Mergers & Acquisitions Interview Preparation Guide

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are both aspects of strategic management, corporate finance and management dealing with the buying, selling, dividing and combining of different companies and similar entities that can help an enterprise grow rapidly in its sector or location of origin, or a new field or new location, without creating a subsidiary, other child entity or using a joint venture.

Mutual fund sub accounting is a way to "clear" (the process of buying and selling) the mutual fund transactions. An intermediary record keeps all of the individual shareholder account information, such as the individual balances and individual transactions and dividends in each fund. The account balances roll up to match an omnibus account balance that is record kept by the transfer agent of the fund. When individual investors buy or sell a particular fund those transactions the intermediary combines those transactions and a minimum number of larger trades are placed with the fund in the omnibus account.

Bookkeepers perform a critical function for the firms and organizations they serve. Regularly challenged to maintain precise and accurate records, bookkeepers produce the vital reports that keep management up to date on the financial condition of their company.

Bookkeepers are responsible for maintaining the "business checkbook", much like a personal checkbook. They record routine money transactions like customer payments into a "cash receipts journal" and checks to vendors into a "cash disbursement journal." They also process payroll. At month end they transfer or "post", the "journal" totals to the "general ledger" in preparation for financial statements prepared by the accountant.

Accountants are responsible for the design and management of the financial systems that bookkeepers use. They prepare monthly financial statements and tax returns at year-end. Accountants may also prepare budgets for management and loan

Source documents are those documents in which all kinds of business transactions are recorded. These include invoice, sales order, purchase order, debit note, credit note, goods received note; goods dispatched note, quotation, statement, remittance advice, and receipt.

"Purchase returns" is the entry made in the journal that refers to "Unsatisfactory or defective merchandise/goods which is returned back to the supplier".

1) Manual records are very difficult to be maintained safe
2) Manual records are subject to greater human error
3) Business can see itself in fines and penalties if records are lost
4) Manual records are easier to be falsified, modified, altered, or vanished, as compared
to computerized records, which become very safe when using passwords, firewalls,
and back-ups.

★ The elements of accounting are Assets, Liabilities, and Owner Equities.
★ The way to remember this would be through the acronym ALOE
★ The accounting equation is Assets = Liabilities + Owners' Equities

Summing accounts for inclusion in financial statements (i.e. many different cash accounts are summed to equal "cash" in balance sheet), adding items in inventory to determine accurate counts, adding all outstanding checks (written but not cashed) to reconcile a bank statement, etc.

Tax rates by gross pay to calculated and remit correct taxes, extrapolating period results (i.e. 6 months sales x 2) to estimate annualized results, calculating present value of cash flows using given factors, calculate sales tax on sales, etc.

Ratios place significant emphasis on short-term results. Ratios such as EPS and the ROCE are subject to accounting conventions that might deter businesses pursuing policies that are in their long-term interest.