respond 5
knohe_
question_5.docxQuestion 1
Employees who cheat on their expense accounts usually do so by one of four methods:
1. Mischaracterized expenses. Employees produce legitimate documentation for nonbusiness-related transactions. Example: taking a friend to dinner and charging it to the company as "business development."
2. Overstated expense reports . Employees inflate the amount of actual expenses and keep the difference. Example: altering a taxicab receipt from $10 to $40.
3. Fictitious expenses. Employees submit phony documentation for reimbursement. Example: producing a fake hotel bill on a home computer.
4. Multiple reimbursements. Employees copy invoices and resubmit them for payment more than once. Example: copying an airline ticket and claiming the cost again on next month's expense reimbursement.
For each type of expense account fraud, offer a creative control mechanism that you would implement to eliminate that type of scheme. Explain your responses.
Respond to this… Mischaracterized expenses- I would try to eliminate this by holding the employee accountable to the expense by documenting and assigning the expense. For example, if they turn in receipts for a business meal. They should then document who all they took for the meal and what business matters were discussed. The more information required to submit the expense, the less likely they are to fudge numbers.
Overstated Expense Reports- The best way to try to prevent overstated reports is to make receipts mandatory for each claim. If the employee has to submit an original receipt with each report it would be more difficult to fudge numbers.
Fictitious Expenses- Again making receipts mandatory is helpful but receipts can still be falsified. Perhaps a way to eliminate fake expenses would be to require employees to use a credit card as the payment source and make it a policy to submit the credit card payment receipt as proof the expense is legit.
Multiple reimbursements- proper receipt documentation would help here as well. Having a credit card receipt showing it was actually paid and was time/date stamped as to when would make replicas more difficult to pull off.
When accounting for expenses I think it is a good practice for businesses to set some sort of rules or guidelines for employees to follow. For example, set a standard for typical meal expenses- What is reasonable to spend on meals. Travel expenses, if a standard is set the employee knows what is reasonable and may be less likely to try to get away with claiming things they shouldn’t.
Question 2
In the reading for this module, author Rick Newman writes that employees who demonstrate "multidisciplinary agility" have a competitive edge and that "learning new skills is anything but a temporary assignment." For this discussion post, first decide which general education skill covered in the Seminar courses to this point (communication, critical thinking, or information literacy) provides the biggest competitive edge in your field. Then, explain why you feel it provides such a competitive edge, and how you can continue to improve in this area after graduation. Also consider and share employer-desired soft skills, and how they will provide a competitive edge specific to your future career.
For example, if you are a Criminal Justice student, you might decide that Communication is the general education skill that provides the biggest edge to employees. Then, you might write about the increasing importance of written communication as it relates to increased technology available to those in the field.
Respond to this… Related to my career choice, I would have to say that communication, critical thinking, and information literacy are all fair game for competitiveness in nursing. Thinking about it more thoroughly, I believe that the above three aspects all mesh together when dealing with patient care. For example, if I were an employer interviewing a prospective RN for a particular unit, I would want to know the following aspects: 1) that the individual was able to write and research (information literacy), 2) that the RN can effectively give report, educate patients and families, ask questions, and advocate (communication), and 3) they can analyze, interpret, evaluate, etc. (critically think). Narrowing it down, I believe the biggest competitive edge in nursing is communication. As a student nurse, I witness the RNs communicating to a seemingly endless amount of people in a day. RN’s need to effectively communicate with other nurses, patient care techs, doctors, patients, families, secretaries, RTs, PT, OT, lab, pharmacy, and many others in a health care facility. As a student, I do not get the opportunity to communicate with as many people during clinicals. After graduation, I plan to work at a local hospital with a variety of different job titles in one facility. I believe that exposure is the best way to practice and improve on my communication abilities.
Question 3
For your initial post, comment on the following questions.
· What is the current macroeconomic situation in the United States?
· What should the Fed do about it?
· What monetary policy tools should the Fed use to achieve the results you recommend?
Respond to this… What is the current macroeconomic situation in the United States?
US economic scenario is very volatile these days, some times better economic indicators such as decent job data paint good picture on the sound recovery of the economy from slowdown, but on other time , the weak economic data or rise in unemployment numbers shows the economy has slowed down bit further. I would say the US economy is struggling to recover these days on back of rising financial instability in Europe, record low commodity prices , slowing China and rising concerns over ISIL threat.
What should the Fed do about it?
Fed is doing their job by keeping interest rates lower , but thats not working much. I would say this type of economic slowdown can be combat through fiscal spending. I will say the Fed should work more towards improving the financial regulation in the US that is good for the long term for the US economy. Moreover, generally, the Fed can use tools such as open market operations, lowering reserve requirements and keeping interest rates lower.
What monetary policy tools should the Fed use to achieve the results you recommend?
These tools can keep interest rates lower and encourage public and private spending in the economy that will enchance aggregate demand and reduce economic slowdown.
Work cited:
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/glance.htm
Question 4
Often times, we as humans tend to gravitate to music that is familiar to us. Although we have a variety of music to choose from, rarely to do we try a genre of music that is new to us.
Listen to a song from a genre of music that you are not familiar with (Country, Classical, Rap, Pop, R&B, etc.) and share what you were most surprised about regarding this genre.
Remember to share the:
· Title of the song or musical piece
· Artist or composer
· Year the song or piece was made
· Genre of music the piece falls under
Respond to this… So I went way out of my comfort zome for this and had my girlfriend pick out a song for me. She picked one from a Bollywood movie called Salaam-e-Ishq.
The song was the title song, Salaam-e-Ishq, it was released in 2006 as part of the movie soundtrack which was composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy with lyrics by Sameer. So this is an international/soundtrack/India-pop type song.
To be completely honest, I found this song unappealing. It is not in English so that's part of it. It was helpful to see the music video along with it though, and my girlfriend tried to fill me in on what they were singing about as she's seen the movie. The people are SUPER animated in the video, but musically it didn't really grab me because it sounded a lot like any other American pop-type song. It kind of felt like it should be on the DIsney channel. I will say though it did sound like the big "finale" song - they were really good at building it up so you KNOW that it's the closing song.
I found the artist info here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaam-e-Ishq:_A_Tribute_to_Love#Soundtrack
