this text book: Tabloski, P. A. (2014). Gerontological nursing (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
3- Include a minimum of 3 references (all reference from a nursing peer reviewed journal article within the last 5 years)

Dear Writer:
In order to do this essay you should follow those instruction:
1- the essay must be in APA format.( APA information: http://owl.english.
purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ )
2- you must use this text book: Tabloski, P. A. (2014). Gerontological nursing (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
3- Include a minimum of 5 references (all reference from a nursing peer reviewed journal article within the last 5 years)

Topic: Disease Prevention and Education
Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) is bacterium responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections in humans. Staph infections, including MRSA, occur most frequently among those persons who have weakened immune systems, such as the geriatric population.
Go to the CDC website and listen to the podcast titled Methicillin Resistant Staph Aureus:
http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/player.asp?f=6936
What to do: nursing teaching plan for the local nursing home residents on MRSA. a)teaching plan
b)risks
c)prevention strategies
d) treatments of MRSA.
The information from the CDC podcast should be incorporated into the teaching plan presentation; as well as the risks, prevention strategies, and treatments of MRSA.
Support your presentation with specific references from the readings and any outside sources that you have discovered. Cite at least five references in the finished work. the references need to be from a recent nursing research article within the last 5 years.

Read Zeisel and Kelsens “American Experiment” Courts, Judges, and Politics. Explain why they view the jury system as an “experiment”?