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Listening






 

You will hear Sarah Brandston, an accountant in New York, talking about bookkeeping and tax accounting. Read the following questions, and then listen to the interview.

1. In which fields do most of Sarah Brandston's clients work?

2. Why do they need an accountant?

3. What does Sarah Brandston describe as 'the basic rule for accounting'?

4. An individual can do business as a self-proprietorship. Sarah Brandston mentions two other types of business. What are they?

5. Sarah Brandston says that bookkeeping is really a common sense way of keeping track of the income and expenses. What does she mean by common sense in relation to recording expenses?

 

 

SPEAKING

A.

Ex. 1. Four executives are discussing changes to company working practices. Listen to the meeting and answer these questions.

1. Why does Nancy think the open-plan office is a good idea?

2. Why are two of the people against introducing an open-plan office?

3. What proposal does Carl make to deal with the problem mentioned?

4. Why is Max against hot-desking?

5. What change in working practices does Nancy want?

Ex. 2. Listen again and tick the expressions in the Useful language box that you hear.

Interrupting Could I just say something? Excuse me, but could I just say …   Dealing with interruptions Hold on. Can I finish the point? Let Stefan finish, please. I’d like to finish if I may. Just a moment …
Asking for clarification How do you mean, …? What exactly are you saying? What exactly do you mean? Are you saying we need to …? Sorry, I don’t follow you. Can you explain in more detail? Making proposals I suggest… I propose that … How about … We could …
Clarifying What I mean is … What I’m saying is … No, I was thinking of … To be more specific … To clarify … Rejecting proposals Sorry. I don’t think it’s / that’s a good idea. I’m not sure I agree with you there. It / That just won’t work. Well, I’m not happy about it / that.

 

Ex.3. Role play this situation. You are managers of a television production company, Zoom International. You are discussing these two proposals for changes to company policy. Use the expressions from the Useful language box.

1. Zoom International (ZI) could reduce costs by offering staff a 10% increase in salary instead of a company car. If ZI makes the change, staff will have to provide their own car for business use, using their own money.

2. ZI could increase security at their head office. At present, a security guard checks staff who enter the building. In future, staff will have to go through a barrier where they insert an identity card. If they do not have an identity card, they cannot enter the building. In addition, they must, at all times, wear an identity card with their photograph on it. There will be two female receptionists behind the barrier.

B. Case Study: Auric Bank.

 

Background

‘We constantly review our business in order to provide customers with excellent service at competitive prices. As part of our major reorganization, we’ve been looking at the cost of customer services. We have a range of options. We can make changes in-house, outsource call centres to areas within the UK or outsource off-shore to low-cost countries such as India.’

Graham Hammond, Chief Executive, Auric Bank.

The Chief Executive made the statement above to a group of investors three weeks ago. Auric Bank (AB) lost £ 1.5 billion last year because it invested in unprofitable areas of business. Since then AB has carried out a major review of its operations. It has concluded that:

1. customers believe AB is charging too much for its services;

2. AB no longer has the image of a ‘caring’ bank which is close to its customers and understands their needs;

3. the bank needs to reduce costs to boost its profits and share price.

 

To cut costs and increase efficiency, AB is now considering a number of options concerning the location of its call centres.

 

The call centres.

AB has approximately 2, 500 employees working in three large call centres located in cities in the South of England. The company’s headquarters are in London. There are four options that the directors of the bank are considering.

 

Task: Work in groups of four. You are directors of AB.

1. Discuss the advantages of each option.

2. Try to persuade the other directors that your option is the right one for AB.

Option 1: Keep the call centers in-house.

Keep the call centres in their present locations but try to reduce costs by:

· using more part-time employees

· reducing the hours of business of the centres

· increasing the targets for the number of calls handled per hour

Estimated cost of running the centres for the next five years: £ 16 million. Estimated savings by introducing changes above: £ 3 million.

 

Option 2: Outsource the call centres to a company based in South Africa.

Use Resource Plc, a Cape Town firm. They can set up the call centres in Cape Town and run them.

· the firm has an excellent reputation for reliability and good service

· it has a lot of experience in running centres

Cost of the contract with Resource Plc to run the call centres for the next five years: £ 8 million.

 

Option 3: Outsource the call centres to a company based in Scotland.

Use Orion Plc, a Scottish firm

· the firm is new; its managers are young

· it has several contracts with bi companies

· it is experienced in running call centres

· some customers have complained in newspapers that the lines are always busy

Cost of the contract with Orion Plc to run the call centres for the next five years: £ 10 million.

 

Option 4: Outsource the call centres to a company based in India.

Use X-source India, a company based in Bangalore.

· X-source India is expanding fast

· it has contracts with several large US companies

· it has no problems hiring staff and its costs are low

Cost of the contract with X-source India to run the call centres for the next five years: £ 5.5 million.

C. Summarize the information of the Unit to be ready to speak on Accounting. Use the following prompts as a plan:

– definition of accounting;

– definition of accounting system

– management / cost accounting

– financial accounting

– users of accounting information

– the difference between accounting and bookkeeping;

– two types of accounting system – historical cost accounting and current cost accounting

– main accounting statements;

– types of accountants and their functions






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