Weight 25%
Assessment Description
Assume that you are a graduate accountant working for McKenzie and Associates a
public accounting firm situated at 668 George Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000. The
manager of your firm, Ms. Maria McKenzie has asked you to draft a letter in
response to an email received from a client Mr. Con Pewter, the Managing Director
of Pewter Ltd, raising a number of issues regarding his company see the copy of
the email on the next page.
The maximum length of the letter is 1,250 words (excluding any calculations).
Part A: Technical component 15% - This mark covers the technical content of
your advice and the explanation on each of the issues, the calculations and
the sources used.
Part B: Communication Skills Letter Writing 10% - This mark covers the
generic skills of business letter writing; layout, clear meaning, structure and
organisation, appropriate tone and grammar, spelling and punctuation etc.
1. Your knowledge and your ability to research the issues and then apply the
information appropriately using judgement to correctly identify the relevant
standards and legislation that relate to the issues raised by the client.
2. Your written communication skills business letter writing
Please check the marking rubric for each part to ensure that you have followed all
the guidelines for presenting your work.
Dear Maria
Thank you for your phone call this morning, as agreed I am emailing you regarding
the accounting issues we briefly discussed. By the way to assist the accounting team
in our decision-making process could you please make sure you reference any
relevant sources relating to your advice, for example, AASBs, Corporations Act, and
relevant websites.
1. At our recent board meeting, several directors raised concerns about spending
too many man hours (and dollars I must say) on accounting for future tax
consequences. Their biggest argument was that as long as the tax man is happy
and we are not cheating on our tax returns, then we are simply wasting money in
accounting for temporary differences and deferred tax assets (DTAs) and
deferred tax liabilities (DTLs) (which I must admit is a mystery to me). Do you
have any problems if we do not account for the DTAs and DTLs and just account
for the current tax liability?
2. Our company has recently entered into a long-term and a radical agreement with
several of our retailers in Australia. Under the new agreement, at the start of
every quarter, we will ship a variety of our products (suitable for that state and
that time of the year) to our retailers. All retailers have agreed to set aside a
section in their stores to exclusively display our products including the display
windows at the front of the store. In return we have agreed to pay a fee to each
store on a monthly basis for allowing us the access to this window space and
space on the shop floor to advertise and sell our products. The average fee is
around $600 per square metre, per store per month. At the end of the quarter, the
store will return all the unsold products to us and we will send out a new shipment
to prepare for the next quarter. The stores will also transfer the revenue from total
sales to us after deducting the display fee noted above. The board unanimously
agreed to recognise the sales revenue at the start of the quarter (when the goods
Please respond by letter (not email) as I would like to present this to the Board. I look
forward to hearing from you in the near future.
Regards
Con Pewter
Managing Director, Pewter Ltd
Level 6, 510 King William Street,
Adelaide SA 5000
Hint: Remember that your firm plans to charge the client for your advice; as a
check ask yourself if you would pay for the advice you have drafted!
It is important to note that this task has been designed to measure subject learning outcome 4.
LO4: Develop information gathering and communication strategies to enable the provision of professional advice to a client.
The assignment assesses the following outcomes:
1. Your knowledge and your ability to research the issues outlined
2. Your ability to critically analyse and selectively apply the information appropriately to formulate solutions to the given scenarios
3. Your ability to use judgement correctly in selecting and designing an appropriate response with suitable AASB references.
4. Professional Competency Skills - Communication skills: business letter writing skills
The assessment rubrics below set out the specific criteria that will be used to assess this task and descriptions of different levels of achievement for those
criteria. The different levels of achievement for each criterion have a range of marks attached.
Assessment 2 Part B - Assignment Rubrics: 10% Communication Skills Letter Writing Skills
Components High Distinction Distinction Credit Pass Fails Mark
85 100% 75 - 84% 65 74% 50 64% 0 49% Awarded
(Marks 4.5 to 5.0) (Marks 4.0 to 4.4) (Marks 3.1 to 4.0) (Marks 2.5 to 3.0) (Marks 0 to 2.4) (Out of 5)
Language and Assignment Assignment Assignment Assignment Assignment does
presentation demonstrates demonstrates high demonstrates good demonstrates not meet the
Structure of flawless language levels of language level of language and acceptable level of standards of
sentences and and presentation and presentation presentation language and language and
paragraphs presentation presentation
Vocabulary
Spelling
Presentation
Referencing
Tone
Plagiarism
Components High Distinction Distinction Credit Pass Fails Mark
85 100% 75 - 84% 65 74% 50 64% 0 49% Awarded
(Marks 4.5 to 5.0) (Marks 4.0 to 4.4) (Marks 3.1 to 4.0) (Marks 2.5 to 3.0) (Marks 0 to 2.4) (Out of 5)
Letter Letter structure and Letter structure and Letter structure and Letter structure and Letter structure and
Structure format effective and format effective and format effective and format contain errors format contain
Format professional. professional with professional with which affect significant errors
minor exceptions. some exceptions. readability and and omissions
presentation. which render it
unprofessional.
Comments on communication skills: