The aim of this paper is to research how advanced accounting software can be used by police detectives, financial risk specialists and forensic investigation specialists, who are responsible for the investigation and tracing of the reintegration of proceeds of crime, from underground banking into formal banking system (pro active and reactive money laundering investigation) with a view on criminal prosecution. The research started of by looking at the basic ways how proceeds of crime are smuggled before it is integrated into the formal banking system. In that context, the phenomenon of Underground banking was researched. Currency smuggling, Hawala currency transfer schemes and the way in which it is used to move proceeds of crime were discussed in detail. Thereafter Formal banking and the way in which proceeds of crime is reintegrated from underground banking structures into formal banking systems were discussed. The use of advanced accounting software to trace the point where proceeds of crime are reintegrated into formal banking were researched extensively. Accounting software and investigative techniques on how to trace financial transactions which might be tainted with proceeds of crime were discussed. Accounting software which can be used on office computers such as laptops were discussed and more advanced automated systems which can be used to trace proceeds of crime transactions in the formal banking systems were also discussed. In specific, the investigative techniques on how to use these systems as investigative tools were discussed in great detail. This research paper gives a truly unique perspective on the financial investigative and analytical angle on proceeds of crime and money laundering detection. / Criminal Justice / M.Tech. (Forensic Investigation)

This research is based on the problem of allocating indirect overheads to construction projects in order to establish the performance of each project. Traditional costing (TC) systems and Activity-Based Costing (ABC) systems are both used for the allocation of overheads. Both primary and secondary data were used in this research. Primary data was collected by means of two questionnaires, one addressed to construction companies and the other to consultants. The sample of respondents was obtained from the register of contractors and construction industry companies. The researcher sent the links to the Lime survey by email to all respondents. The purpose of the literature review was to identify gaps and justify the need for this research. It considered existing findings by previous researchers. Primary data was therefore required to find answers specific to the problem of overheads allocation in the construction industry. According to the respondents, the use of TC systems produces distorted project cost results while ABC produces more accurate results when used in the construction industry. However, contractors had not adopted the ABC system but used TC systems despite their producing distorted project costs. It is recommended that both TC and ABC systems be used in the construction industry since they complement each other. Contractors may have to adopt the ABC system to enhance their decision-making while continuing to use the TC systems for external reporting. / Management Accounting / M. Com. (Accounting)

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Master of Technology: Cost and Management Accounting, Durban University of Technology, 2014. / Economic Value Added (EVA) is a value based accounting measure used by companies to measure the amount of value created for shareholders. Accounting values derived from company annual financial statements (AFS), are used to calculate EVA. EVA requires the conversion of accounting values to economic values. This conversion process is known as the EVA adjustment. If accounting values are not converted to economic values, the value of the EVA can be distorted. Previous studies have shown that companies are experiencing difficulties in implementing EVA adjustments. To reduce these difficulties, companies have decided to limit their EVA adjustments to ten or even fewer. The problem is that if the appropriate adjustments are not made, an inaccurate EVA measure will be calculated. The aim of the research was to measure the impact of deferred taxes on the EVA measure. The study was conducted within a quantitative research paradigm. Secondary data analysis was carried out on JSE-listed Food producers and Retailers over a seven-year period, from 2004 to 2010. The unadjusted EVA was compared to the adjusted EVA measure to determine the before and after effects of deferred taxes on EVA. The findings of the study revealed that deferred taxes either understated or overstated the value of the EVA during 2004 to 2010. In addition, the results from the regression analysis revealed an overall significance for all deferred tax predictors. The regression results showed that deferred taxes significantly impacted the value of EVA. The study recommends that companies implement the deferred tax adjustment on the EVA measure.

Thesis (MComm (Business Management))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / Universities manage their administrative and financial operations traditionally by means of cost centres in the form of faculties, departments and divisions. In these cost centres financial performance is purely measured by comparing actual expenses with drawn up budgets. During performance measurement only direct costs allocated to cost centres are taken into account. Often, indirect costs are not taken into account which leaves an erroneous impression about the real cost of a certain cost centre. However, it is of importance for education managers to take cost management into consideration as a primary tool to manage institutions of higher education. Accurate cost information is an indispensable management aid, especially in a changing and dynamic environment. During budget allocations mostly only direct costs are taken into account. This also happens when the financial performance of academic departments, faculties and other entities are measured. The utilisation of a full cost approach could add substantial value to current management information. The starting point of this study is by placing a perspective on problems arising from the utilisation of cost allocation techniques by means of a case study from which activity based costing and responsibility centre management can solve the problem. Throughout this study it was attempted to emphasise the relevance between activity based costing and responsibility centre management and the focus was on how both budget allocation models could be applied in an integrated context. During the allocation of income and indirect costs the question normally arises on which basis these components are to be allocated to faculties and departments at a university. Attention has been given to both these components to establish which method / basis is the most applicable for the allocation thereof. The aim was to generally keep cost drivers as simple as possible. The cost drivers used need to bear the approval of deans to ensure the credibility of the budget allocation model. However, cost drivers could well be investigated continually to consider their applicability against alternative cost drivers. The allocation of budget amounts to faculties stemming from the main budget of a university is normally a dilemma. Therefore, a budget allocation model has been developed taking the financial performance of faculties into consideration to determine the budget allocation of each individual faculty.

In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Commerce University of the Witwatersrand, October 2017 / Biodiversity is a serious concern for companies using natural resources in their operations and should be examined closely in order to assess how these companies are reporting their biodiversity related impacts. This thesis evaluates the biodiversity disclosures reported by companies in the South African fishing industry. The integrated and sustainability reports of these companies were examined over a three year period for the quantity and quality of their biodiversity related disclosures. This involved the examination of the extent, location, and quality of such disclosures by South African fishing companies. The thesis finds that there is a distinct lack of biodiversity-related disclosures in the South African fishing industry. This thesis highlights the operation of organised hypocrisy in an industry which relies on the availability of natural resources and the state of biodiversity in order to continue its operations. It was found that a possible reason for limited biodiversity disclosures by South African fishing companies was to avoid public scrutiny of their biodiversity impact. The thesis contributes to the evaluation of a country, and more specifically an industry, that is heavily reliant on the state of biodiversity. / GR2018

Thesis (MBA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Returns and the ability to statistically formulate the association between returns and other accounting variables have increased in significance to investors. Over the past three decades substantial effort in the subject-field of accounting research has been devoted to the definition of this association between earnings and firm values. The fundamental issue is the information content of earnings and the value thereof to investors. Usefulness, in the returns/prices context, can be defined as the R2 of the regression of returns/prices on earnings (Lev, 1989: 156). Empirical evidence consistently shows that earnings are a statistically significant explanatory variable. A natural extension aiming at improving the empirical results is to incorporate GAAP-related alternative information. One approach followed by numerous researchers is to decompose earnings into components, and show that the components provide more information than earnings alone. Another approach is to include additional variables such as working capital from operations and cash flow from operations (eFO) in the regression models. The empirical results generally showed that earnings components and other GAAP-related variables have explanatory powers. The improvements in the predictive capability (measured by R2) of these models were restricted. Lev (1989: 181 - 182) suggested an intrepid research direction that departs from GAAP by investigating the alternative definitions of earnings. Limited empirical studies on value-added to date have shown that it is a useful measure of performance. For example, Bao and Bao (1989) empirically demonstrated that value-added is positively associated with firm value in certain industries. The analysis employed, however, was the firm valuation analysis. Recently developed levels and changes analyses were not used. In 1998 Bao and Bao completed another study using earnings as a benchmark. Firm valuation analysis, levels analysis and changes analysis were all performed to evaluate the explanatory power of value-added. The results show that value-added is a significant explanatory variable and its explanatory power is higher than that of earnings. The results obtained in this research project indicate that in the South African context earnings is statistically the most explanatory variable. This is divergent from the findings obtained in other research performed in this area, where value-added was indicated as the statistically most significant variable. It does appear that the explanatory power of valueadded tends to increase over the review period. This can possibly be attributed to the relative novelty of value-added in South Africa as opposed to Europe and the USA. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Opbrengste en die vermoë om die verhouding tussen aandeelpryse en rekeningkundige veranderlikes statisties te formuleer, wek toenemende belangstelling by beleggers. Oor die afgelope drie dekades het daar 'n noemenswaardige skuif in die fokus op die vakgebied van rekeningkundige navorsing plaasgevind. Aansienlik meer tyd word gespandeer om die verhouding tussen aandeelpryse en die waarde van firmas te kwantifiseer in statistiese modelle. Die onderliggende begrip vir die navorsing is die informasie-inhoud en die inherente waarde wat opbrengste vir beleggers lewer. Waarde, in die opbrengste/pryse konteks, kan as die R2 van die regressie van aandeelpryse teenoor opbrengste gedefinieer word (Lev, 1989: 156). Empiriese navorsing toon konstant aan dat verdienste 'n statistiese beduinde veranderlike is. Die logiese ontwikkeling gerig op die verbetering van die empiriese resultate is om alternatiewe GAAP veranderlikes te inkorporeer. Een benadering wat deur menige navorsers gevolg is, is om opbrengste in komponente te onderverdeel en sodoende te bewys dat die komponente meer informasie-inhoud verskaf as opbrengste in geheel. 'n Alternatiewe benadering is om addisionele veranderlikes soos bedryfskapitaal en kontantvloei in die regressie modelle in te sluit. In die algemeen toon die empiriese resultate dat die komponente van opbrengste en ander GAAP-verwante veranderlikes wel beskrywende moontlikhede het. Die verbetering in die statistiese vooruitskattings vermoë (gemeet deur R2) van hierdie modelle was wel beperk. Lev (1989: 181 - 182) het 'n radikale nuwe navorsings-benadering voorgestel wat afwyk van GAAP deur alternatiewe definisies van opbrengste te ondersoek. Tot op datum toon die beperkte hoeveelheid empiriese navorsing op toegevoegde waarde dat dit wel 'n noemenswaardige mate van opbrengste is. Byvoorbeeld, Bao en Bao (1989) het empiries bewys dat toegevoegde waarde positief geassosieer is met firma waarde in sekere industrieë. Slegs die firma valuasiemodel is gebruik om die analise uit te voer en nie die onlangs ontwikkelde vlakke en veranderingsanalises nie. In 1998 het Bao en Bao nog 'n studie onderneem met opbrengste as die maatstaf. Firma valuasie, vlakke analise en veranderingsanalise is alles toegepas om die beskrywende moontlikhede van toegevoegde waarde te ondersoek. Die resultate toon dat toegevoegde waarde 'n noemenswaardige beskrywende veranderlike is, meer so as opbrengste. Die resultate van hierdie studie projek toon dat in die Suid-Afrikaanse konteks, verdienste die mees beduidendste statistiese veranderlike is. Dit is teenstrydig met die bevindinge van ander navorsers, waar toegevoegde waarde statisties meer beduidend is. Dit wil wel voorkom asof toegevoegde waarde se statistiese informasie-inhoud toegeneem het oor die relevante periode. Dit kan moontlik toegeskryf word aan die relatiewe onlangse bekendstelling in toegevoegde waarde in Suid-Afrika in teenstelling met Europa en die VSA.

This research is based on the problem of allocating indirect overheads to construction projects in order to establish the performance of each project. Traditional costing (TC) systems and Activity-Based Costing (ABC) systems are both used for the allocation of overheads. Both primary and secondary data were used in this research. Primary data was collected by means of two questionnaires, one addressed to construction companies and the other to consultants. The sample of respondents was obtained from the register of contractors and construction industry companies. The researcher sent the links to the Lime survey by email to all respondents. The purpose of the literature review was to identify gaps and justify the need for this research. It considered existing findings by previous researchers. Primary data was therefore required to find answers specific to the problem of overheads allocation in the construction industry. According to the respondents, the use of TC systems produces distorted project cost results while ABC produces more accurate results when used in the construction industry. However, contractors had not adopted the ABC system but used TC systems despite their producing distorted project costs. It is recommended that both TC and ABC systems be used in the construction industry since they complement each other. Contractors may have to adopt the ABC system to enhance their decision-making while continuing to use the TC systems for external reporting. / Management Accounting / M. Com. (Accounting)

MSc (Zoology) / Department of Zoology

Measuring the success of Activity Based Costing (ABC) is part of a more general challenge of measuring the success of any major change in managerial methods. The past thirteen years have seen accelerated rates of change in the South African Post Office (SAPO). However little is known about `'Measuring the successful implementation of ABC in (SAPO)''. The objectives of this study is to research the perceptions of staff regarding the successful implementation of ABC, the benefits of ABC implementation and the conditions that affect the potential benefits from the successful implementation of ABC. This will allow organisations and provide them with relevant information that will enable them to make better decisions with regard to measuring the successful implementation of ABC. To achieve these objectives a questionnaire was prepared and handed out to the finance staff of the SAPO. They were asked to respond to the questionnaire on their experience and their perceptions on the implementation of ABC. 121 questionnaire were returned generating a 38% response rate. The findings in this study highlighted that top management fails in giving active support to the implementation of ABC and the technical factors were perceived as standing in the way of the successful implementation of ABC. These were training, the high cost of implementing ABC, the lack of software packages, the lack of data requirements and co-operation between departments. From the finding the recommendation was made were general strategies were suggested for the SAPO for measuring the successful implementation of ABC. / Business Management / M.Tech. (Business Administration)

This study examined the nature and extent of relations between Management of Technology [MOT] and cost management. It explores the roles of competencies and competency measurement in these relations and its associations with company performance. The problem statement asks how the MOT community deals with cost management, whether MOT-based cost management competencies can be isolated and measured, whether a tool for measurement can be created, tested and validated and indeed whether it can be used to assess relations between MOT-based cost management competencies and company performance. To answer these questions, a MOT-based cost management competency index is formulated, consisting of problem statements representing MOT-based cost management insights, knowledge and practices. Designed in the format of a typical research survey, the index is used to source data from sampled companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange [JSE]. Although too small a sample to generalise about the population, sufficient data is collected and processed with statistical software programs. A second set of variables, about financial performance of the responding companies, consists of Asset Turnover [ATO] and Return on Assets Managed [ROAM]. Data for these variables is sourced from their annual financial statements and processed into ATO and ROAM indicators. The combined research data set is used to critically describe statistical qualities of variables such as ATO, ROAM, MOT-based cost management competencies of company executives, their education and exposure to the executive management teams in their respective organizations. The research data is subsequently subjected to correlation analysis, as foundation for hypothesis testing. Among the relationships described by correlation analysis and warranting further examination with regression analysis, are associations between MOT-based cost management competencies and ATO and between Education and MOT-based cost management competencies. The former association is found to be not significant, having the research hypothesis rejected. A significant association between Education and MOT-based cost management competencies is indeed found. Utilizing regression equations yielded by the analyses, the predictive capacity of regression analysis is used to demonstrate results of interventions in those associations postulated in the research hypotheses. The study concludes that it achieved a qualified success in its first objective, which was to formulate a MOT-based cost management competency index, and to demonstrate its application as measurement and management tool on executive managers of JSE-listed companies. The study failed in its second objective, which was to demonstrate a significant association between MOT-based cost management competencies and financial performance of sampled companies. Critical perspectives on the data and the associations tested reveal important shortcomings in the research. These perspectives do though create opportunities for refinement of the MOT-based cost management competency index as measurement and management tool, validation of its status, and indeed demonstration of its business value to the MOT and business community in particular. In closure, the study was meant as a contribution to the discourse on a credo for MOT and the MOT body of knowledge, and it subjects itself to critical analysis by the research community so as to establish whether it succeeded in indeed making such a contribution. / Business Management / M.Tech. (Business Administration)