Just doing a bit of wandering around the stats for my site and thought you'd like to see a listing of where all of my visitors come from: it's an impressive list! .com Commercial .org Non Profit Making Organisations .ee Estonia .pk Pakistan .jm Jamaica .bt Bhutan .uk United Kingdom .sa Saudi Arabia .id Indonesia .bz Belize .sk Slovakia .si Slovenia .edu USA Higher Education .us United States .tt Trinidad and Tobago .ba Bosnia-Herzegovina .pg Papua New Guinea .lk Sri Lanka .au Australia .gov USA Government .kz Kazakhstan .int International Treaty Organisations .lb Lebanon .na Namibia .ge Georgia .be Belgium .zw Zimbabwe .lc Saint Lucia .cc Cocos Keeling Islands .gp Guadeloupe .sg Singapore .za South Africa .mu Mauritius .hr Croatia .lu Luxembourg .py Paraguay .ca Canada .hk Hong Kong .cz Czech Republic .co Colombia .ma Morocco .to Tonga .nz New Zealand .in India .hu Hungary .am Armenia .kr South Korea .np Nepal .nl Netherlands .mx Mexico .ro Romania .ae United Arab Emirates .bg Bulgaria .is Iceland .jp Japan .mil USA Military .ph Philippines .vi Virgin Islands USA .do Dominican Republic .ni Nicaragua .kg Kyrgyzstan .ch Switzerland .no Norway .bn Brunei Darussalam .uy Uruguay .tv Tuvalu .my Malaysia .mt Malta .tw Taiwan .yu Yugoslavia .ky Cayman Islands .bb Barbados .de Germany .dk Denmark .tr Turkey .zm Zambia .fo Faroe Islands .gt Guatemala .fr France .pt Portugal .ke Kenya .uz Uzbekistan .gy Guyana .ir Iran .br Brazil .ru Russia .lt Lithuania .mk Macedonia Former Yugoslav Republic .sb Solomon Islands .mz Mozambique .gr Greece .at Austria .lv Latvia .tz Tanzania .dm Dominica .bm Bermuda .ie Ireland .pl Poland .ar Argentina .cl Chile .ve Venezuela .cn China .es Spain .th Thailand .eg Egypt .cr Costa Rica .gi Gibraltar .ls Lesotho .se Sweden .fi Finland .ua Ukraine .fj Fiji .jo Jordan .ws Samoa .it Italy .cy Cyprus .il Israel .ug Uganda .bw Botswana .kh Cambodia .vu Vanuatu .vn Vietnam .rw Rwanda .pe Peru Hope that list looks OK on your monitor! DW

I have just spent the best part of half a day putting together an update of my amazon.com case study. I'll work on the final version over the next 24 hours ... watch this space. If you go to sports events to enjoy yourself, spare a bit of time for the person or persons unknown who are there with you and whose function is to record this kind of data, in this case about football in England: quickest goal latest goal quickest goal by a substitute quickest booking goals from outside the penalty area most offsides player most offsides team highest fouls to cards ratio lowest fouls to cards ratio most free kicks won most shots without scoring most shots without scoring: team most shots in match: team fewst shots in match: team most shots in match: player fewst shots in match: player most shots on target: player most shots on target: team most shots off target: player most shots off target: team and so it goes on. You don't have to know anything about football in England to know that collecting such data is a sad thing to do, surely. After all, it is only data and surely cannot be turned into information ... can it? DW

By accident I think I found a really useful site that has reading lists and links for dozens and dozens of accounting topics: maintained by Chris Lamb, I wrote to congratulate him on his work! 25/11/02 Dear Chris, I just came across your site for the first time and think you are providing a very useful service for students, academics and practitioners. I haven't had chance to look at everything you have done so if I have missed something, my apologies. Maybe you would consider taking a look at my own site ww.duncanwil.co.uk with a view to seeing it as a useful resource that can be added to your own set of links and suggestions. Best wishes DW 27/11/02 Duncan Not so much a site as a small corner of one. I've linked in to your ZBB page and will be having a further look to see what matches the topics I have covered. Some of the questions you have posted sound suspiciously like courseworks here but then maybe students throught the UK are doing corporate governance etc. Have you seen the Onepine site covering management thinkers? [See my next Blog entry for details ... scroll down a bit]. Nice potted summaries with lots of references and links for the conscientious student. Chris I responded: 27/11/02 Thanks for that Chris, I was a lecturer for many years but am now back in commercial management accounting, training and consultancy, albeit mainly overseas: Bosnia at the moment for example. What you see on my site is a mixture of what I did, what I do and what people ask me about. I get a lot of questions these days as you can see from my WeBlog, link on my home page, and although many of the questions are from students a large proportion come from teachers and the rest from practising accountants and business people. As far as students are concerned, I give help that ranges from lists like those on your site all the way through to more extensive and detailed work. However, since my work is essentially in the public domain, what I do is open for all to see and so I always tell my visitors that if ever they use my work they MUST acknowledge it in full: I also share my work with teachers and trainers around the globe in an attempt to minimise the pure lift by students! As for corporate governance, this does seem to becoming more popular in UK universities and the professional accountancy bodies are picking up on it too. I know some people refuse to answer what they see as students' assignments, as you can see from the AccountingWEB discussion I mention in my Blog; but since my calling was teaching and communicating, I find it impossible to refuse just about all offers of help! Thanks for the ZBB link and I hope you'll find a lot more worthy of your consideration, too. I also wrote a few things over at Between the Sheets that some of your visitors could well find appealing: interactive spreadsheets that are, again, completely free of charge and they are also fully downloadable! Aimed at entry level students and practitioners, they are not necessarily rocket science! To go with the spreadsheets, there are also A general guide to the spreadsheets A glossary to accompany all of the spreadsheets A teacher's introduction A student's introduction Using spreadsheets Thanks also for the onepine link, I'll take a look at that now. Best wishes and further, 27/11/02 Dear Chris, If onepine is your site, I have to say that you have done a brilliant job. This must be the best single public domain collection of its kind that there is. I have skipped around a bit since I'm not that deeply into management fads and fancies (sorry if that sounds cynical) and liked the way that the Tom Peters link on the home page goes back in a circular loop to the top of the home page where everyone else's work starts. I have little time for Peters but have to admire his newsclipping service that has made him fabulously wealthy via the books he turned it all into. The link to leaderaid on http://www.onepine.info/lead1.htm is dead DW

Ever come across something so good you almost fall over yourself with excitement? Here's something for students and teachers of organisational behaviour to drool over: people organisations theory models concepts @onepine It's got all of these people chris argyris, warren bennis, chester barnard, blake & mouton, bion, meredith belbin, nancy dixon, gerard egan, henri fayol, fielder, mary parker follett, charles handy, edward hall, geert hofstede, hersey & blanchard, peter honey, juran, rosabeth moss kanter, kolb, kurt lewin, michael lissack, abraham maslow, elton mayo, albert mehrabian, merton, mintzberg, gareth morgan, tom peters, quinn & rohrbaugh , reg revans, carl rogers, ed schein, peter senge, fwtaylor, fons trompenaars, bwtuckman, richard swurman, karl weick For each of these people you will be taken to a page that has information, links, books, essays about ... all you need There's also a timeline showing the development of management thinking since 500BC Well worth a look! DW

With some really good quality help from www.drmath.com I finally got to grips with Trefor's non square simultaneous equations matrix and solved it. Trouble is, Trefor's email address keeps bouncing and I can't tell him the good news! Anyone know Trefor??? DW

Hi Duncan, I have been trying to solve this equation and diagram for over a week now and am still at a loss. If at all possible can you help me? Here goes: P = 20 -2Q, how do I find the mid-point elasticity formulae to determine the price of elasticity demand when the rice changes from five to six dollars? I'm finding it difficult as to where the -2Q goes and where it goes on the diagram. Talk about confusing. I should have paid more attention at school with algebra but then who was to know that I wanted to get into business back then. Thanks A Hello again and thanks for the question. Depending on the level you are working at the answer if one of two possibilities You can apply the basic formula of Price Elasticity of Demand (PED) = % change in quantity/% change in price which in this case is ((7 – 7.5)/7.5 * 100)/((6-5)/5)*100) = 6.667%/20% = -0.3333 Or Mid Point PED = (change in quantity/mid quantity)/change in price/mid price) = (-0.5/7.25)/(1/5.5) = -0.37931 Different answers because the formulae are a little bit different. Two pages to help you: PED is an interactive spreadsheet file that I wrote for www.bized.ac.uk a couple of years ago … step by step help for you Mid point PED same site but I didn’t write this one. It’s a nice looking and very clear power point presentation and the bit you need is very, very clear: just keep pressing the page down key until you get to the sheets you need, not many! I hope this is helpful! DW

Sorry to keep bothering you Nicholas, but take a look at this, too, as it could help you with some of the practical aspects of your essay: Financial Reporting Review Panel: "FINDINGS OF THE FINANCIAL REPORTING REVIEW PANEL IN RESPECT OF THE ACCOUNTS OF LIBERTY INTERNATIONAL PLC FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2000 " DW

Nicholas wrote and wrote Hi, I am an accounting student in UK and having a slight problems regarding my Financial reporting essay. It is like this ....'use your understanding of important aspects of both SSAP2 /accruals concept and user conflict, as an analytical tool to expose gaps and contradictions in SSAP19 Accounting for investment Propertise.' Well I may not know if you could help me with is as I could not fully write an essay like this and also went to check on ur web and wondering if you could tell me how to approach this 'motion' and I would really appreciate your help. I may need you to direct me and what shopuld I do and if you can could you let me know?? NH My answer was: Hello Nicholas, The key to success in such exercises comes in two parts: having the knowledge you need by having read all of the relevant standards and anything else you can find in the books and journals relating to them having a good plan of what to say and how you are going to say it To some extent your planning is the most important part of your work. In this case, make sure you begin by reading the relevant pages on my site in the financial accounting section on concepts, conventions and the contradictions in some of those concepts: this includes a general view and an up to date ASB view of these issues. SSAP 2 is old hat now so be careful how you refer to that. I have to confess that I am not that familiar with SSAP 19 seeing as how my focus is on IAS these days: feel free to send me the standard if you have it electronically and I’ll sort out what I think you need. I am not in the UK at the moment and don’t have that standard with me. My pages almost give you the answer to the first part of the question “'use your understanding of important aspects of both SSAP2 /accruals concept and user conflict” and you should start by discussing (and that’s not just writing a list, but really discussing) the issues that you think are important then find the gaps and contradiction in SSAP 19 that arise from the first part of your discussion … what are they, do you know? Did you lecturer mention these in his lectures or tutorials? If not, what do your friends think? Do a search on the Web for SSAP 19 and its problems … look around! Finally, you need to discuss why you chose the gaps and contradictions you did and give your proofs of, or support, for believing that they are gaps and contradictions. Of course, your essay needs to start with an introduction and finish with a conclusion and possibly ideas for further work by the ASB to tidy up any mess you think you’ve found; and that might include a statement of how important you think this issue is. If this issue is mainly an academic one you should say so. If you think the issue is very important and that it leads to serious under or overstatement of asset values then you should say so … justify your answers too. I hope you find this helpful Nicholas and feel free to contact me again. I hope this response is not too late for you and don’t forget to tell me how you get on. Best wishes DW Then ... Nicholas, just came across this which MIGHT help a bit: Chris Lamb's links and resource suggestions BTW, I just spotted the Hyperlinks button on the WeBlog edit site ... sorry for previous difficulties! DW

The British Embassy Incident I did a bit more walking around Sarajevo around midday yesterday and took some more good snaps. I came across the British Embassy by accident and decided I'd snap that, too. Big mistake! I did see the guard's box outside the building and I did look to see if there were any guards inside: I saw none as the blinds were closed. The Germany Embassy next door had guards in their box and they were there for all to see. So, I felt free to snap away. I took one pic that included a corner of the building including This is the British Embassy plaque and the Union Flag on a flag pole and then a started to amble down the street to take a picture of the British crest ... lion, unicorn, honi soit qui mal y pense and all that ... when TWO guards piled out of their box. Gulp! I smiled and nodded and made to walk on nonchalantly but they called me back! I opened with "I'm British and this is the British Embassy so I wanted a photo." One of them asked me to show him what I'd done and I did. Hardly the world's most stunning pic. The guard asked for my ID ... I've lived abroad for over 14 years now and I still haven't got used to the idea that the rest of the world demands that everyone carries their passport, birth certificate and letter from their mother to say what a good boy I always was ... I had nothing: no passport, no birth certificate, no letter from my mother, not even my business card. It's in the office, er, the hotel, I blurted. He then asked "Can you trust me?" I think he meant "Can I trust you?" but his English was better than my Bosnian so I simply implored "Yes!" He looked at his mate and asked, in English for some reason, "Can you trust me?": his mate looked at me sideways and said nothing, maybe his English was better than his mate's and he realised that I had them on the language front! This looked like good news so I said a hale and hearty "Sorry!", made my excuses and left. I continued my tour of that part of the city with a hunted look and had become possibly the most dodgy looking photographer they have seen on the streets of Sarajevo for many a long day! This morning I put my passport in my jacket pocket as I left for work. DW

Sunny Sarajevo we call it! I've been here almost a week but because of work committments I was only able to begin exploring the city this weekend. I can confrim that the city is built in a very steep sided valley the bottom of which very narrow. This means that the maority of all buildings are on the hillsides and I made it my business to take a hike up one of the hills yesterday. Eesh! As I was getting to the steepest part I came across an old lady who'd been to buy her bread and she was making her way home: now I don't suppose she was going too far and it didn't look to bad but clearly not everyone could get used to such climbing just to take the bread home! Since I don't like hills I tend to walk up them very quickly so I passed everyone else who was walking in the same direction as me: old and young alike. So, it was all good exercise and I took some nice snaps, too. As a result of these exertions I am sure I feel better but my right knee's giving me jip and this morning my lower back said it didn't like what I'd done to it! I need to get out more so I'll be doing that in a moment, too, as I tackle a hill on the other side today! DW

A while ago I worked with an email friend down under (that's New Zealand, in this case, and Australia for anyone who doesn't know!) a couple of problems from College ... I didn't do everything, just helped out and here's the good news: Hi Duncan I wish to thank you for your help with my accounting studies and learning. I have a clearer understanding of accounting now than I did before. I have only received my results from my exam held on the 12th Nov and was very surprised and pleased to have received a B+ overall. I thought I would share this with you as you played a major part in my learning. I am now doing Economic Environment 120 Paper and am finding it a bit of struggle but hey I will get there. Again thank you very much. A There ... it pays to talk to duncanwil! DW

Searchmore came back to me with a couple of supplementary, and interesting, questions: Dear Duncan Thank you for the reply to my query. However I've discovered further issues with regard to this Crocodile valuation dilemma. We don't have an active market for the live crocodiles ( both consumable and bearer biological assets) and presumably paragraph 30 applies. The question is : 1 - What cost do we attribute to the consumable bearer biological assets and to the consumable biological assets? The main costs incurred is feeding , treatment costs and cleaning costs for the holding pens coupled with the direct labour. 2 -How should we best present the two classes of the biological assets in the balance sheet? Regards Searchmore My replies are: Dear Searchmore Question 1: IAS 41 paragraphs 30 – 33 show that the IASC people never thought about what might happen in Zimbabwe, did they? Their message in these paragraphs is quite clear: your problem is only an acceptable problem the first time you try to solve it, then it's plain sailing! “There is a presumption that fair value can be measured reliably for a biological asset. However, that presumption can be rebutted only on initial recognition for a biological asset for which market-determined prices or values are not available and for which alternative estimates of fair value are determined to be clearly unreliable. In such a case, that biological asset should be measured at its cost less any accumulated depreciation and any accumulated impairment losses. Once the fair value of such a biological asset becomes reliably measurable, an enterprise should measure it at its fair value less estimated point-of-sale costs.” IAS 41:30 As a cost accountant, I have always taken the view that IAS 41 should adopt a cost based valuation basis anyway, but the IASC have decided otherwise. Paragraph 33 helps us here: “In determining cost, accumulated depreciation and accumulated impairment losses, an enterprise considers IAS 2, Inventories, IAS 16, Property, Plant and Equipment, and IAS 36, Impairment of Assets.” IAS 41:33 Take the view that you would for any other product that goes through a process, such as manufacturing furniture from wood or youghurt, cheese and butter from milk and so on and accumulate your costs from there. I would keep it as simple and realistic as possible. Question 2: IAS 41 is fairly clear here and I think that as long as you are able to accumulate the costs of the different classes of asset successfully then just take a look at the specimen balance sheet in Appendix A of IAS 41 for guidance. I hope you find these comments helpful. Best wishes DW

Margaret wrote again, I'm happy to say with this: Hello Duncan I have chosen Sommerfield and Sainsbury for my Report regarding the ASB's Statement of principles. What do you think? Do you think I should change them? Thank you here's my response Dear Margaret, The key point to bear in mind when choosing companies to analyse is whether you have full access to the information you need. Sainsbury data is freely available, I know; and I imagine the same is true of Somerfield, although I don't think I've ever studied them. You've chosen two companies in the same industry: is that within the brief you've been given, I can't remember. Not a bad idea but companies from different industries might give you something more interesting. On the other hand, the retail industry is fascinating from an accounting and logistics point of view, for example, as Tesco seems brilliant at logistics and that shines through in its Stock holdings ... Loads to think about! Hope this is useful. DW

This just came in, unsolicited! Dear Duncan, I'm trawling through Mike Bassett reviews and I come across yours. Thank you for firstly taking the time to write about the film and generally being so positive about it. As I write to you me and my writing partner are currently writing the TV series for the BBC so I guess you got your wish in the end. Thanks again. John R. Smith (Co writer MB:EM) Thought you'd all like to know! DW

Stage two: I wrote to the Statistics Service Dept of the UK Civil Service about the starting date of the RPI and they replied as follows: The Retail Prices Index began in 1947. Here is a link to the brief guide found on our website: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_economy/rpiguides.pdf Here is a link to all the indices from 1947: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_economy/RP02.pdf All this information is found on our website http://www.statistics.gov.uk/rpi Praise Mike Gibbs at the Stats Office! DW

I gave rather a flippant answer to a question that someone asked about the starting dates of indices such as the RPI, FTSE and so on; and having been rightly chastised for my flippancy, I then found out the following starting dates that relate to ALL FTSE indices currently in use: FTSE100: 31/12/83 FTSE All share: 10/4/62 FTSE250: 31/12/85 FTSE350: 31/12/85 Smallcap: 31/12/92 Fledgling: 30/12/94 FTSE AllShare ex Investment: 12/5/97 FTSE350 ex Investment: 12/5/97 FTSE IT: 31/12/97 FTSE All Share ex multinationals: 30/9/99 Thank you Eva Kamau at www.ftse.com DW

In case Trefor Jones reads this: I replied to your email, Trefor, but it came back as undeliverable. Here's what I said. Well, Trefor, I've played around with two of Excel's functions and have to ask: are you sure you've given me the right coefficients? I did what you did and derived a fifth equation: simple and satisfies the MINVERSE and MMULT requirements. I get answers: a = 16 b = 4 c = 0 d = 16 e = 16 But these values do not satisfy the equations: instead of the RHS values you gave for equations 1 - 4, these answers give me 16 20 16 -4 I then tried the SOLVER routine and ended up with similar values: a = 15.90 b = 3.79 c = 0.16 d = 16 e = 16.15 16.16 21.2 16.4 -3.76 I'll happily work on this a bit more, Trefor: just confirm your data and we'll see if we can make any more progress. Best wishes DW

Very nice drive to Sarajevo since I last logged on and I'll be here for a couple of weeks. Greg wrote and asked Hello Greg, Hi, I'm a Master's student from a University in the UK. I'm currently doing my Financial Reporting coursework regarding the UK retail market. I'm in the midst of finding the risk free rate (Rf) and the Rm for computing the cost of capital rate for computing my NPV. So can you be so kind to give me some hints of how and where can I find these rates from especially for Marks & Spencer Plc and J Sainsbury? Thanks in advance. Greg Here's my reply: I’m not sure I’ll be able to help you that much as you have moved into a specialist area and since I don’t work much in and around finance, I can only do my best. Start with something like this http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/docs/77/costcap.htm it gives you the standard view of the risk free rate being the rate on index-linked UK Government bonds … this page concerns the cost of capital for railtrack and it should be of use to you as it then goes on to talk about debt premia and the cost of equity. Here’s a similar page from Oftel http://www.oftel.gov.uk/publications/1995_98/fair_trading/ftmobile/annex.htm which gives a few more, although it’s not as comprehensive as the previous page. That page links to http://www.oftel.gov.uk/publications/1995_98/fair_trading/ftmobile/contents.htm which MIGHT be of additional help. Here’s a pdf file that I’ve seen a few times, http://www.postcomm.gov.uk/documents/competition/OXERA_letter.pdf, and that you might find useful: aimed at the postal service this time. Another pdf file from the competition commission http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/fulltext/306a3.4.pdf that relates to BAA and gives the usual blurb on cost of capital and beta. It’s part of a very large document that you might get your hands on if you play around with the URL or go to the commission’s site and do a search there. Yet another pdf, this time on the London Underground http://www.london.gov.uk/approot/news/ind_soc_report/Appendix_VII_financial_modelling.pdf at least you are getting real live examples! A lot of sensitivity analysis here, too, by the look of it. Try this pdf, too, http://www.caa.co.uk/erg/ergdocs/costofcapital.pdf, although my web link fell apart at this point! Anyway, I hope this is of some use and I’m sorry I couldn’t get directly at M&S and Sainsbury for you but I think these links will get you at least part of the way. Let me know if I can help further and tell me how you get on with your study: I will be interested. Best wishes DW

Felix wrote to ask if his idea of using a Lorenz Curve for use in calculating bonuses was feasible. I set up spreadsheet file for felix in which I demonstrated both a Lorenz Curve type approach and an approach using regression analysis. If you would like a copy of the spreadsheet, just write to me at duncan@duncanwil.co.uk, making sure it's clear what you want and I'll send it. DW

Early on Friday I flew down to Zagreb en route to Banja Luka in Bosnia where I am working on a short contract on cost accounting systems development. I've already taken lots of snaps with my digital camera and will keep you fully informed! I replied to Margaret again, this time she asked a question on how to analyse an annual report and accounts document to see if it meets the needs of its users. This is what I replied: Let me start you off with a task that you should find helpful. Go to my web site and look in the financial accounting section and you will find that I write about this topic on various pages. Take a look at the pages called concepts and conventions. I not only talk about general concepts and conventions but specifically about the ASB’s views of who the users of accounting are … as a matter of interest I think the ASB’s list of users is too short and my own list is much better! I hope this at least starts you off Maggie! Then you can take the annual reports and sit them alongside my pages and the ASB’s Statement of Principles and go through them one by one. Which companies did you choose? Why did you choose them? Could you have chosen better companies that would help you with this task? DW