Reading financial reports for dummies

Description

Updated to reflect the 2007 law on international financial reporting standards, offers ways in which businesspeople of all levels can better understand accounting and explains how to analyze financial data effectively. Content: Part I: getting down to financial reporting basics -- Recognizing business types and their tax rules -- Public or private: How company structure affects the books -- Digging into accounting basics -- Part II: checking out the big show: Annual Reports -- Exploring the anatomy of an annual report -- Balancing assets against liabilities and equity -- Using the income statement -- The statement of cash flows -- Scouring the notes to the financial statements -- Considering consolidated financial statements -- Part III: analyzing the numbers -- Testing the profits and market value -- Looking at liquidity -- Making sure the company has cash to carry on -- Part IV: understanding how companies optimize operations -- How reports help with basic budgeting -- Turning up clues in turnover and assets -- Examining cash inflow and outflow -- How companies keep the cash flowing -- Part V: the many ways companies answer to others -- Finding out how companies find errors: the auditing process -- Digging into government regulations -- Creating a global financial reporting standard -- Checking out the analyst-corporation connection -- How companies communicate with shareholders -- Keeping score when companies play games with numbers -- Part VI: the part of tens -- Ten financial scandals that rocked the world -- Ten signs that a company's in trouble -- glossary. Abstract: There are four main financial statements--balance sheets, income statements, cash flow statements, and statements of shareholders' equity. Reading Financial Reports For Dummies, Second Edition takes the mystery out of these reports and gives readers the information they need to decipher such important documents. Read more...