BMBA 9453 Fall 2021 Page 1 Financial Accounting Project S

BMBA 9453 Fall 2021 Page 1 Financial Accounting Project
Seton Hall University
BMBA 9453
Fall 2021 Async
BMBA 9452 Financial Accounting Project
In this project, you will use your understanding of financial
accounting to prepare an analysis of a real
company's financial statements. To prepare your analysis, you
will use Microsoft Excel and data from the
internet. Then, you will communicate the results of your
analysis in a written report. Thus, this project will
help you build your critical thinking, technology, and
communication skills.
This project is a required component of BMBA 9453,
Accounting for Decision Makers. To receive a passing
grade in the course, you must complete and submit the entire
project by the required deadline.
The Appendix provides more detailed instructions.
Part 1 – The Financial Statements (10 points) – Due Week 3
Sunday11:59 pm
A. Download the project’s Excel spreadsheet template from
Blackboard.
B. Download the income statement and balance sheet from the

SEC.GOV website and copy into the
appropriate tabs within the spreadsheet template.
The four financial statements are the Balance Sheet, Income
Statement, Statement of Changes in
Stockholders’ Equity, and Cash Flow Statement, although they
may be titled with different names.
Part 2 – First part of the Excel spreadsheet template (25 points)
– Due Week 4 Sunday 11:59 pm
A. Complete the horizontal (common size) and vertical
(variance) analysis for the balance sheet and income
statements and the average balances for the balance sheet only
in the appropriate areas highlighted in the
Excel spreadsheet template.
B. On the “Financial Ratios” tab:
a. Provide your company’s financial ratios for the current &
prior year-end (Columns F & G) using
formulas referencing back to either the “Balance Sheet Current
& Prior” tab or the “Income
Statement” tab.
b. Provide the financial ratios for a competitor of the company
or its industry by calculating this off-
line and manually inputting the results into the appropriate cell
in Column H.
c. Compare your company’s current year-end financial ratio to
the industry or competitor’s ratios
and select from the drop-down provided in column I as to

whether your company’s ratios are
“Stronger,” “Weaker” or the “Same.”
Calculating amounts outside of this template and manually
typing them in will result in a points deduction.
Part 3 – Written Report (65 points) Due Week 7 Sunday 11:59
pm
Prepare a written report about your company covering the eight
items outlined in the Appendix to support a
conclusion of buying, selling, or holding an investment in your
company. Take a long-term view.
Appendix
Steps for Downloading Financial Statements from SEC.GOV
Website & Completing First
Part of Excel Template
Screenshots and step-by-step instructions below for easy access
to Form 10-K’s which are automatically
downloaded into excel for you directly from the SEC’s
(Security and Exchange Commission) website.
Step 1: Log onto www.sec.gov

Step 2: Click on “Filings” – “Company Search Filings”
http://www.sec.gov/
Step 3: Enter your company’s full name or ticker symbol under
“Company and Person Lookup,” and then select the
SEARCH button.
Step 4 In the box titled “Filing Type:” type in 10-K (Important
you need to input exactly as “10-K” including the
dash, no spaces.)
Step 5: The latest 10-K will appear on the top. You will need
this one and the one below it (NOT 10-K/A
should that appear). Select the corresponding button next to
the first 10-k listed, which is the
most recent one filed with SEC.

Step 6: On the next screen, click on the link “View Excel
Document”.
Step 7: Choose “open file” option in the dialog box that
appears on your screen and select OK.
This will result in in the Excel spreadsheet containing your
company’s financial statements appearing on your
screen (as shown below). Save this file on your hard drive.
Step 8: Go to Blackboard and select under the tab
“Assignments” the file “Part 2 Template. This will open the
Excel template you will be required to complete for this project.
Complete the “Cover Page” tab and save this file
on your hard drive. [Last name_Company name, e.g., Mishler -
Ford Motor Company.doc]
Step 9: Return back to the downloaded SEC file containing

your company’s financial statements and locate the
company’s consolidated balance sheet. This may have a
different name such as consolidated financial position or
something similar. You should be able to identify it by what’s
presented on the statement (i.e., Assets, Liabilities,
and Stockholders’ Equity).
Step 10 Highlight & copy the line descriptions and balances for
the most recent & prior year. This will most likely
be columns A, B & C on this tab. However, you may find other
columns inserted in between this information. If so,
you should ignore these additional columns and copy on these
three columns individual.
Step 11 Next return to the Excel template, and select the tab
labeled “Balance Sheet Current & Prior.” Select cell
A4 and paste the information you have copied in Step 10.
Repeat this process for the income statement. However, you
will be selecting & copying the line item descriptions
as well as the reported balances for all three years (current,
prior & two years back) as oppose two years because
of the available of this information in the most recent
downloaded financial statements.
Select

cell A4
Step 12 Because the balance sheet only has two years of
information and you need three, you will need to go back
to the SEC website and download the second 10-K file listed for
your company.
Step 13 From the downloaded file, you will only need to copy &
paste the consolidated balance sheet into the
Excel Template in the same manner as described in Steps 10 &
11 above. However you will post this information
in the tab labeled “Balance Sheet Prior & 2 yrs back, again by
selecting cell A4 of this worksheet.
Step 14 With the balance sheet and income statements
downloaded from the SEC website and transfer to the
Excel Template, the next step is to link the amounts presented
for the balance sheet from two years back from the
“Balance Sheet Prior&2 yrs back” tab to the “Balance Sheet
Current & Prior” tab by simply inserting and equal sign
(=) in a balance sheet line item listed on the “Balance Sheet
Current & Prior” tab and selecting the corresponding
Select
cell A4

cell for the same line item listed on the “Balance Sheet Prior &
2 years back” tab. BE CAREFUL, line descriptions
may have changed between years. If so, you should adjust
accordingly.
Step 15 With all three years of balances now presented on the
“Balance Sheet Current & Prior” tab and the
“Income Statement” tab, your next step is to input the correct
formulas using the appropriate balances reported
in columns B, C & D into the cells for the “COMMON SIZE”
statements, (columns F, G, & H), “VARIANCE” (columns
J, K, L, & M), and for the “Balance Sheet Current & Prior” tab
only, the “AVERAGE BALANCES” (columns O & P).
IN COMPLETING THESE FORMULAS, YOU MUST ONLY
USE REFERENCES TO THE AMOUNTS PREPORTED IN
COLUMNS B, C & D. DO NOT CALCUATE THE REQUIRED
FORMULA OFF-LINE AND MANUALLY TYPE THE
RESULLTS
INTO THIS TEMPLATE! POINTS WILL BE DEDUCTED IF
YOU DO SO.
Step 16 Return to Blackboard and upload the Excel template
using the reference found under the “Project
Assignment” tab
Appendix

Steps for Completing the Second Part
With the balance sheet and income statements downloaded from
the SEC website and transfer to the appropriate
tabs within the Excel Template, the follow steps must be
completed for Part 3 of this project,.
Step 1 Open the Excel spreadsheet template that you submitted
for Part 2 of this project and go to the “Financial
Ratios” tab.
Step 2 Calculate the financial ratios presented in this tab for the
Current Year-end, and Prior Year-end by provided
in columns F & G a formula that references to the appropriate
amounts reported the “Balance Sheet Current &
Prior” tab and the “Income Statement” tab.
Calculating amounts outside of this template and manually
typing them in will result in a points deduction.
Step 3 Provide the financial ratios for the industry or, if your
instructor permits, a competitor of your company.
These ratios are calculating off-line with their results manually
inputting into the appropriate cell in Column H.
For the industry, the related financial ratios can be found at
www.msn.com/money, by following these steps
once you on this initial page for this website:
1. Locate the following search box with words Quote Search.
Not the one with the words “Search

the web.”
http://www.msn.com/money
Within this box, type the name of your company. The “ticker
symbol,” along with your company’s
name will begin to appear.
2. Select your company’s name. The latest stock quote along
with a graph presenting the stock price
movement for your company will appear on your screen. In
between the quote and graph is a
menu bar with the SUMMARY item highlighted. Select the
menu item ANALYSIS.
3. Scroll down until you come to a second menu bar with the
option FINANCIAL HEALTH, TRADING
STATISTICS, and MANAGEMENT EFFECTIVENESS. The
option FINANCIAL HEALTH will be
highlighted. Right below this menu bar is the title of your
industry. To the right are several ratios
you will be looking for. The last column covers those related to
your industry. Note: As you
change the size of the screen, this website provides more or less
information. If you cannot find all
of the ratios that you are looking for, try changing the screen

size to 70% or less. Additional ratios
may appear.
4. Next select from this menu bar, the third option
MANAGEMENT EFFECTIVENESS. The remaining
industry ratios will appear.
You may not find on msn.com/money website the following
industry ratios: (i) Return on sales (ROS), and (ii)
Debt ratio. If that is the case, you should look to other sources
such as Yahoo, Bloomberg, etc. If you still
cannot find the ratio, follow up with your instructor.
If you cannot identify industry ratios, use the ratios of a major
competitor. These can be obtained in the same
manner as that used for your company. However, this would
only be applicable for the current year ratios and
you will only need to retrieve the necessary information to
calculate these ratios off-line.
Step 4 Compare your company’s current year-end financial ratio
as presented in column F to the industry or
competitor’s ratios you presented in column H. Select from the
drop-down provided in column I the correct
response as to whether your company’s ratios are “Stronger,”
“Weaker” or the “Same.”

Step 5 Save the template on your hard drive and post to
Blackboard using the reference found under the “Project
Assignment” tab labeled “Part 2”
Appendix
The Written Report
Write a minimum ten-page report single spaced addressing each
of the following questions about your company.
Limit #1 to one page and focus on the ratios, risks, and ethics:
1. How does your company make money? What industry is your
company in? Who are some of your
company’s competitors? What makes your company stand out
from its competitors?
2. How profitable is your company? Why? Your explanations
should refer to the appropriate financial
ratios and the variances between years. In addition, you should
discuss any significant differences
noted between your company’s ratios and those for the industry
or major competitor.
3. How liquid is your company? Use the appropriate financial
statement ratios in helping to explain your

company’s liquidity? You should go beyond the current ratio.
4. How solvent is your company? How does debt leverage help
or hinder your company? Do you believe
that the company should have more or less debt?
5. How efficient is your company? Refer to the appropriate
ratios that support your discussion.
6. What risks does your company face? What could go wrong,
and what are your assessments of the
likelihood of these risks? A review of the company’s Annual
Report should provide you with the
needed information for this discussion.
7. Name at least one ethical issue related to your company.
Describe social benefits or possible negative
risks associated with this issue. How might this issue impact
your financial analysis? What is your
company doing to address or prevent this issue?
8. What is your overall assessment of your company as an
investment? Would you buy, sell or hold their
stock? Support your answer based on your responses to the
previous questions.
Organization. Your report should be organized in a logical
manner. Do not simply describe the formulas for
the various ratios but discuss the drivers behind the balances
used in these formulas. In addition, you should
get to your point and get to it quickly. Space wasted with
obvious and unnecessary statements will negatively
impact your grade.
Graphs. Include a minimum of two graphs in your written

report.
Ratios. Use the financial ratios from the project Excel sheet and
from week 2 of our course.
Professional Quality. Prepare your report as a professional -
looking document for which you were paid a great
deal of money. Be careful with grammar and spelling; business
leaders have a zero tolerance toward basic
spelling and grammar mistakes. Use Microsoft Word, single-
space the type, and leave one-inch margins.
Proper Referencing. Copying or rewording another report
without proper citation and quotation is
considered to be plagiarism. In the body of the paper, include
proper references to all written materials and
internet sources, with a complete page of sources used.
Submit a digital copy of the written report in BlackBoard. The
document should be saved as Last
name_Company name.doc [e.g., Mishler - Ford Motor
Company]
Written reports are graded based on the comprehensive coverage
and accuracy of your analysis, use of a clear
and concise writing style that is easy to understand, and
professional appearance. Tables, graphs, charts
should be provided, only if they are relevant and add clarity.
They do not count towards the required pages.
MGT/362 v3
Copyright 2017 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved.

Scenario: Jack’s Dilemma
Jack White is the newly appointed general manager of the pet
food division of Strickland Corporation. He
has completed a strategic review that has convinced him that the
division needs to undergo rapid and
substantial change in a number of areas, given the recent
strategic moves of key competitors.
Although Jack is new, he is familiar enough with the company
to know that there will be significant
resistance to the changes from a number of quarters. He also
suspects that some of this resistance will
come from people with the capacity to act in ways that could
seriously impede successful change.
Jack reflects on the situation. He believes that it is important to
introduce the proposed changes soon, but
he also recognizes that if he acts too quickly, he’ll have
virtually no time to have a dialogue with staff
about the proposed changes, much less involve them in any
significant way.
One option is to act speedily and to make it clear that
“consequences” will follow for anyone not
cooperating. He certainly has the power to act on such a threat.
The risk, Jack knows, is that even if no
one shows outright resistance, there’s a big difference between
not cooperating and acting in a manner
that reflects commitment. He knows that he needs the
cooperation of key groups of staff, and that
sometimes “minimum-level compliance” can be as unhelpful as
resistance when it comes to implementing
change. “But maybe I’m exaggerating this problem,” he thinks
to himself. “Maybe I should just go ahead
with the change. If people don’t like it, they can leave. If they

stay, they’ll come around.”
But Jack is not sure. He considers another option. Maybe he
should spend more time on building up
support at least among key groups of managers and staff, if not
more broadly across the organization.
“Maybe,” he reflects, “the need to change is not quite as
immediate as I think. I just know that I’d feel a
whole lot better if this consultation could happen quickly.”

BMBA 9453 Fall 2021 Page 1 Financial Accounting Project S

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