Draft so far!

Hi to those who have to mark my draft! I wish I could just attach the file for you; that would be a whole lot easier and the formatting wouldn't be absent. But instead I have copied and pasted it for you :)

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ACCT11059: Using Accounting for Decision Making

Assignment 1

Samantha Anderson s0230032

Due April 7th 2015

Step 1: Creating My Blog

 

Step 2: Identify Clearly What Your Firm Actually Does

I also posted this to my blog: http://s0230032.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/key-concepts-and-questions.html

Top Form International is a company that manufactures ladies lingerie for market distribution. They do not have an online store, which I found to be odd as I have literally never come across a company the does not trade online, and I am quite the avid online shopper. Initially, upon downloading the 2014 Annual Report for Top Form, I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the document: 110 pages is a lot of reading! If I had tried to tackle this document before I attended the Week 2 lecture I would have been quite flabbergasted as the only experience I have with accounting was in grade 10 business education.

Areas I had difficulty understanding

Upon first read, I was having trouble comprehending that when a figure is written in brackets on the statement of Profit or Loss, this means it is a liability. I just looked at it and had no clue as to why it was written that way. But then when I was reading the Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows it was reversed: increase/gain was in brackets. I have no comprehension of what is going on with these figures, it just confuses me. I haven’t even done my own taxes before; my experience with financials is quite minimal. Something else I also struggled with was the fact that it is written in Hong Kong dollars. I have no experience with foreign currencies. I understand that it’s the same principles as with Australian dollars, if a value is numerically higher than another it means there is more, but I couldn’t make an informed decision as to whether the figures given described a high volume company, a small company or somewhere in between as I have no idea what the conversion rate between Hong Kong and Australian dollars is. The consolidated reports were a little baffling. I feel as if I was being provided with too much information so that I would think the company is in a better financial position than it really is.

Areas that seem most important to me, key challenges and coping strategies

Areas that are important to me about the business are the inflow and outflow of cash as well as the volume of liabilities the company holds. I can see that the company’s equity has increased compared to the previous financial year, as they had made a loss in the previous financial year.  It appears the company has made a turnaround, having reported a loss overall for 2013 and are now quite profitable. The challenge is keeping this up. It would appear from my untrained accounting eye that the company sold off some assets such as property in order to purchase investment properties in the hopes of generating more income.  The company’s current strategy appears to be generating more income from other avenues in order to have the capital available to increase stock and become a higher volume business.

Comparing and Contrasting Companies

Know Your Firm

Here is the link to my blog pertaining to knowing my firm: http://s0230032.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/getting-to-know-top-form-international.html

Discuss FACE TO FACE with someone

Here are also some links to some of my comments on other’s blogs:

http://emessenger.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/my-company-steel-tube.html?showComment=1427275766690#c5357881478328036654

https://krehart.wordpress.com/?contact-form-id=2&contact-form-sent=18&_wpnonce=5e67afb0fa#contact-form-2

https://carliecqu.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/welcome-to-my-relucant-entry-into-the-world-of-oversharing-on-the-internet/comment-page-1/#comment-4

Here is the link to my post about my favourite blogs:

This post contains the links to my top 3 blogs and it also contains my rationale as to why they were my favourite.

http://s0230032.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/who-spins-best-tales-when-it-comes-to.html

Here is the link to my post about my 3 favourite blogs in the Blog Links forum:

https://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=20486

Getting to Know Top Form International

First off, here is a link to the website so you can potentially understand my viewpoints: http://www.topformbras.com/index.html

At first impression, you can see it comes across as quite a high-end company: very classy looking homepage with quite a sophisticated aesthetic. I wish I could say the same for the products. I don't think they are bad, I just have no idea what they are like as there is no link to an online store or an informational section for viewing the products. This is why more investigation was needed.

The first link I found was when I googled the company lead me to its website so that wasn't helpful. The next link took me to a stocks page, showing how the company's stock price had increased that day, also, it illustrated its escalation in net cash flow, but also it's net expenditure in comparison to the previous year.
http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=333:HK

I couldn't really find much besides web pages talking about how the company was doing in the stock market, but google did provide me with an interesting tidbit in the 'searches related' section: Top Form supplies Calvin Klein! This is quite exciting for anyone with high-end taste. An interesting article I found talks But it also talked about how the company had to stop trading in China due to a lack of interest in the Western brands. Find out more by following the link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-02-24/calvin-klein-supplier-top-form-to-boost-bra-capacity-update1-

YouTube searches unfortunately yielded no results on Top Form: why are they such an enigma!

At the moment, Top Form faces challenges of breaking back into the Chinese market and also keeping their company expanding. I above link discusses how top form is planning on expanding even more so they really need to wear the Chinese down to help sustain growth!

Unfortunately there wasn't too much in the world of cyber space to help shed light on just exactly what it is Top Form does! I'm still not sure whether it manufactures bras or retails bras or both! HELP!

Oh well, at least I'm well informed on Top Form's stock prices! :)

Who Spins the best tales when it comes to accounting?

So after perusing many a blog I determined which ones I would consider my favourite; although I do love the effort everyone is going to! Here are the links and a tiny bit about why I like them :)

1. https://carliecqu.wordpress.com/
I've found Carlie's blog quite entertaining to read and very engaging. It keeps my attention all the way through! I have rated it first as I feel it is very genuine and doesn't take itself too seriously. I like someone who can be lighthearted whilst also being interesting.
2. http://caitlinblogassessment.weebly.com/
I like Caitlin's blog because it is set out really nicely and is really informative. I don't feel overwhelmed with information and I also don't feel uninformed. The use of graphics to help illustrate ideas is a nice touch and I feel anyone would find pleasure in reading it.
3. http://rhi-annan.blogspot.com.au/
Rhiannan's blog is a good example of what a solid basic blog should be. Not too flashy, but not unappealing either. Rhiannan keeps her audience engaged, which is good because I get bored easily!

What I loved after I had decided on my favourite was that all 3 were made using different blogging programs! It gives me a little taste of all of them which I thoroughly enjoyed :)

Key Concepts and Questions

Ugh, trying to decipher my way through a 110 page Annual Report was an absolute nightmare! My company is Top Form International, a Bra company based out of Hong Kong. I felt a little unsettled about being assigned a bra company, mostly just because I am now probably going to spend my money there! It seems like a high end lingerie company in Hong Kong who do not currently have an online store. Anyway, here are my thoughts on my company:

Top Form International is a company that manufactures bras for sale. Initially, upon downloading the 2014 Annual Report for Top Form, I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the document: 110 pages is a lot of reading! If I had tried to tackle this document before I attended the Week 2 lecture I would have been quite flabbergasted as the only experience I have with accounting was in grade 10 business education.

Upon first read, I was having trouble comprehending that when a figure is written in brackets on the statement of Profit or Loss, this means it is a liability. I just looked at it and had no clue as to why it was written that way. But then when I was reading the Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows it was reversed: increase/gain was in brackets. I have no comprehension of what is going on with these figures, it just confuses me. I haven’t even done my own taxes before; my experience with financials is quite minimal. Something else I also struggled with was the fact that it is written in Hong Kong dollars. I have no experience with foreign currencies. I understand that it’s the same principles as with Australian dollars, if a value is numerically higher than another it means there is more, but I couldn’t make an informed decision as to whether the figures given described a high volume company, a small company or somewhere in between as I have no idea what the conversion rate between Hong Kong and Australian dollars is. The consolidated reports were a little baffling. I feel as if I was being provided with too much information so that I would think the company is in a better financial position than it really is.

Areas that are important to me about the business are the inflow and outflow of cash as well as the volume of liabilities the company holds. I can see that the company’s equity has increased compared to the previous financial year, as they had made a loss in the previous financial year. It appears the company has made a turnaround, having reported a loss overall for 2013 and are now quite profitable. The challenge is keeping this up. It would appear from my untrained accounting eye that the company sold off some assets such as property in order to purchase investment properties in the hopes of generating more income. The company’s current strategy appears to be generating more income from other avenues in order to have the capital available to increase stock and become a higher volume business.

Week 1: Accounting, come at me!

Blogging is a new concept to me, as I'm not a fan of revealing everything about myself for social media to see. In saying this, I'm not afraid to give it my all and see what Term 1 2015 has in store for me!