In particular, read the notes to the audited financial statements included in the 10-K, which will describe accounting policies and standards of the reported financials. Financial reporting standards are useful in the evaluation of any organization. Following standards will allow the comparison of organizations within the same industry. Using your chosen company, provide a critical analysis of the financial reporting methodology your company uses.

In your paper,

• Describe the financial reporting framework that your chosen company utilizes.
• Assess your company’s financial report, based on the qualitative characteristics of Financial Reports as outlined in Chapter 3, on the following criteria:
  • Relevance
  • Faithful representation
  • Comparability
  • Verifiability
  • Timeliness
  • Understandability
• Assess your company’s financial report, based on the characteristics of an effective financial reporting framework as outlined in Chapter 3, on the following criteria:
  • Transparency
  • Comprehensiveness
  • Consistency
• Review the Notes section of the annual report for company disclosures that might be material. Consider the following:
  • Describe the policies that have been reported.
  • Explain how the policies have significance in the financial statements or how they do not.

The Financial Reporting Standards paper

• Must be three to four double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references page) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.)
• Must include a separate title page with the following:
  • Title of paper
  • Student’s name
  • Course name and number
  • Instructor’s name
  • Date submitted

For further assistance with the formatting and the title page, refer to APA Formatting for Word 2013 (Links to an external site.).

• Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance.
• Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.
  • For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Ashford Writing Center resources.
• Must use at least two scholarly, peer-reviewed, and/or credible sources in addition to the course text.
  • The Scholarly, Peer Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.
• Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.)
• Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.

Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.) for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.