河北省考生注意：2020年ACCA考试，科目要这么选！

正确答案：
(a) To: Joe Lawson, Managing Director, Lawson Engineering
From:
Business case for financial support
The treatment of intangible resources is an area of considerable concern to the financial community and in many ways the
situation that Lawson Engineering finds itself, is typical of the current confusion surrounding the value placed on intangible
resources. This in turn reflects a traditional concern that the strategic health and the financial health of a business are not
one and the same thing. Intangible resources cover a wide variety of assets and skills found in the business. These include
the intellectual property rights of patents; brands; trademarks; trade secrets etc through to people-determined assets such as
know-how; internal and external networks; organisational culture and the reputation of the company.
It is important for you to present a case which shows how the investment in intangible resources is just as important a source
of value creation for the customer as is investment in tangible assets such as plant and finance which are traditionally focused
on in financial statements of the firm’s well being. As one source expresses it, ‘for most companies, intangible resources
contribute much more to total asset value’. Kaplan and Norton in a 2004 article on intangible assets go further and argue
that ‘measuring the value of such intangible assets is the holy grail of accounting’. The increasing importance of service
businesses and service activities in the firm’s value chain compound the problems faced in getting a true reflection of the
firm’s ability to create value. One view is that the key value creation activity lies in the relationships a firm has with its key
stakeholders – its customers, suppliers and employees. These relationships develop into distinctive capabilities, defined as
‘something it can do that its competitors cannot’. These distinctive capabilities only become competitive advantage(s) when
the capability is applied to a relevant market. Firms attain a sustainable competitive advantage when they consistently
produce products or services with attributes that align with the key buying criteria for the majority of customers in the chosen
market.
Competitive advantage, to be strategically significant, must have the twin virtues of sustainability and appropriability.
Sustainability means the ability to sustain an advantage over a period of time. Fairly obviously, assets such as plant and
technology may be easily obtainable in the open market, however it is only when they are combined with less tangible
resources that advantages become sustainable over time because competitors cannot easily copy them. Equally significant
are intangible resources such as reputation and organisational culture in that they influence the firm’s ability to hold on to
or appropriate some of the value it creates. If other stakeholders both inside and outside the firm are able to take more than
their fair share of value created – for example customers forcing down prices or employees demanding excessive wage
increases – this will reduce the funds available for the firm to invest in further development of its intangible resources, and
as a consequence begin to weaken its competitive advantage.

Essentially, intangible resources can be separated into those capabilities that are based on assets and those that are based
on skills. As one source puts it asset based advantages are derived from ‘having’ a particular asset and skills based advantages
stem from the ability to be ‘doing’ things competitors are unable to do. Assets are those things that the firms ‘owns’ – the
intellectual property as embodied in patents, trademarks and associated brands, copyrights, recognised by law and
defendable against copying under that law. It is worth noting the effort and investment that many companies are putting into
defending their intellectual property against the threat of copying and piracy. A more recent asset that many firms spend
considerable time and effort in developing are databases on key activities in the firm’s value chain – customer databases are
only one of the possible sources of firm information and know-how. One of the most prized intangible assets is that of the
firm’s reputation which may reflect the power of the brands it has created. Reputation may be easier to maintain than create
and meets the key tests of sustainability. The capability to produce innovation consistently may be instrumental in creating
in the minds of customers the longer-term competitive advantage of reputation. Reputation is argued to represent the
knowledge and emotions the customer may associate with a firm’s product range and can therefore be a major factor in
securing the competitive advantage derived through effective differentiation.
A positive organisational culture, staff know-how and networks are equally important intangible sources of competitive
advantage. These by their very nature may be more dynamic than asset based intangibles and the know-how of employees
in particular is an intangible resource that results in the distinctive capabilities which differentiate the firm from its competitors.
Much has been written about the significance of organisational culture and the way it reflects the style. of top management,
the ‘can do’ culture of Lawson Engineering clearly creates a competitive advantage. One interesting study of how chief
executive officers rate their intangible resources in terms of their contribution to the overall success of the business showed
that company reputation, product reputation and employee know-how were the most highly regarded intangible resources.
Hamel and Prahalad argue that core competences rather than market position are the real source of competitive advantage.
They gave three tests to identify a core competence – firstly the competence should provide potential access to a wide variety
of markets and thus be capable of being leveraged to good effect, secondly, it should be relevant to the customer’s key buying
criteria and thirdly, it should be difficult for competitors to imitate.
The disadvantages of intangibles stem from the differing value placed on such assets and competences by the various
interested stakeholders. How should a company’s reputation be measured? How long will that reputation yield competitive
advantage, particularly in view of how swiftly such reputations can disappear? It seems likely that the financial markets with
their ability to reflect all knowledge and information about the firm in its share price increasingly will take the contribution of
intangibles into account.
Overall the case should be clearly made that the strengths of the company rests in its unique combination of intangible
resources and the capabilities – both internal and external – that it has. Financial health is not always the same as strategichealth and by any objective measure Lawson Engineering is worthy of support.
Yours,
Strategy consultant

正确答案：

(d) IAS27 paragraph 14, ‘Consolidated and Separate Financial Statements’, states that warrants that have the potential to give
the holder voting power or reduce another party’s voting power over the financial and operating policies of the issuer should
be considered when existence of control is assessed. The warrants held by the competitor company, if exercised, would grant
that company control over Playtime. One party only can control Playtime and, therefore, the competitor company should
consolidate Playtime. In coming to this decision all the facts and circumstances that affect potential voting rights (except the
intention of management and the financial ability to exercise or convert) should be considered. It seems, however, that there
is a prima facie case for not consolidating Playtime but accounting for it under IAS28 or IAS39.

正确答案：
Costs incurred in extending network
The cost of an item of property, plant and equipment should be recognised when
(i) it is probable that future economic benefits associated with the item will flow to the entity, and
(ii) the cost of the item can be measured reliably (IAS16, ‘Property, plant and equipment’ (PPE))
It is necessary to assess the degree of certainty attaching to the flow of economic benefits and the basis of the evidence available
at the time of initial recognition. The cost incurred during the initial feasibility study ($250,000) should be expensed as incurred,
as the flow of economic benefits to Johan as a result of the study would have been uncertain.
IAS16 states that the cost of an item of PPE comprises amongst other costs, directly attributable costs of bringing the asset to the
location and condition necessary for it to be capable of operating in a manner intended by management (IAS16, para 16).
Examples of costs given in IAS16 are site preparation costs, and installation and assembly costs. The selection of the base station
site is critical for the optimal operation of the network and is part of the process of bringing the network assets to a working
condition. Thus the costs incurred by engaging a consultant ($50,000) to find an optimal site can be capitalised as it is part of
the cost of constructing the network and depreciated accordingly as planning permission has been obtained.
Under IAS17, ‘Leases’, a lease is defined as an agreement whereby the lessor conveys to the lessee, in return for a payment or
series of payments, the right to use an asset for an agreed period of time. A finance lease is a lease that transfers substantially all
the risks and rewards incidental to ownership of the leased asset to the lessee. An operating lease is a lease other than a finance
lease. In the case of the contract regarding the land, there is no ownership transfer and the term is not for the major part of the
asset’s life as it is land which has an indefinite economic life. Thus substantially all of the risks and rewards incidental to ownership
have not been transferred. The contract should be treated, therefore, as an operating lease. The payment of $300,000 should be
treated as a prepayment in the statement of financial position and charged to the income statement over the life of the contract on
the straight line basis. The monthly payments will be expensed and no value placed on the lease contract in the statement of
financial position