Company Stamp? Do we need it?

Recently my company went into a tangle with Ministry of Manpower (MOM) over the requirement to place the company stamp on a work permit form.

I told the MOM officer that my company does not use any company stamp. The officer then requested my company to issue a letter on my company letterhead saying my company does not use company stamp.

I seek an explanation for the need of such a piece of paper with the company letterhead generated by MS Word. What is the legal importance of that piece of paper?

I seek feedback from MOM and EnterpriseOne on whether there is a legal requirement for companies to use company stamp. MOM's email response that I seek is still pending after more 3 business days as per their explicitly stated service standard. EnterpriseOne responded the very same day. Fantastic service! EnterpriseOne simply state that company stamp is not a legal requirement.

If that is the case, why are some banks and government bodies insist on use of company stamp?

Don't ask for things if they are not necessary in the first place. It is time to stop creating unnecessary work.

Anyone with legal knowledge, please correct me if I have mistaken. Cheers.

Proposed changes to Revenue Recognition

my last Sat's lunch - ICPAS AGM

Which FRSs could be affected? FRS 18 Revenue and FRS 11 Construction Contracts are proposed to be merged into a single revenue recognition model in a discussion paper published in Dec 2008.

What is the proposed underlying principle?
The underlying principle in the proposed model is that revenue is recognised when a company satisfies a performance obligation in a contract; in other words, when the company fulfils one of its promises in the contract.

Who will be affected?
The abolition of FRS 11 would affect industries involved in ship building and property development. Particularly those industries delivering products and services with long gestation period.

What would be the difference in treatment?
Currently, revenue is recognised on a percentage of completion basis.
In proposed model, revenue can only be recognised if and only if the work-in-progress is transferred to the Customer as it is created. Since the Customer will not be accepting the handover of partially completed products/services, the business entities involved could experience fluctuations in reported earnings.

For those in the software business - For eg. a software developer is paid $1 million to develop a software with a warranty period of 3 months after delivery date. The developer cannot recognise the full $1 million upon delivery of the software. To satisfy the proposed change, the $1 million must be apportioned as separately identifiable revenue to software development and warranty respectively. Over the delivered portion can be recognised as revenue.

Reference - Accounting and Business 04/2009

FRS 1 - Presentation of Financial Statements Apr 2009

The objective of FRS 1 is to prescribe the basis of presentation of general purpose financial statements, to ensure comparability of entity’s financial statements with previous periods and with other entities’ financial statements.

Below is a summary of the overall considerations for the presentation of financial statements.

a) Fair presentation and compliance with FRS;
b) Going concern;
c) Accrual basis of accounting:
d) Consistency of presentation
e) Materiality and aggregation
f) Offsetting
g) Comparative information

FRS 1 also specifies the minimum line item disclosure required on the face of the balance sheet, income statement, statement of changes in equity and notes to the financial statements.

FRS 7 sets out the requirements for presentation of a cash flow statement.

FRS 1 also specifies that entities discloses information that is presented in the financial statements such as the accounting policies, judgements and key sources of estimation uncertainty at the balance sheet date.

Source - CPA Singapore Wire Apr 2009

We understand better with graphics?

keep roaring!

Just read a paper from University of Chicago entitled "Human Judgement Accuracy, Multidimensional Graphics, and Humans vs Models".

The objective of the paper was to check whether graphics aid humans in the detection of changes in firms' performance and consequently reflect their judgement in bond's rating of bonds from the respective companies.

So the researchers showed financial info in "boring" tabular format and then "pictorial" format to groups of people with different levels of financial accounting training.

Results

• The research confirmed our common understanding that graphics do help with our understanding of any issue, including complex financial results.

• This behaviour is similar to people from different levels of financial accounting training. This means that even the highly trained/"practiced" professionals would also get additional understanding.
  

Applications

• So at work, can we try to present to our bosses in pictorial format ie. at least use bar charts and pie charts, to help them with their understanding?
• If you are reading financial statments from public listed companies, they come with all the bells and whistles in term of presentation. For presentation of results to the press, go check out the powerpoints they use. You download a copy of SMRT's if you wish.
• Edgar should put more pictures in his notes to help his charges.

So we are kindergarten kids, basically?

Putting "Public" back into "Public Accountant"

amk at midnite walk

Who is Public Accountant suppose to serve? Is there a heavy emphasis on "public interest"?

Who are the people in control of financial standards setting process?

Do we all need such complex accounting standards? Are the accounting standards complex because the standards setting people want them to remain complex? For what? To ensure that we still have a job?

Or is it just the demand of some groups? Who then are these groups?

Could large public accounting firms, who have amassed valuable expertise regarding the intricacies of accounting standards and of corporations issuing financial statements be one such group?

I am reading this article entitled "What is the meaning of "the public interest"?" by Richard Baker. The article examined rhetorical claims by American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), and PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC).

I am doing an injustice to the article by paraphrasing them as above. If you are interested to read the full article, buzz me.

Till then, smile.

Is your business a Going Concern?

Are your bankers, suppliers, customers, employees... asking questions or passing remarks about your company's health ie. going concern (GC) status?

Given the current economic situation, may businesses may display certain symptoms that they may have caught the GC disease.

There is one more key person whom you may have to contend with in due course.. the auditor!

Auditors will increasingly question the viability of business. Helen Brand, head of ACCA reinterated this point in yesterday's BT article entitled "Going concern dilemma for auditors".

A CFO of a public listed company that I "accidentally" had lunch with recently, made this remark about their auditor. The company has some investment in China. To check for impairment, auditor requested that his company to do a 5-year cashflow projection and to be followed by computing for its NPV using the higher Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) as the discount rate. He said the end result of that exercise is obvious. There will definitely be a write down on the investment. The write down may wipe off whatever profit and resulting in a loss. A loss ==> any going concern problem?

While a loss may not lead to a going concern problem, nevertheless the loss would activate another series of tests to confirm whether a company has the ability to meet its obligations within 12 months from its balance sheet date.

A quick and simple test would be whether Current Assets > or < Current Liabilities.

A loss in the P&L and CA Qualified Audit Report => investors/bankers withdrawing their support. Unthinkable?

Business owners, you may wish to get ready the following for the GC test.

• a realistic business plan
• a realistic plan to liquidate non-current assets
• a financial support package secured
• capital injection from shareholders
  
• or any other info that will help the auditor to appreciate that your business can go on for another 12 months

Both auditors and business owners do understand the gravity of GC.

Budget Chat 2 - Dr Basant K. Kapur

With reference to today's ST "Making the case for GST roll-back" editorial by Dr Kapur, his principle position is:-

Singapore's fiscal policy is too supply oriented.

I disagree with Dr Kapur in the following areas. Whether the budget measures are too supply-sided or demand-sided could be a matter of perception.

Keynes gave us fiscal policy measures to manage Aggregate Demand.

Aggregate Demand = Consumption (C) + Investment (I) + Government Spending (G)

My position - When I analyse the headline measures of the Budget, they are as much demand-sided as supply-sided.

• For the Job Credits Scheme, it is primarily aimed at maintaining the job/income for many and hopefully translate to Consumption. This is a more indirect but maybe sustainable) approach to Consumption as compare to Government just crediting your accounts with some monies. This simple-putting-money-into-your-pockets idea is also done in the form of GST credits.
• Unfreezing Credit by provding loan guarantees - While this is a way to keep the cash flow going to pay wages, it could be viewed as a means to encourage domestic Investment demand.
• Double GST rebates - Dr Kapur called for GST roll-back ie. reverse the 2% GST increase to stimulate domestic demand. He argued that negative "real-balance effect" of higher prices due to higher GST would curb Consumption. My views - Would the Double GST rebates achieve the same? Or as GST rebates (and Job Credits schemes) are only given to Singaporeans, does it imply that the postive impact on demand (if any) would be more muted as compared to a GST roll-back to all residents? I hesitate to agree with Dr Kapur until I am given some info on the cost to businesses in changing GST/CPF rates up and down.
• $20billion on Construction project - Is this not a direct prescription of Keynes where we would count the intended expenditure as Government Spending (G) and/or Investment (I)? Dr Kapur is asking for 2%/$1.8billion GST roll-back. May I have your view on $20billion thingy too? While the Contractors will be happy first, I am sure when they spend the money they earn, the rest of Singapore will be happy too.
  
• The longer term spending on Education, Healthcare, Marriage, Parenthood and Green theme - I would agree with Dr Kapur that these would be more supply-sided initiatives.
  

Other Dr Kapur's key views to share:-
The biggest thing that is weighing down on Consumption is Housing. Given the high owner occupied properties and "high" property prices, a lot of purchasing power is directed at maintaining our place of residence.

Budget Chat 1 - Just like after 2nd World War

pic from Business Times

Before the release of the Budget, many were wondering what can the government do to help the economy in the absence of external demand?

On Thursday 22 Jan 2009, the Budget presented looks like a modified version of the efforts to revive a war-ravaged economy of a country immediately after the world war.

At that time, there was obviously no external demand and many of the surviving population were unemployed and living in poverty. The government then used borrowed money (from World Bank I think) to pay labour and materials to build roads, bridges and our now famous HDB flats!!

In today's Singapore, we are planning to use part of our reserves to partially pay for all our salaries (Jobs Credit Scheme) and another $20billion for construction projects.

For the Jobs Credit Scheme, the government will give cash grants of 12% for the first $2,500 salary of a Singaporean employee. So if your gross salary is $1,800, your boss will get a refund of $216 per month from the government.

My immediate off-the-cuff response would be that all of us will be partially working for the Government ie. part-time civil servants!!

Based on YA 2007 figures, there were about 825,000 residents who reported income tax. Assuming 300,000 are non-Singaporeans, at $200 cash grant per person per month for about 500,000 Singaporeans, it is certainly no small sum.

Definitely a bold budget indeed.

P/S - Singapore Budget 2009 May I know the person who came up with "Jobs Credit Scheme" idea?

s207 (9a) Companies Act and NEL Group

What is that about?
Under the Act, the external auditor of a public company has a legal duty to report (ie. whistle blow) to Minister of Finance if potential fraud may have been uncovered during the annual audit exercise.

What if it turned out to be misunderstanding? No breach of legal duty if it is done in good faith.

s207 (9a) was seldom invoked. The last time it was used was about 12 years ago on CAM International Holdings Ltd. Recently it was invoked for NEL Group. KPMG has submitted a report to the Minister.

So what do KPMG think has happened in NEL Group?
Apparently there is this new game in town called "round tripping". It was played by NEL Group and Advance Module, another listed company back in 2005.

How to play? First I sell to you. Maybe after my financial year end, you sell back to me at about the same price. Of course, nothing was really purchased or sold except maybe some people just do and exchange some paperwork on the "transaction".

The pressure to perform financially has encouraged creativity!

Capture Theory

roaring biz

I am required to explain Capture Theory in my coming 3rd year class on Accounting Theory. The theory is used to explain the necessity of regulation in the disclosure of accounting information and the dynamics between the Regulator and the regulated.

What is Capture Theory?
The regulated party seeks to take charge (capture) of the Regulator with the intention that the rules subsequently released by Regulator will be in favour of the regulated party.

In more human language, I would paraphrase by saying, "Those people you are out to control in the first place, actually taken control of you."

Can Edgar relate the Theory to some real life applications in Singapore context?
National Wage Council is a tripartite entity made up of the employers, the union representatives and the Government. A tripartite entity would ensure nobody get "captured".

Under Code of Corporate Governance, the Board of Directors are required to be represented by independent directors too. Whether the independent directors are "captured" by directors who are in executive positions/representing majority shareholders are less clear and it varies from company to company.

In the recent ACCA conference, there was a rallying call from a leading accounting professional from Malaysia to fellow professionals and interest groups in this region, to speak up and participate actively in the IFRS standard-setting process. I guess this is ensure that IFRS put into law are not "captured".

The End of Double Entry?

the start of Bintan golf

I am reading a couple of textbooks at the same time for the new term of 2009. I wish with you these few interesting paragraphs challenging the existence of the double-entry system.

The books that I am reading credited the first organised written thought on double entry system to this Franciscan monk called Luca Pacioli and his now famous work called "Summa de Arithmetica, Geometrica, Proportioni et Proportionalita" published in Venice back in 1494. It is simply a system of debits and credits, where the debits going to the left and credits going to the right. It is a system of subtraction-by-opposition ie. put on the opposite side if you want to minus.

Then a clever chap (possibly someone who cannot handle double entry) asked, "Why can't we use positive and negative numbers instead of T-accounts?"

So if you want to pay salary, you just add to Salary expenses and minus the same amount from the Cash/Bank.

FYI - negative numbers were only accepted in the mathematics world in 17th century while double entry has been around since 13th/14th century.

In the 21st century's classes of Edgar, both systems are used in our learning programmes.

P/S - http://accountingwithedgar.blogspot.com/2007/09/origin-of-debit-credit.html

ACCA Graduation - Nov 1, 2008

210 graduands queuing to go in

Mr Richard Aitken-Davies, the guest of honour

Mr Tan Boen Eng in his ceremonial duty

ACCA Graduation - Nov 1, 2008

the people at the back

in jean and track shoes?

queuing to go up the stage

the girl is supposed to be after my brother if he was there

the MC

ACCA Graduation - Nov 1, 2008

the top students with top seniors

the top student from Vietnam now in KPMG

the graduands faced their relatives and said thank you

the final throw-your-mortar-boards

A step back for Fair Value?

Currently - Financial instruments are valued at mark-to-market ie. the price they would fetch if sold on the open market now.

To be adopted soon - They would be valued at historical cost if such financial instruments were to be held to maturity.

Who has adopted the change already?
Hong Kong, Taiwan and Europe. Quite a significant number already.

When is Singapore's ASC expected to give their blessing?
By end of the week.

Mr Tham Sai Choy - ACCA Conference 2008

He said under the new regime, the auditor and consequently the management of business entities would have to present written submission on risks considered and any actions taken to mitigate that risks in the preparation of the financial statements.

In the past, putting "Non Applicable / NA" in checklist may suffice.

To carry that idea to the extreme (if it is not in the extreme now) would be that a management of a business entity now could be required by the auditor to provide a management representation letter certifying that

• all risks, man made or otherwise, has been considered and deemed acceptable
• and also attached supporting documents for that conclusion ie. weather reports from MET office, geography records for earthquake risks, CIA reports for terrorist risks etc etc etc.

Does it mean higher audit fees too? :)

FRS 23 Borrowing Costs - ACCA Conference 2008

Current rule - interest accruing on ongoing projects shall be expensed off

New rule - such interest can be capitalised

Implications

• balance sheets could be carrying assets with bloated values initially and subsequently requiring more effort in reviewing them for impairment
• difference in capital/financing structure would have a direct implication on the carrying value of the asset

Delays in completion of projects under current economic environment ==> would mean that more of the interest "expense" would be capitalised onto the balance sheets instead being expensed off in the P&L.

Mr Kon Yin Tong, Partner of Foo Kon Tan Grant Thornton said he is not comfortable with the new rule. As for me, I would need to find out the basis behind Accounting Standards Council's (ASC) reasons for the change in the first place. Can someone share on this?

ACCA Conference 2008 - A Summary

My summary may not do justice to the quality and quantity of information being delivered by the many distinguished speakers from 9am to 5pm. As the Chairman of the afternoon session, I must admit that I tried to absorb as much as possible. The end result is that I have learned something more than at the beginning of the day. I am sure about 400 people who attended the conference too will agree with me.

Dato' John Raslan, Exec. Chairman of PWC Malaysia

• He is for convergence of IFRS.
• But he urged all of us to participate actively in the convergence process whether at national or international level.

Mr Barmaky, Partner, Deloitte & Touche

• He gave us a macro review of FRS changes to date and changes to come at IASB level.

Mr Tirumalai, Oracle

• He briefed us on a solution in the form of platform which can enable us to implement the standards.

In the panel discussion chaired by Professor Pearl Tan of SMU, the following are my general feel of the panelists

• Fair value should not be blamed for the current state of financial turmoil.
• Global standards should not be tweaked too much to accomodate local market needs and culture as differing standards may lead to greater uncertainty to practitioners.
• How can our voice from this region be heard in between the dominating noises from Europe and US?
• FRS on SMEs/Private Entities - As there are significant differences between big and small business entities, they should thus be treated separately as apples and oranges.
• Should we take on other non-FRS standards on board? - Officially perhaps no but there are invisible forces moving business entities towards taking on non-FRS stds like Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in their reporting.

Mr Kon Yin Tong, Partner, Foo Kon Tan Grant Thornton
He gave us a rundown of the many FRSs due for implementation in 2009.

Mr Tham Sai Choy, Partner, KPMG, spent "5 minuates" telling us about Clarity Project and possible implications to the audit committees.

Mr Sum Yee Loong, Partner, Deloitte & Touche explained why IRAS has collected more billions than expected (just kidding) and shared another billion ideas for us to be more tax efficient.

Ms Kala Anandarajah, Partner, Rajah & Tann gave us a lengthy review of 2 cases on auditor's responsibility and director's responsibility.

Finally, I reached the end of the conference, exhausted with adrenalin still pumping for many hours after.

Petition to Protect "Accountant" in Singapore

my investment

I had a meeting with a prospective client recently who complained about their existing "accountant". The "accountant" has apparently allowed toner for office printer to be capitalised and depreciated over time. The client was flabbergasted that an accountant can make such mistake.

While I am not sure of the person's credentials, I ended up trying to explain to the client that almost everyone in Singapore can call themselves an accountant without breaking any law.

Recently in UK, Mr Alan Shooter submitted a petition with 4,000 signatures to the Prime Minister to seek protection for the designation "accountant".

There must be some regulation in this area to ensure that the integrity and professionalism of those who have dedicated years of their life in securing formal accounting training, are not eroded away by irresponsible individuals.

If you are serious about your profession, please say "Yes" when you post your message here.

The ACCA Annual Conference 2008

Global Standards - The Business Benefits: Engineering a Global Business Community
Friday, 17 October 2008, Raffles City Convention Centre

In the morning session, we will have the STRATEGIC segment. Mr Thomas Thomas of Singapore Compact will chair a series of presentations as follows:-

1. Dato Johan Raslan, Executive Chairman, PwC Malaysia with the keynote address
2. Mr Shariq Barnaky, Partner at Deloitte & Touche to give us a review of global IFRS Development
3. Mr Joseph Alfred, our technical advisor for ACCA Singapore will present the findings of ACCA/CFO survey on Asia Pacific's Road to Global Standards
4. Mr Ravi Tirumulai of Oracle Corp will present their approach for enabling Global Standards
5. Dr Pearl Tan of SMU will then lead a panel of distinguished professionals to discuss the pros and cons for Global Standards.

In the afternoon session, Edgar will have the honour of chairing the afternoon's TECHNICAL segment.

Mr Kon Yin Tong of Foo Kon Tan Grant Thornton will kick off with FRS updates while Mr Tham Sai Choy of KPMG will do the Audit updates.

After the break, Mr Sum Yee Loong of Deloitte & Touche will then give us the Tax updates. Our anchor for the day will be Ms Kala Anandarajah, Partner of Rajah & Tann will address the legal issues that we need to know.

So for those who are interested, please check out more details here.
http://singapore.accaglobal.com/databases/events/singapore/171008