Ron Hollister is a member of a group of students who have been given an accounting assignment

Question:

Ron Hollister is a member of a group of students who have been given an accounting assignment by their professor. Ron is responsible for the portion of the assignment that requires the preparation of the trial balance and the financial statements. The assignment is due within an hour and Ron is working alone. All he has to do is complete his part of the assignment and hand the entire document in for grading. He has just prepared the trial balance and found out that it does not balance. The total credits are greater than the total debits by $810.

Without telling the other members of the group, Ron forces the trial balance to balance by adding $810 to the general and administrative expense because it was the largest expense and he hoped no one would notice the difference. He wished that he had a few more hours to find out why the trial balance did not balance, but he knows he can't miss the deadline for handing in the assignment.

Instructions

(a) Who are the stakeholders in this situation?

(b) What ethical issues are involved?

(d) Would your answer change if Ron was a professional accountant and was preparing financial statements for a public company?

Financial Statements
Financial statements are the standardized formats to present the financial information related to a business or an organization for its users. Financial statements contain the historical information as well as current period’s financial... Stakeholders
A person, group or organization that has interest or concern in an organization. Stakeholders can affect or be affected by the organization's actions, objectives and policies. Some examples of key stakeholders are creditors, directors, employees,...