One of your responsibilities as division manager of an important component of Pa
ID: 2466990 • Letter: O
Question
One of your responsibilities as division manager of an important component of Paramount Industries is to oversee accounting for the division. One of the issues you grapple with on an almost continuous basis is whether particular costs should be expensed immediately or whether they should be capitalized. The company has an accounting policy manual that includes a section on this topic, but it is rather vague in this regard. It simply says that if a cost benefits multiple accounting periods, the cost should be capitalized; otherwise, that cost should be expensed immediately. It also makes a brief reference to materiality by stating that, if a cost is sufficiently small, it should be immediately expensed despite the fact that it may benefit multiple accounting periods. No additional guidance is provided with regard to how these general concepts should be applied. Over several years you have noticed a tendency of your staff to capitalize rather than expense more costs. While you and your coworkers in the division do not receive a bonus or other direct compensation that is tied to your division's performance, you know that upper management monitors carefully the financial performance of divisions. From time to time in various meetings and in written correspondence, comments are made praising individuals and divisions of the company for their positive financial performance. In fact, within your division you have done the same when you meet with your employees and either compliment them for strong financial performance or express concern about weak financial performance. Paramount Industries has a code of professional conduct that is discussed with employees when they are hired. Within that code are references to personal integrity and the responsibility of employees to carry out company policy and not engage in activities that benefit themselves at the expense of the company. Like the accounting policies referred to above, there is no guidance on how this general principle might be carried out.
Instructions
a. What behavior may your comments in meetings with your employees, or the comments made to you from upper management, be motivating in terms of the continuous decisions that are being made about capitalizing and expensing costs?
b. What steps might you take to ensure that you and the employees in your division are taking actions that are consistent with the company's accounting policies and code of professional conduct?
Explanation / Answer
In a meeting I will tell the employees about the effect of capitalizing and expensing.
By Capitalizing the expense in early years company will have higher profitability but in later years it will have lower profitability.
Stockholders' equity - Over a long time frame, the choice of expensing a cost or capitalizing it will have little effect on a shareholders' total equity. That said, expensing firms will have a lower stockholders' equity at first (less profit, thus smaller retained earnings).
A company that capitalizes its costs will display higher total assets.
Cash flow from operations - A company that capitalizes its costs will display higher net profits in the first years and will have to pay higher taxes than it would've had to pay if it expensed all of its costs. That said, over a long period of time, the tax implications would be the same. But the choice for capitalizing over expensing have a much larger effect on the reported cash flow from operations and cash flow from investing. If a company expenses its cost it will be included in cash flow from operations. If it capitalizes, then it will be included in cash flow from investing (lower investment cash flow and higher cash flow from operations).
There should be a proper guidance led down which expense should be capitalized, which one should be expensed out.
Costs should be expensed when they are used up or have expired and when they have no future economic value which can be measured. For example, the August salaries of a company's marketing team should be charged to expense in August since the future economic value of their August salaries cannot be determined.
Costs should be capitalized or recorded as assets when the costs have not expired and they have future economic value. For example, on November 25 a company pays $12,000 for property insurance covering the six months of December through May. The $12,000 is initially recorded as the current asset Prepaid Insurance. On November 30 the company will report this asset at $12,000 since the $12,000 has a future economic value. (It will save making future payments of cash for insurance coverage.) On December 31 the asset will be reported as $10,000—the unexpired cost.
It will also report Insurance Expense for the month of December as $2,000—the cost that has expired during December. On January 31 the asset will be reported at the unexpired cost of $8,000. January's insurance expense will be $2,000—the amount that has expired during January.
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