Business Assets
Assets are?resources or things of value that are owned by a company.
When making assertions about an asset, management needs to remember several key points:
Existence
-Check depreciation and anything else related to the claimed asset to make sure that your balance sheet is accurate.?
-Check that you have the right to this equipment.
-Check with banks about your accounts receivable. Never look for a way to produce fictitious paperwork-proof.
Send confirmations to banks about your company?s cash balances, to investments custodians about marketable securities, to customers about accounts receivable, to makers about notes receivables, to consignees about inventory on consignment, to insurance companies about cash surrender value.
Completeness
Check that you recorded ALL of your assets. Is there inventory in transit?
Disclosure about the accounts/notes receivable (completeness)
Valuation
You need to make sure that you value your
-Assets- at Lower of Cost or Market,? ?
-Costing: Ordering cost plus Holding cost
-A/R- at Net Realizable Value;
-Long -term debt- at PV of Future Cash Flow
Accuracy and valuation (footnote disclosure about the schedule of receivables and tie the notes to Balance Sheet accounts and to Sales accounts to confirm company Sales and Revenues) Valuation is normally done at the end of a reporting period.?
Classification
You must properly classify your assets:
-Current and non-current
-Work-in-progress
-Raw material
-Finished goods
Cutoff
Check FOB shipping or FOB destination
Was all inventory purchased added to Ending Inventory and All sold inventory removed from Year-End?
Impaired inventory has to be written down at year-end.
Rights and obligation
Make sure that your company owns the asset, and the asset is not on consignment, for example.
Inventory is not pledged as collateral
It is important to remember that you need to use techniques for predicting account balances, based on analytical procedures, for example. Compare ratios from previous years to the current year. Check what the company?s depreciation is to the company?s assets. Check accounts that arrive from what company claims on Financial Statements and then check if what your company claims make sense. Keeping financial records in order is critical to any business operations, as well as following the company?s policies and procedures is a good way to stay on track.
