| Course | AC599 Graduate Capstone in Accounting |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 9 |
| Paper type | Implementation recommendation |
| Length | About 740 words, 5 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MS in Accounting |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for AC599 Unit 9
Seven Steps With Owners, Costs and Dates: A Unit 9 Capstone Implementation Recommendation for a Health Reserve
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
AC599: Graduate Capstone in Accounting
Unit 9 Implementation Recommendation
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Hollis Creek Supply, its vendors and every figure are composite; the standards, framework and guidance cited are real.
Memorandum
To: CFO, Hollis Creek Supply From: Analyst, accounting capstone Date: February 3, 2027 Re: Putting the health reserve findings into practice
The Seven Steps
Step 1: Record the year-end adjustment. Owner: controller. Cost: staff time only. Deadline: before the 2026 statements are issued. Increase the health claims liability to $661,300 and record a $38,000 stop-loss receivable, with the $213,300 net charge to benefits expense. Document the estimate, its range and the hindsight test in the close file. Dependency: Step 2.
Step 2: Agree the covenant treatment with the bank. Owner: chief financial officer. Cost: possibly a waiver fee of $5,000 to $15,000. Deadline: February 15, before the year-end certificate is due. Present the analysis showing that $208,200 of the shortfall relates to 2025 and ask the bank to treat it as an out-of-period item outside covenant earnings. If the bank declines, request a one-time waiver.
Step 3: Evaluate the prior-period error. Owner: controller, with the external auditor. Cost: staff and audit time. Deadline: February 15. Assess whether the $208,200 is material to 2025 or 2026, which decides whether it is corrected through 2026 with disclosure or by revising 2025 (Kieso et al., 2019).
Step 4: Adopt a written reserve policy. Owner: controller, approved by the chief financial officer. Cost: none beyond time. Deadline: February 28. The policy will require the liability to be estimated each quarter from the administrator's lag report using completion factors, with a per-member projection for the two most recent months, a stated range, and documentation of any judgment that departs from the method (Actuarial Standards Board, 2011).
Step 5: Re-derive completion factors quarterly during 2027. Owner: senior accountant. Cost: about four hours a quarter. Deadline: first at March 31. The January deductible change will slow early-year claims, so factors from the old design will overstate completion for 2027 months. Quarterly re-derivation, and comparison of each quarter's estimate with the next quarter's run-out, will show how the pattern is changing.
Step 6: Engage an actuary for the 2027 year end. Owner: chief financial officer. Cost: about $6,000 to $9,000. Deadline: engagement by September 30, 2027. An independent actuarial estimate in the first year under the new design gives the auditor, and the bank, a second view.
Step 7: Add the reserve to monthly controls. Owner: controller. Cost: none. Deadline: April 30. Add a review of the lag report and the stop-loss status to the monthly close checklist, with evidence of review retained (Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission, 2013).
The steps are ordered by what must happen before something else can: the bank cannot be asked before the entry is computed, the policy cannot be applied before it is written, and the factors must be re-derived before the new deductibles have run long enough to distort them.
What Happens if a Step Slips
If Step 2 slips past February 15, the certificate goes to the bank late, which the agreement allows once a year with notice. If Step 4 slips, Step 5 has no policy to apply, so the quarterly estimate would be a one-off; the controller has blocked time in February to prevent that.
Total Cost
Out-of-pocket cost is $11,000 to $24,000 in 2027: the possible waiver fee and the actuary. Staff time is about forty hours across the year. Against that, the plan prevents a recurrence of a misstatement that reached $213,300 and nearly decided a covenant test.
Risks
The main risk is the bank declining both requests, which would put the company in technical breach and block owner distributions for two quarters. The analysis gives the chief financial officer a strong case: the error was found by management, it relates mostly to a prior year, and the corrected process is in place. A second risk is that the new deductible design changes payment patterns more than expected; Step 5 and Step 6 address it.
Measures of Success
By the 2027 year end, the reserve should be estimated each quarter with a range, the hindsight test should show the method within 5 percent of actual run-out, and the auditor should accept the estimate without adjustment.
References
Actuarial Standards Board. (2011). Incurred health and disability claims (Actuarial Standard of Practice No. 5). Actuarial Standards Board.
Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission. (2013). Internal control: Integrated framework. COSO.
Kieso, D. E., Weygandt, J. J., & Warfield, T. D. (2019). Intermediate accounting (17th ed.). Wiley.
What the AC599 Unit 9 assignment asks for
The ninth AC599 unit asks you to recommend how your findings should be put into practice. Present the steps in a table or list with an owner, cost, deadline and dependency for each. Order the steps by what must happen before something else can, and explain the sequence. Include the accounting entry, any conversations with outside parties, policy changes, process changes and controls. Address how changing conditions, such as a new plan design, will be handled. Total the cost and compare it with the problem it prevents. Identify the main risks to the plan and what happens if a step slips. Define how success will be measured. Assign steps to roles, not named individuals. Address it as a memo to the person who approves the plan. Reference the accounting text, professional guidance and control framework in APA 7.
How this AC599 Unit 9 example is built
The sample's seven steps each carry an owner, cost and deadline: the year-end entry with a gross liability and separate receivable, the bank conversation with a possible $5,000 to $15,000 waiver fee, the prior-period evaluation with the auditor, a written policy, quarterly re-derivation of factors because of the new deductibles, an actuary for the 2027 year end and a monthly close control. The highlighted sentence explains the sequence. Sections total $11,000 to $24,000 plus about forty staff hours, describe what happens if steps slip, discuss the risk of the bank declining both requests, and set success measures including a 5 percent hindsight test.
AC599 Unit 9 rubric: what earns full points
Implementation recommendations in AC599 earn points for complete, sequenced steps with accountability. Graders check that every step has a role, cost, deadline and dependency, and that the order reflects real dependencies. The rubric rewards including outside parties such as lenders and auditors, addressing changing conditions, and comparing cost with the problem prevented. Risks, contingencies for slipped steps and measurable success criteria show the plan was thought through. Recommendations that list good ideas without owners or dates, ignore the external conversation or omit success measures lose credit. Memo format, role-based assignments and APA 7 references complete the work.
AC599 Unit 9 help from the desk
Weak Unit 9 recommendations list actions without owners or deadlines, so nothing happens after approval. Steps are ordered by importance rather than dependency, putting a policy after the entry it should govern. The bank or auditor is not mentioned, though their response decides the outcome. Costs are omitted, or only the new costs are shown without the cost of the problem. No one says how success will be judged. Individuals are named instead of roles. If your capstone's findings differ, a writer can build the step table, sequence and measures from them. Some plans also leave out what happens if a step slips, so one delay quietly stalls everything after it.
Get an AC599 Unit 9 example written to your instructions
Send your findings, the organization's constraints on budget and staff, and the Unit 9 prompt with its rubric. The recommendation drafted from them sequences each step by dependency, prices it in dollars or internal hours and assigns an owner by role, with a fallback wherever an outside party decides. No charge for the first custom sample, typically 24-48h. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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AC599 Unit 9 questions, answered
How precise should implementation costs be?
Precise enough to approve, which usually means a dollar figure or a count of internal hours for each step. This sample prices the coding rebuild at about 7,500 of partner time and states the controller's hours for the policy and the entry. Round figures are fine when the basis is stated; unknown is rarely accepted where an estimate was possible.
Should the recommendation name individuals?
Roles, not names. This sample assigns steps to the controller, the chief financial officer and the systems manager. Naming people ties the plan to current staff and can read as assigning blame for the original misposting. Where your section asks for named owners, a composite organization lets you use role titles with invented names instead of real colleagues.
Where can I find a free AC599 Unit 9 sample paper?
This page holds a full AC599 Unit 9 implementation recommendation for fixing Hollis Creek Supply's health claims reserve, with seven steps, owners, costs, dates, risks, success measures and APA 7 references.
Why must the bank conversation come before February 15?
The year-end covenant certificate is due then. The bank's view on whether the prior-year portion counts in 2026 earnings decides whether the certificate shows a breach or a pass.
Why re-derive completion factors every quarter in 2027?
Higher deductibles will slow how quickly claims reach the plan, so factors from the old design would overstate completion. Quarterly re-derivation shows how the pattern changes as it happens.