heidimccormickblog.files.wordpress.com · web viewif i had watched another 30 seconds i would have...

Assessment 1

Steps 3,4,5,7&8

Financial Statement Analysis

ACCT13017

Due, 2020

Heidi McCormick

10076872

Heidi McCormick10076872 of 20

Step 3

My firm is Apollo Tourism & Leisure Ltd. They are the campervans you will see

travelling around the country. I was very excited to receive this company as we have

actually booked a six-berth camper for our holiday in New Zealand in June so I feel

lucky that I get to discover where my hard earned money will be going.

I was shocked to see that that the total revenue for 2019 was over $365M. My

previous knowledge of the company only came from seeing them driving around

Australia and having hired one several times while driving around the beautiful

country side of New Zealand. I was surprised to see that they operated out of Europe

and North America with North America having more rentals than Australia.

The profit and loss statement has an expense called external acquisition costs. I

have never heard of this cost before and in 2017 it was $1,664,000 increasing from

$0 in 2016 then to slowly decrease through to $158,000 in 2019. This has confused

me as there is nothing in the notes to explain where this cost comes from. I can only

assume that in 2017 they started purchasing a lot of assets which dramatically

increased their costs. I am having difficulty understanding where I could look to find

out more information on this expense. I thought of looking if there were dramatic

changes in property plant and equipment in case they had made large purchases in

2017. There was an increase but it left me with more questions as the increase was

a dramatic. From $129,625,000 in 2016 to $381,973,000 in 2019 for property, plant

and equipment, so my first assumption of external acquisition costs being that they

purchased a lot of assets in 2017 and less in the following year was incorrect,

otherwise the assets would have increased and decreased in a similar fashion to

coincide with the expense.

An important area as well as a challenge for the firm is the increased amount of

trades and other payables in the statement of financial position. This amount has

more than tripled over the last four years to $33,298,000 in 2019. The notes on this

liability state that these amounts are usually paid within 30 days but I could not find

where there is proof of this or exactly what percentage is not paid within 30 days. As

a company I can imagine they would not want to have a bad relationship with their

suppliers by not paying their debts on time. If they are paying within 30 days, then I


guess they are successful in meeting that challenge to then keep the suppliers

happy to be able to continue business.

Something that I find confusing is for the 2019 year they have changed the financial

statements and revenue section. Sales of service and sales of goods are no longer

an item and revenue from contracts with customers and rental income is now in its

place as a new accounting policy. It states that the new policy is for when the control

of the goods and services is transferred to the customer at an amount that reflects

the consideration to which the consolidated entity expects to be entitled in exchange

for transferring goods or services to a customer. In my understanding this is just a

reflection of the movement of sales for the company.

Another key challenge for the first is soft sales of their second hand vehicles world-

wide. This has been offset by a higher than expected increase in rental demand.

Although I feel that the soft sales markets need to be taken seriously and could be

critical as when every part of the business is succeeding then there is no need for

another area of the business to have to exceed to be able to make up for the areas

that are not doing well. I believe the strategy Apollo has taken on is to retain these

vehicles that did not sell for the following season which then reduced the purchasing

requirements, that would have needed to take place if these vehicles were sold. It is

stated that they were able to achieve this strategy due to the flexibility of their

business model.

News articles, blogs and videos

Some negative reports on TripAdvisor. Not painting the company in good light.

https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowTopic-g255055-i120-k6488689-

Apollo_motorhomes_BEWARE-Australia.html

Video of some of the fleet and what you can see in a motorhome/van

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjCTa6toRAO-xLs26TDJ1nA

A great video with a how to guide on a few motor home models

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5mlZ-o4ZBM

Some specials Apollo has on offer


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5mlZ-o4ZBM

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjCTa6toRAO-xLs26TDJ1nA

https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowTopic-g255055-i120-k6488689-Apollo_motorhomes_BEWARE-Australia.html

https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowTopic-g255055-i120-k6488689-Apollo_motorhomes_BEWARE-Australia.html

https://old.apollocamper.com/specials.aspx

Three favourite Blogs

These have been posted to the forum as specified in requirements:

Kiah Frahm’s Blog

https://kiahfrahm.wixsite.com/blog

When opening Kiah’s blog, I had to have a laugh. The first words that popped up

where “The Reckoning”. I think we all feel like that at some stage during the term. I

really enjoyed the view ability of her page and that she added a personal photo so I

could get more of an idea who I was communicating with. Also, the way she set out

her KCQs with headings such as the chapters. This made an easy read. I also felt

like she didn’t overdo this step. She was able to add some good aspects of

confusion and agreement. An overall enjoyable read. I did leave a comment and

have discussion on Kiah’s blog but was unable to paste a snip as proof. She is using

something other than WordPress and it is not allowing me to see comments.

The evidence of Kiah’s personal photo on her blog:


https://kiahfrahm.wixsite.com/blog

https://old.apollocamper.com/specials.aspx

Tia McGrath

https://tiasblogweb.wordpress.com/

I enjoyed reading through Tia’s blog as it was easy to navigate. I was also blown

away with the depth in which she wrote her KCQs. I do not know how she managed

to complete such as long draft as six pages in Step 6 within the suggested timeframe

as I had completed much less and went over the suggested four hours. I was a really

good read and I can’t wait to see what Tia brings for the rest of the assignment.

My evidence and comment on Tia’s blog so far:


https://tiasblogweb.wordpress.com/

Jemma Ahmann

https://jemmyahmann28.wordpress.com/

Jemma had another different idea on KCQ’s and I felt was more personal and added

more emotion into her understand of the readings. I like how she linked this being a

capstone unit to the importance of the significant link it has with being able to

understand a firm. Jemma also wrote a lot of personal information on her blog which

really helped to get to know her and where she has come from. She also included a

photo of herself which is nice to see whom I am talking to.

Evidence of Jemma’s Blog and my comment:


https://jemmyahmann28.wordpress.com/

Conversations had about differences and similarities with others financial statements


Have not received a reply from Marc at time of submission.


Finally, after looking through other people’s firms and financial statements, I was

surprised to not see any great differences. I think mostly, my company is trying to be

a bit too fancy with their annual statement which makes it a little harder to follow and

read. If they were to simplify it more with less pictures and graphs in the beginning,

then the information would be more easily accessed.

Studiosity

I have used this service several times before and almost every time I have been

surprised with how much I missed while proof reading. Some of the people at

studiosity are amazing and pick up on every little thing. I have learnt so much about

my grammar and sentence structure. I know that I have improved on my writing

because of the studiosity team. The feedback this time was defiantly useful,

especially where I should be using more punctuation. I will continue to use this

service and share my thought with others.


Step 5

Trying to find my finance income was hard. I knew it had to be there but where? I

spent many hours searching through each year’s statements as well as some

research to try and narrow down what finance income could be in case I was missing

something. It was a very frustrating process. I asked for advice on the facebook page

which helped as well as Martin replying to an email. I eventually came to an answer

and I am really hoping it is correct as I spent a lot of time getting to the end result. I

was also able to ehlp out one of the other students as she was having a similar

issue. Evidence is below.


I also needed help once finishing my restating. I was careful to not have missed any

lines and was following Maria’s video step by step. I asked on facebook for help as

my figures were not balancing and I was lost as I had been following the steps so


slowly and intently. I had learnt a lot from this as I wasted a lot of time which didn’t

need to be. I had accidentally double entered some figures. If I have not just checked

ever line was entered but also checked the figures, then I would have picked this up.

It was kindly pointed out by one of the other students. As for the amounts not

balancing. I hadn’t watched through to the end of the video. If I had watched another

30 seconds I would have seen that Maria had actually made a mistake in the

calculating which she explained at the end. I had also made this same mistake and

would have figured it out if I had just watched the end of the video and not expected

Maria to be 100% correct. My lesson learnt is that anyone can make a mistake. Even

the lecturers and to have more confidence in myself to just spend some time to have

a look and see where something may have gone wrong. Below are the

conversations from facebook.


One thing I did learn, and I do not know how I didn’t pick this up before is that my

company was only floated on the share market in November of 2016. I found this

really interesting but couldn’t find much information as to why they decided to take


this step. I read in some online articles that they made some big promises of profits

in the coming years which would have been very enticing for the investors.

I defiantly found this task easier than when I first completed it 3 years ago as my first

unit in my degree. I was so stressed out completing it last time as I had never heard

of most accounting terms let alone using excel. It was all so new to me. I still spent

many hours completing this spreadsheet but it was so much less stressful and I was

actually able to take some of the information on board and hopefully retain it for the

future.


STEP 7

Step 7 is the ratio analysis and has been completed within the spreadsheet. This

took me much longer than the estimated 4 hours. I had some communications with

Kiah Frahm’s about the difference between our ratios. I wanted to try and complete

this step without looking at the exempla’s as I thought that might help me to

understand each ratio better and what it was trying to say. I did end up looking at the

exempla’s as there was only so much that I could complete as I found this step quite

tedious and technical as I still struggle with some of the terminologies and what they

mean.


STEP 8

Feedback From: Heidi McCormick

Feedback To: .

My Comments

Step 1

KCQs

Step 2

KCQs

Step 3

Background information on company

Comments/KCQs

Comments on other’s blogs

Step 4

Input company’s financial statements

Step 5

Restated Income statement

Restated Balance sheet

Commentary & discussion with others

Step 6

KCQs

Step 7

Calculation of ratios

Overall ASS#1



Feedback To: .

My Comments

Step 1

KCQs

Step 2

KCQs

Step 3


Comments/KCQs


Step 4


Step 5




Step 6

KCQs

Step 7


Overall ASS#1


Feedback To: .


My Comments

Step 1

KCQs

Step 2

KCQs

Step 3


Comments/KCQs


Step 4


Step 5




Step 6

KCQs

Step 7


Overall ASS#1


heidimccormickblog.files.wordpress.com · web viewif i had watched another 30 seconds i would have...

Documents