Inclusion of the Financial statements(Pdf?xlm, etc)

1. Is ok to include the financial statements in a pdf format or i must put it in an excel sheet or word?
A: in excel sheet with use of formula. this will prove your IT skills as well.

2.How many years to consider
A: Four years data will give changes for three years

3. Year by Year or three years trend in single para
A. Both are OK, but number of words should be same, I mean in depth analysis, any style you select.

@acnca – As @bassaniobroke has confirmed you MUST include an excel spreadsheet to demonstrate spreadsheet / IT skills. (The report and SLS must be in the Word.doc format and OBU will refuse to accept any reports/SLSs NOT in this format).

Regarding @bassaniobroke’s point 3 – whilst either method is acceptable, I encourage students to go for the continuous period rather than individual years throughout their report. This is for several reasons:

1. If looking at individual years students tend to get more fixated with throwing in too many figures e.g.in your paragraph above I would prefer an approach that showed most (if not all) of this information in a graph as then you wouldn’t even have to state all of those ratio figures – the reader could see them for themselves – and it then ‘frees up’ words to EXPLAIN the factors that have caused the changes.

2. When ‘fixated’ about each year’s figures students are then tempted to try to ‘explain’ them in terms of notes to the accounts eg. ‘the reduction in profits was due to an increase in tax provisions’ (YXZ Annual Report 2012), ‘the improvement in the liquidity ratio was because the short-term cash deposits and cash investments increased by 15% during 2012 ’ (YXZ Annual Report 2012). These type of comments are not really enlightening at all! Compare them with this type of statement “Increased turnover for 2012 resulted from the introduction of our new Super-Duper model into Europe” (XYZ CEO statement , 2012) this tells me something – I get a picture of a company that is moving forward introducing a new state of the art product and strengthening its position in the market.

3. I try to get students to look at the way the trend has gone over the 3 years – has it risen / remained static / declined ? and why should this be so? The answer will often be found by either researching more widely (business journals, financial newspapers etc), reading the CEO / directors reports (in the annual report) for their strategies (as in the example above), and applying the PESTLE and SWOT factors

4. students are then looking at the big picture – the organisation in its dynamic business environment and they then tend to recognise how factors are inter-related e.g. if gearing has increased they probably would look to see if fixed assets have increased and if so put 2 + 2 together and realise that the increase in borrowings ties in with the expansion strategy as outlined in the CEO report.

5. With the comparator analysis I prefer them to examine how the comparator performed over the 3 year period and show this mainly through some comparative graphs (both companies ratios plotted in the same graph) and explain any significant differences rather than throwing in lots more figures.

EVALUATION & ANALYSIS IS ABOUT EXPLAINING – not just calculating a ratio and making a statement about whether it has increased / decreased.

Whilst you can do a good RAP and get a decent grade if you do a year by a year approach provided you concentrate on Points 3 & 4 above, in my experience once students have been introduced to the ‘continuous period approach’ they tend to do better quality RAPs. Probably because they stop worrying about trying to explain each and every figure and ratio and focus on the research element , which as well as being essential to be able to explain what has gone on, is probably also the most enjoyable part of the RAP.

In a nutshell the RAP is about explanation, explanation and explanation (just as the SLS is self-reflection x3!) and you cannot do that without good research

how do i show the formulae i have used for my excel in my rap.