ASB 2504 Assignment
2015
Assignment Title
The title to be used when submitting this assignment is Inventories. Assignment Weighting
This assignment is in 3 parts. Each part should be attempted. The weighting to be applied to each part is:
Part A 10%
Part B 30%
Part C 60%.
The assignment forms 25% of the marks for the module.
Administrative Details
The deadline for submission is 4pm on Monday 30th November 2015.
An electronic copy must be submitted through the Turnitin software on Blackboard. Click on the ‘assignments’ link on the Blackboard site for the module, and follow the instructions. If you do not submit an electronic copy of an assignment before the assignment deadline, it will be deemed to have missed the deadline, even if a paper
copy of the assignment has been submitted before the deadline.
A paper copy must be deposited in the ‘Assignment Collection Box’ located at the
College Road Administrative Centre. The content of the paper copy must correspond exactly to the content of the electronic copy that is submitted through Blackboard. The paper copy must be submitted BEFORE 4.00pm on the assignment deadline date, and should be accompanied by an assignment coversheet. Assignment coversheets can be downloaded and printed from myBangor (notes on ‘How to get your coversheet’ are attached at the end of this document).
Please avoid submitting work in ways that make it difficult for lecturers to mark it. Common problems include: over-zealous stapling of pages; using plastic wallets, binders, or files that are difficult to open; and binding pages in such a way that writing in the margins cannot be read.
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ASB 2504 Assignment
2015
Part A
Assignment Questions
Answer the five Multiple Choice questions that follow. There is ONE correct answer to each question, worth 2 marks. In some cases an alternative answer may carry 1 mark.
Question 1
The inclusion of inventory in financial statements is an example of the application of which accounting convention:
A. Accruals
B. Business entity
C. Goingconcern
D. Matching
E. Prudence
Question 2
The use of FIFO rather than LIFO for stock valuation in times of rising prices results in figures for a period which give:
A. Lower profits and lower current assets
B. Higher profits and higher current assets
C. Lower profits and higher current assets
D. Higher profits and lower current assets
E. No difference in profits or current assets
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ASB 2504 Assignment
2015
Question 3
IAS 2 Inventories allows the use of which methods and techniques of inventory valuation:
i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi.
A. B. C. D. E.
FIFO WAVCO Base cost Actual cost Standard cost Retail method
i, ii, iii, iv and v ii, iii, iv, v and vi i, iii, iv, v and vi i, ii, iv, v and vi i, ii, iii, v and vi
Question 4
Which of the following is NOT an example of circumstances in which Net Realisable Value (NRV) will be used in inventory valuation instead of cost. In each case you can assume that NRV is below cost.
A. An item is currently being sold as a ‘loss leader’.
B. Perishable items are beyond their ‘use by’ dates.
C. The prices of a regularly traded commodity are temporarily lower than normal.
D. The discovery of new sources have reduced prices for a raw material.
E. A large volume of a particular item is being sold to improve liquidity.
Question 5
Which of the following costs will not usually be included in inventory:
A. Administrative overheads in a supermarket;
B. Labour costs incurred in applying fertilizer to a field of crops;
C. Indirect production overheads in a factory;
D. Carriage inwards on books held by an on-line distributor;
E. Irrecoverable import duties on goods imported into the UK.
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ASB 2504 Assignment
2015
Part B
Using the style of question from Part A, i.e. multiple choice questions with five alternative answers of which one is correct, write THREE multiple choice questions testing knowledge of:
1 The components of work-in-progress;
2 The calculation of an appropriate overhead recovery rate to be included in inventory;
3 Creative accounting and inventory.
The work you submit for Part B should clearly identify the correct answer and give
appropriate feedback for each answer. An example of the format required is shown in the Assignment Guidance below. You may set a question requiring calculations.
Part C
Write a 1,000 word (±10%) essay in accordance with the requirement:
Critically analyse the reasons underlying the continued acceptance of LIFO as an appropriate method of inventory valuation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in the USA, while it is no longer permitted under IAS 2 Inventories.
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ASB 2504 Assignment
2015
Part A
Assignment Guidance
When answering the multiple choice questions you should show your answers as: 1A
2 B, etc.
Part B
An appropriate format for your answer is shown in the example below.
Question 1
Which of the following Presidents of the United States of America was elected only once and served only one full term of office:
A. John F. Kennedy
B. Lyndon B. Johnson
C. RichardNixon
D. Gerald Ford
E. JimmyCarter
Correct Answer: E Feedback:
A Incorrect. Although elected once JFK did not complete a full term of office. He
was assassinated.
B Incorrect. Although elected only once and serving a full term following that
election, Johnson had also completed JFK’s term of office following his
assassination. (1 mark)
C Incorrect. Richard Nixon was elected twice.
D Incorrect. Gerald Ford was not elected to office and did not serve a full term.
He completed Nixon’s second term of office following his impeachment.
E Correct. Jimmy Carter was elected once in 1976 and served a full term. He was
defeated in the 1980 election by Ronald Reagan. (2 marks)
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ASB 2504 Assignment
2015
Part C
This is an academic essay. It will require a brief introduction, a clear conclusion, an appropriate bibliography, and referencing in the Harvard style. Your bibliography need not be included in your word count. If you exceed the word limit you will be asked to re-submit this part of the assignment. If you breach acceptable plagiarism limits you will be asked to resubmit your assignment. Only one resubmission will be permitted.
Guide to Sources
A good starting point would be the appropriate chapter on inventories in our course text (Elliott & Elliott, 2015, pp. 497-522). You may also wish to consult the full text of IAS 2 Inventories (IFRS Foundation, 2015) or an authoritative summary, such as that on the IASplus website (Deloitte., 2015). These sources will be of particular use in answering Parts A and B of the assignment.
Part C will require more extensive research. If you conduct an online search of websites for relevant information try to restrict yourself to sufficiently authoritative sources. Because of its open nature Wikipedia cannot be regarded as sufficiently authoritative.
Many academic articles are available online analysing various aspects of the use of LIFO in the USA. Historical research (Davis, 1982; Pincus, 1989) will give you some background to the widespread adoption of LIFO in the USA. More recent research and analysis has focused on the consequences of the use of LIFO for financial reporting (Li & Sun, 2014) and the potential impact of the abolition of LIFO (Mulford & Comiskey, 2008; Ayres et al, 2008). Do not feel that you have to restrict yourself to these sources, but ensure that details of the sources you do use are correctly disclosed in your bibliography.
Bibliography
Ayres, F., Bauman, C., Bauman, M. & Fan, Y. 2008. A Glimpse of a World without LIFO. Working Paper. Online at:
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ASB 2504 Assignment
2015
Davis, H. 1982. ‘History of LIFO’, in The Accounting Historians Journal, Vol 9 No 1 Spring 1982. Online at:
Deloitte. 2015. IAS 2 Inventories.
Elliott, B. & Elliott, J. 2015. Financial Accounting and Reporting (17th Edition), Harlow, Pearson.
IFRS Foundation. 2015. IAS 2 Inventories.
Li, J. & Sun, M. 2014. ‘LIFO and Accounting Distortion – The Case of the Oil Industry’ in Journal of Accounting and Finance, Vol. 14(5), 2014.
Mulford, C. & Comiskey, E. 2008. The Potential Consequences of the Elimination of LIFO as a Part of IFRS Convergence, Georgia Institute of Technology.
Pincus, M. 1989. ‘Legislative History of the Allowance of LIFO for Tax Purposes’, in The Accounting Historians Journal, Vol 16 No 1 June 1989.
Marks Available
Parts A and B will be marked numerically. Part C will be marked using the categorical marking criteria shown in the Bangor Business School Undergraduate Handbook. The numerical mark for Part C will be converted from its categorical equivalent. The overall numerical mark for the assignment will be calculated using the weightings shown on page 1 of this document.
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