The Advanced Defined Contribution Plans Audit Certificate exam tests your ability to plan, perform and evaluate defined contribution plans, in accordance with AICPA standards and DOL rules and regulations. This exam is offered in a timed online format and consists of 75 multiple choice questions. In order to successfully pass the examination, you must be able to evaluate and analyze the core concepts related to client acceptance, engagement planning, engagement analysis, concluding an engagement and guiding principles for defined contribution plan audits. Some of the topics that will be tested on the exam include: Planning and general procedures Internal control Net assets available for benefits Changes in net assets available for benefits Plan tax status Financial statement presentation, disclosure, and regulatory reporting Audit reports Online Access Instructions A personal pin code is enclosed in the physical packaging that may be activated online upon receipt. Once activated, you will gain immediate online access to the product. Your Certificate and Digital Badge After passing the exam, you will be awarded with a certificate in the form of a digital badge. Digital badges allow you to distinguish yourself in the marketplace and show your commitment to quality. The badge can be posted to your social media profiles and linked to your resume or email signature, providing maximum visibility to your achievement. You will receive your official score and certificate or retake information 5 business days after completing the exam. Important note: Your exam purchase entitles you to one exam and one re-take if you do not pass the exam. Prior to using your re-take, the AICPA recommends you study any topics identified in your initial exam results. If you do not pass either the initial exam or the re-take, you must purchase the exam again, in order to take it again. Exams passed outside of these purchase and re-take rules will not result in the issuing of a digital badge. If you have any questions regarding the completion of your exam or re-take, please contact [email protected] to verify your results. By making this purchase, you must understand and agree that the AICPA has the absolute and unrestricted right to revoke or suspend any rights to use the digital badge image, or any representation thereof, if you are (a) convicted of any crime punishable by more than one year in prison or for any crime related to dishonesty, or (b) disciplined by any governmental or non-governmental authority that regulates, or enforces a code of conduct related to, your professional activities, including but not limited to, a state board of accountancy, AICPA, IRS, SEC, or PCAOB, or (c) a peer reviewer restricted from performing peer reviews by the Peer Review Program. System Requirements AICPA's online CPE courses will operate in a variety of configurations, but only the configuration described below is supported by AICPA technicians. A stable and continuous internet connection is required. In order to record your completion of the online learning courses, please ensure you are connected to the internet at all times while taking the course. It is your responsibility to validate that CPE certificate(s) are available within your account after successfully completing the course and/or exam. Supported Operating Systems: Macintosh OS X 10.10 to present Windows 7 to present Supported Browsers: Apple Safari Google Chrome Microsoft Internet Explorer Mozilla Firefox Required Browser Plug-ins: Adobe Flash Adobe Acrobat Reader Technical Support: Please contact [email protected].

This work explores how reshaping budget rules and how they are applied presents a preferred means of public sector budgeting, rather than simply implementing fewer rules. Through enhanced approaches to resource flexibility, government entities can ensure that public money is used appropriately while achieving the desired results. The authors identify public budgeting practices that inhibit responses to complex problems and examine how rule modification can lead to expanded budget flexibility. Through a nuanced understanding of the factors underlying conventional budget control, the authors use budget reforms in Australia to show the limits of rule modification and propose "rule variability" as a better means of recalibrating central control and situational flexibility. Here, policy makers and public management academics will find a source that surveys emerging ways of reconciling control and flexibility in the public sector.iv>

Hardbound. This series rose out of the belief that the international accounting literature should devote more attention to the study of the accounting problems and issues of emerging economies (developing and newly industrialized countries).The desire of the series is to raise the level of interest in the specific problems of accounting in emerging economies and raise the awareness of the real issues, so that accounting in these countries will not be seen as a matter of copying what is done in industrialized countries. Through an increasing awareness of the real issues and the accounting practices advocated in it, the annual has become relevant to actual needs, and is making a real contribution to the accounting development process of emerging economies.

Managing for Results is a model of organizational reform that utilizes performance indicators, strategic planning, and benchmarks. The model focuses on linking these systems to improve performance and public accountability. This book studies the implementation of Managing for Results on six states identified by the U.S. General Accounting Office as leaders of internal reinvention efforts. Government and business practitioners, as well as scholars and researchers of public administration and policy, will find this book useful in assessment, selection, and measurement of state-level reform efforts.

This is a well-written treatment of the subject that will help increase the auditor's understanding of the beneficial use of a wide range of analytical procedures.

"Journal of Accountancy"

This handbook is intended to help auditors at all experience levels in financial, operational, and compliance audits. It presents and discusses 16 analytical auditing procedures in detail. The author comprehensively discusses evidence theory that will enable auditors to appropriately combine evidence form analytical auditing with evidence from more traditional audit procedures.

"Business Information ALERT"

Analytical auditing--or the generation of audit evidence from an analysis of the relationships among financial and nonfinancial data--is now a widely used technique in audit practice. This volume is intended to help auditors at all experience levels by providing a better understanding of the range of available analytical auditing techniques, the underlying theory supporting these techniques, and the solutions to practical problems in applying these techniques. Sixteen different practical analytical auditing procedures are discussed and illustrated in detail, including the graphical, average change, and weighted average methods of simple time series analysis; simple reasonableness tests; various structural modeling; and ratio analysis techniques.

In addition to thorough coverage of key analytical auditing techniques, McKee also presents a comprehensive discussion of evidence theory that will enable auditors to appropriately combine evidence from analytical auditing with evidence from more traditional audit procedures. He reviews the relevant professional auditing standards for all types of auditors, including international auditing standards, those of the American Institute of CPAs, internal auditing standards, and governmental auditing standards. Especially valuable is an extended discussion and illustrations of computer applications of analytical auditing techniques. Throughout the book, tables and figures facilitate the reader's understanding of the techniques and concepts presented. An indispensable handbook for use in financial, operational, and compliance audits, this volume belongs on the bookshelf of every CPA, internal auditor, and governmental auditor.

A new form of accounting statement--the value added statement--is gaining popularity in the corporate annual reports of the largest companies in the United Kingdom. This new statement can be viewed as a modified version of the income statement. Like the income statement, the value added statement reports the operating performance of a company at a given point in time, using both accrual and matching procedures. Unlike the income statement, however, it is interpreted not as a return to shareholders but as a return to the larger group of capital and labor providers. Riahi-Belkaoui shows that the value added statement can be easily derived from the income statement and is therefore easily adaptable to the needs of U.S. companies.

To illustrate the usefulness of the value added statement, Riahi-Belkaoui devotes Chapter 1 to a thorough discussion of its many benefits. He then analyzes the usefulness of the value added concept in understanding the characteristics of corporate takeovers in the United States, and in Chapter 3 he discusses the relationship between the value added concept and the systematic risk of U.S. companies, concluding in Chapter 4 with a discussion of value added statements in financial analysis. His book will thus interest not only accountants, teachers, and students who follow trends in international and multi-national accounting but also those who want to prepare themselves for the development of value added techniques and procedures that might reasonably be expected in the United States.

This volume describes the construction method for a global accounting framework, referred to as the world accounting matrix (WAM). The WAM allows for the consistent presentation of international trade and finance figures in relation to domestic saving and investment. The book aims to show how a WAM can be used for the analysis of trade and finance in a global context. It also seeks to show how WAM can contribute to the solution of the large statistical problems in national and global macroeconomic data.

Producers and users of management accounting information are confronted with crucial behavioral phenomena--factors that can affect the communication of this information and its use. Riahi-Belkaoui shows what these factors and phenomena are and how to understand and cope with them. In doing so, he shows how producers and users together can improve the efficiency of management accounting itself.

He explains the judgment process in management accounting, identifies and explains the major behavioral phenomena, and then provides ways to use them for the firM's benefit. Thoughtful and comprehensive, his book is important reading for executive decision makers in almost all organizations throughout the public and private sectors.

James Allen was one of our finest thinkers. In this five-in-one omnibus edition Allen shows you the power of positive thinking and a path to prosperity with dignity. These teachings are as timeless today as they were when they were written. Many of todays best sellers, such as The Power of Positive Thinking, Laws of Attraction, and The Science of Success, owe a deep and abiding debt to these great works. Now you can read the words of the master directly and not distilled through another who is merely recycling them. This edition includes: As a Man Thinketh, The Way of Peace, Above Life's Turmoil, Byways to Blessedness, and The Path of Prosperity.

This is a collection of eleven essays authored by prominent accounting historians and designed to aid potential as well as experienced researchers in the methodologies and resources available for scholarly work in accounting history. The project, of which this book is the end product, has the full endorsement and backing of the Academy of Accounting Historians. Chapters on resources include the finding and utilization of archival materials (including ancient forms); the growing importance of the Internet in historical research and the Accounting Research Database as a vital, contemporary finding aid; the possibilities for joint venturing with accounting practitioners and their organizations; and the pivotal influence and immediacy of oral history. Methodological chapters explore the advantages and pitfalls of archival research; the synergistic relationships that exist between accounting and economic history, including business history and capital-markets research; the techniques for doing biography; and the issues involved in writing to historical paradigms.

Based on the IFRSs issued by the IASB on 1/10/08, this provides a simplified summary of the main elements of IFRSs, linking each line in the financial statement to the chronologically numbered standards and then summarizing in diagrams each of those Standards to help the reader visualize the key decisions and choices their application requires.

Drawing upon cost accounting, mathematics, operations research, economics, and the behavioral sciences, Riahi-Belkaoui answers the call for a unique, multifaceted approach to the study of management accounting. His goal: to enhance performance in the essential tasks of cost estimation, allocation, planning, control, and performance evaluation. He covers the traditional techniques, but expands into quantitative methods and applications, then extends further into the behavioral unification of these techniques. His book is state of the art, ingenious in the way it adapts quantitative methods' solutions to traditional cost accounting topics, and innovative in its use of the behavioral implications. The result is an important resource for professionals, academics, and upper-level students in the field.

Riahi-Belkaoui arranges his various techniques chapter by chapter. First, he looks at cost allocation and then at cost-volume profit analysis under stochastic conditions. In Chapter three he treats regression for cost estimation; in Chapter Four, the learning curve for the same purpose. He takes up advanced planning analysis in Chapter Five, advanced control analysis in Chapter Six, and decentralizing and performance evaluation in Chapter Seven. He then finishes with an important discussion of transfer pricing.

The idea that each country should have one currency is so deeply rooted in people's minds that the possibility of multiple and concurrent currencies seems unthinkable. Monetary systems contribute to problems of high unemployment and social distress during financial and economic crisis, so reforms to increase the responsiveness and flexibility of the monetary system can be part of the solution. This book discusses 'monetary plurality', which is the circulation of several currencies at the same time and space. It addresses how multiple currency circuits work together and transform socio-economic systems, particularly by supporting economies at the local level of regions and cities. The book shows that monetary plurality has been ubiquitous throughout history and persists at present because the existence of several currency circuits facilitates small-scale production and trade in a way that no single currency can accomplish on its own. Monetary plurality can improve resilience, access to livelihoods and economic sustainability. At the same time, it introduces new risks in terms of economic governance, so it needs to be properly understood. The book analyses experiences of monetary plurality in Europe, Japan, and North and South America, written by researchers from East and West and from the global North and South. Replete with case studies, this book will prove a valuable addition to any student or practitioner's bookshelf.

Advances in International Accounting is a referred, academic research annual, that is devoted to publishing articles about advancements in the development of accounting and its related disciplines from an international perspective. This serial examines how these developments affect the financial reporting and disclosure practices, taxation, management accounting practices, and auditing of multinational corporations, as well as their effect on the education of professional accountants worldwide.
Advances in International Accounting welcomes traditional and alternative approaches, including theoretical research, empirical research, applied research, and cross-cultural studies.

Part of a series which discusses advances in the quantitative analysis of finance and accounting, this volume is the fifth in the series.

Providing the most up-to-date tools and techniques for pricing interest rate and credit products for the new financial world, this book discusses pricing and hedging, funding and regulation, and interpretation, as an essential resource for quantitatively minded practitioners and researchers in finance. This book will be required reading for quantitative practitioners who need to keep up-to-date with the latest developments in derivatives pricing, and will also be of interest to academic researchers and students interested in how instruments are priced in practice.

Effective Management Control deals with a critical but relatively neglected and misunderstood aspect of organizational effectiveness: the process of controlling the behavior of people in organizations. The issue of organizational control and the design of an optimal control system is essential for the long term effectiveness of an organization: too little control can lead to confusion and chaos; conversely, too great a degree of control can result in the erosion of innovation and entrepreneurship. This monograph presents a conceptual framework for approaching these issues, and examines the role accounting can play in a successful control system. The author works towards an understanding of the nature, role, elements and functioning of organizational control and control systems in organizations. The book posits and discusses the features of a core control system and its component parts, including: planning, measurement and feedback, evaluation and reward sub-systems. It also discusses the ways in which a core control system operates within a larger organizational structure and culture. The theory is illustrated through its application to a particular case study.

This seventh volume in the series deals with a variety of topics in the field of advances in public interest accounting.

This book focuses on the impact of the disclosure of non-financial risk, which could be seen as the most relevant non-financial information (NFI), in the aftermath of the 2014/95/EU Directive. The author analyses whether the switch from voluntary to mandatory NFI enhance the quality of disclosed NF risk-related information and the usefulness of the risk disclosure for investors. The book focuses specifically on the mandatory disclosure of non-financial (NF) risks as required by the EU Directive for listed Italian companies, investigating both the state of art of its disclosure and its usefulness for investors. In doing so, the book contributes to fill two relevant gaps in risk literature. The first research gap is related to the insufficient investigation of the disclosure of NF risks. Companies mandated to disclose risk-related information focused mainly on financial risks, in spite of the width of the definition of risk, conceived as information about any opportunity, danger, threat, or exposure that has or could impact the company in the future. The second gap is that empirical evidence about the effects of corporate risk disclosures is still limited, and the potential benefits of the disclosure of information on risks have not been fully explored. In particular, the relationship between risk disclosures and firm value is under researched, as the risk literature mainly focuses on the incentives question, related to the motives for which companies decide to disclose. The research in this book focuses on Italy, a country that provides a unique opportunity to examine the impact of mandatory NF risk disclosure on firm market value, being one of the biggest industrial European countries that had not mandatory legislation for NFI disclosure, and also one of the leading countries in voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting at an international level. It has been carried out in the fiscal year 2017, the first year of the application of the mandatory NF disclosure for obliged Italian listed PIEs. The book contributes both to the measurement literature, as it presents a self-constructed quality NF risks and to the value relevance analysis literature, providing evidence of the usefulness of financial and non-financial risk-related disclosures in the Italian context.

Can corporate social awareness be translated into positive and predictable financial outcomes? Yes. Riahi-Belkaoui covers the two main components of corporate social awareness--corporate reputation or organizational effectiveness and socio-economic accounting information--and ties them directly to what happens on the corporation's bottom line. Presenting a thorough investigation of the models and results of the connection between desirable corporate behavior and economic performance, he shows not only that the outcomes are positive but that they are also predictable. A provocative and assuring study, this is intended for corporate management concerned with finance and accounting, and their colleagues with similar interests in the academic community.

This is the fifth volume in a series dealing with such topics as information systems practice and theory, information systems and the accounting/auditing environment, and differing perspectives on information systems research.

Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research promotes research across all areas of accounting, incorporating theory from, and contributing knowledge to, the fields of applied psychology, sociology, management science, ethics and economics. Focusing on research that examines both individual and organizational behavior relative to accounting, the series provides a unique opportunity for the exchange of peer reviewed knowledge across all areas of accounting behavioral research and the development, discussion and expansion of theories from psychology, sociology and related disciplines.

This book discusses the theory, methods, and applications of flow of funds analysis. The book integrates the basic principles of economic statistics, financial accounts, international finance, econometric models, and financial network analysis, providing a systematic and comprehensive introduction to the interconnection between these research fields. It thus provides the reader with the intellectual groundwork indispensable for understanding the workings and interactions of today's globalized financial markets. The main focus of the book is how to observe the flow of funds in macroeconomics, how to measure the global flow of funds (GFF), and how to use GFF data to carry out an analysis. Based on the statistical framework for measuring GFF under the System of National Accounts, the book identifies the systematic relationship of financial linkages among economic sectors and with the rest of the world while integrating data sources that include stock data, geographically broken down by country-region, and selected financial instruments. It sets out the GFF concept and constructs a GFF matrix (metadata) on a from-whom-to-whom basis within a country-by-country pattern. Lastly, an established GFF matrix table is used to conduct an empirical study including an econometric model and financial network analysis.

This annual publication is devoted to the advancement of ethics research and education in the profession and practice of accounting. It aims to advance innovative and applied ethics research in all accounting-related disciplines on a global basis; to improve ethics education in and throughout the professional accounting and management curricula at the undergraduate and graduate levels; and to provide a source of information for the professional eccounting and auditing community for integrating ethics and good business practices in public firms, business corporations, and governmental organizations. This annual's primary objective is to provide a forum for business leaders and educators to discuss and debate the plethora of ethical issues that affect accounting organizations and the financial community in the USA and abroad. It includes commentary and editorials from accounting practitioners, standard setters and regulators. Papers are empirical or theoretical in nature, and draw upon paradigms in related disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, theology, economics and sociology. Volume 2 includes a section on the public interest considerations of ethical obligations of CPAs in advertising and solicitation. Other subjects covered include: ethics violations in the accountancy profession; applying behavioural models as prescriptions for ethics in accountancy practice and education; auditor's responsibility to the public; and the impact of ethics education in accountancy curricula.