Metrics for Sustainable Business is the first book to give students a comprehensive understanding of sustainability in organizations from an accounting perspective. The book walks student through the steps for doing a sustainability assessment, and aims to develop them into financial analysts who understand sustainability reports, and are able to create or audit them. While most books focus on environmental issues, Herriott trains his gaze on the corporate and institutional perspective, covering measurement systems, how to evaluate and improve a standard, and conducting a life cycle assessment. Walking students through the programs of disclosure, the varying standards for corporate ratings, and organizational certification, allows them to grasp the tools for conducting a sustainability assessment and auditing reports. Chapters on accounting for greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and waste introduce students to the technical details in sustainability accounting, while a chapter on the philosophies of sustainability offers an answer to the question, "Why are they asking us to report that?" Richly demonstrated with practical examples and informative visuals, this book will serve students of sustainability, accounting, and integrated reporting.

The fully update "Third Edition" of the most trusted book on financial statement analysis

Recent financial events have taught us to take a more critical look at the financial disclosures provides by companies. In the "Third Edition" of "Analysis of Financial Statements," Pamela Peterson-Drake and Frank Fabozzi once again team up to provide a practical guide to understanding and interpreting financial statements. Written to reflect current market conditions, this reliable resource will help analysts and investors use these disclosures to assess a company's financial health and risks.

Throughout "Analysis of Financial Statements, Third Edition," the authors demonstrate the nuts and bolts of financial analysis by applying the techniques to actual companies. Along the way, they tackle the changing complexities in the area of financial statement analysis and provide an up-to-date perspective of new acts of legislation and events that have shaped the field.Addresses changes to U.S. and international accounting standards, as well as innovations in the areas of credit risk models and factor modelsIncludes examples, guidance, and an incorporation of information pertaining to recent events in the accounting/analysis communityCovers issues of transparency, cash flow, income reporting, and much more

Whether evaluating a company's financial information or figuring valuation for M&A's, analyzing financial statements is essential for both professional investors and corporate finance executives. The "Third Edition" of "Analysis of Financial Statements" contains valuable insights that can help you excel at this endeavor.

Written for students taking courses in building and surveying, 'Estimating for Builders and Surveyors' describes and explains the method used by the estimator to build up prices or rates for items described in the SMM7 format. Each chapter is a self-contained unit related to a particular element in the building. Worked examples throughout reflect both traditional and up-to-date technology. Written by an author team of academics and professional surveyors, this book continues to be an invaluable introduction to the subject of estimating.

The intergovernmental fiscal issue is highly relevant given the worldwide movement toward more decentralized governance in both industrial and developing countries. Over the course of five decades Japan has developed a robust system of decentralized governance. This book investigates fiscal decentralization and local finance in Japan with a view to understanding how the process of decentralization has unfolded there and what the rest of the world can learn. The author sheds light on the drives leading up to a need for decentralization reform over the last decade and evaluates so-called 'Trinity Reform' implemented by the Koizumi administration during 2004-2006. Finally, the book considers the decentralization process in Asian developing countries and discusses what lessons might be drawn from Japanese experiences. This excellent study of an important subject area will be particularly useful for all those studying intergovernmental fiscal relations, public finance and public sector economics. It will also be of interest to specialist international organizations and policy makers who are involved in intergovernmental issues.

This first volume of the Official History studies the background to privatisation, and the privatisations of the first two Conservative Governments led by Margaret Thatcher from May 1979 to June 1987. First commissioned by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair as an authoritative history, this volume addresses a number of key questions: To what extent was privatisation a clear policy commitment within the Thatcher Governments of the 1980s - or did Government simply stumble on the idea? Why were particular public corporations sold early in the 1980s and other sales delayed until well into the 1990s? What were the privatisation objectives and how did they change over time, if at all? How was each privatisation planned and executed, how were different City advisers appointed and remunerated, what precise roles did they play? How was each privatisation administered; in what ways did the methods evolve and change and why? How were sale prices determined? Which government departments took the lead role; what was the input of the Treasury and Bank of England; and what was the relationship between Ministers and civil servants? The study draws heavily from the official records of the British Government to which the author was given full access and from interviews with leading figures involved in each of the privatisations - including ex-Ministers, civil servants, business and City figures, as well as academics that have studied the subject. This new official history will be of much interest to students of British political history, economics and business studies.

Accountable Marketing is designed to be the definitive volume on the emerging role of accountability and performance metrics in marketing. Sponsored and developed by the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB), it provides a multi-disciplinary, international perspective on this topic of critical importance. Stewart and Gugel have curated the work of several leading marketing, finance and accounting professionals and academics on the topics of marketing accountability and financial reporting to create a volume that represents the best of MASB's work over the last few years. The book not only emphasizes the importance of accountability in the marketing function, but also creates a dialogue among academics and practitioners about the importance of marketing in driving consistent growth in the organization, and the ways in which improved methods for measuring and forecasting contribute to the effectiveness of these marketing activities. This book marks the first-ever reference point for practicing professionals, faculty and students interested in marketing accountability, the development of standards for marketing reporting, and developing stronger linkages between marketing activities and outcomes, and the financial performance of the firm.

Risk-based operational audits and performance audits require a broad array of competencies. This book provides auditors and risk professionals with the understanding required to improve results during risk-based audits. Mastering the Five Tiers of Audit Competency: The Essence of Effective Auditing is an anthology of powerful risk-based auditing practices. Filled with practical do and don't techniques, it encompasses the interpersonal aspects of risk-based auditing, not just the technical content. This book details the behaviors you need to demonstrate and the habitual actions you need to take at each phase in an audit to manage the people relationships as well as the work itself. Each section of this book is devoted to a component of the audit: planning, detailed risk and control assessment, testing, audit report writing, project management, audit team management, and client relationship management. The book leverages The Whole Person Project, Inc.'s 30 years of hands-on organizational development experience and custom-designed internal audit training programs to aid those just starting out in audit as well as more experienced auditors. It also contains templates you can use to set performance goals and assess your progress towards achieving those goals. This book will spark ideas that can enhance performance, improve working relationships, and make it easier to complete audits that improve your organization's risk management culture and practices. Explaining how to make positive and sustained changes to the way you approach your work, the book includes a summary of the key points and a brief quiz to help you remember salient ideas in each chapter. Presenting proven methods and advice that can help you immediately save time, reduce stress, and produce reliable, quality results, this book is an ideal resource for anyone looking to make positive changes and adopt more productive work habits

Activity-based pricing: the new paradigm for maximum profitability

Pricing for Profitability introduces activity-based pricing, a new paradigm for improving profitability by reducing the occurrence of pricing mistakes and placing less emphasis on increasing revenue and more on improving profits. Activity-based pricing will help any company set prices that are attractive to buyers and profitable for the company. Pricing for Profitability teaches activity-based pricing to help you make better pricing decisions based on customer demand and a better understanding of what really causes profits. It will help you prevent underpricing and generate a healthier financial return.

Simply organized and nontechnical, this in-depth treatment covers the ten vital topics of activity-based pricing. A wealth of examples that illustrate the points made in the text include activity-based pricing models used in real industries. Designed for everyone involved with the pricing process, Pricing for Profitability provides a comprehensive understanding of how to use pricing to gain the competitive advantage.

With twenty-one years' experience in the investment bond business, Raymond uses his experience in this study to demonstrate the key issues related to state, county, municipal and district bonds through the use of the most recent data of the time. Originally published in 1923, this version was republished in 1936 to ensure that all figures and arguments were up-to-date. This title will be of interest to students of Business, Economics and Finance.

This book shows the relevance of accounting methods to the economic and administrative problems of business. The book has been arranged to take the reader through the budgeting procedure of a representative business: demonstrating the relationship between budgets, accounts and the various business activities and showing how budgets and accounts link together the balance sheets at the beginning and end of the year.

This two-volume set brings together in one accessible reference source many of the key articles in the field of accounting and investment management which have been published over the past half century. The first volume investigates the role of accountants and analysts as financial intermediaries, the measurement of corporate earnings and profitability and equity valuation. The second volume examines price-earnings ratios, market-to-book ratios, earnings and fundamental analysis in relation to stock returns.Professor De Bondt has written an original introduction which sets these papers in context and offers a comprehensive overview of this crucial area of study.

This study adds both knowledge and method in the writing of business history. The author proposes that a preliminary management audit can be devised and utilized to gather data, analyse and compare longitudinally the quality of management existing in organizations. This book modifies a methodological tool for measuring, analysing and comparing managements to aid in the writing of business history. It establishes criteria and examples of excellent management from a sample of the USA's first large-scale organization - the railroads. Prior to the 1870s the railroads were the only big business in the USA and the early ones emerged as a managerial problem which made obsolescent traditional structures and concepts and required effective management.

Managing Financial Resources addresses the complicated issues of financial planning and control. These include performance measures and cost analysis, methods of improving profitability and techniques of financial monitoring and control. Real examples and case studies are used throughout to illustrate points in a practical context. All chapters have been updated and new material has been added to extend the original text in areas such as public sector management issues, audit commission, capital investment decisions, stakeholder analysis for published reports and accounts, performance measurement, outsourcing, new developments in the public sector and transfer pricing. This book is based on the Management Charter Initiative's Occupational Standards for Management NVQs and SVQs at level 4. It is particularly suitable for managers on the Diploma in Management or part 1 of the Postgraduate Diploma, especially those accredited by the Chartered Management Institute and Edexcel but this also a useful text for practicing managers and those individuals studying for a MBA.

The critical tradition in accounting historiography has come to occupy a prominent place in the discipline's academic scholarship. Some critical literature has confronted the responsibility of accounting and accountants in precipitating contemporary crises, such as the audit failures that spawned Sarbanes-Oxley and the world-wide recession. Certain contemporary issues have long histories, such as the difficulties encountered by women to break the glass ceiling in public accounting, and the suffering of indigenous peoples under the imperialistic yoke. Other episodes in accounting's long history are seemingly more divorced from the present, but in reality they all have contemporary significance. Slavery in the New World, for example, although abolished more than a century ago, is still rampant in parts of the world, albeit less formally. Critical accounting historians feel it a duty to harken to the "suppressed voices" of the past, those groups of people who had no access to an accounting record - women, persons of color, indigenous populations, alienated proletarians, victims of governmental incompetence and graft, and many voiceless others. Critical Histories of Accounting: Sinister Inscriptions in the Modern Era draws on the foremost work in this developing literature, both that authored by the co-editors of this volume, and that written by others. Editors Richard K. Fleischman, Warwick N. Funnell, and Steve Walker have written extensively about "the dark side of accounting," gauging the complicity of those performing accounting functions in episodes in human history that are at worst evil and at best reprehensible. The editors have also hand-selected a series of historical and contemporary episodes that have been critically investigated by the wider accounting history community, preceded by a thorough introduction.

Written over a period of twenty years the papers included here reflect the changing circumstances around the study of accounting history.

Discussing various aspects of accounting theory by collecting diverse pieces originally published between 1978 and 1994, this volume asks and answers the following questions: What do the figures from a company's report actually mean? To what uses can they properly be put? Could they be improved? What effect have they on the outside world?

This compilation concerns account books, not books on accounting. Most of the essays analyse the account book(s) of a single person or business. In each case the account book(s) demonstrate the presence of, at least, elements of double entry. The essays come in pairs, beginning with Geoffrey Lee's paper on Florentine bank ledger fragments of 1211, some of the earliest relics of Italian bookkeeping. Subsequent papers trace the development of double entry over the centuries until 1786 when full double entry was achieved. There are papers from the UK and USA which illustrate the use of balance sheets, valuation techniques and the accruals convention as well as papers which analyse the causes of the development of double entry, using the evidence of others.

This collection explores Kuhn's 1970 perception of a scientific revolution in the form of a cyclical sequence of anomaly recognition; insecurity, alternative ideas, schools of thought and dominating practices. Cash flow reporting has become a dominant accounting practice which emerged from a developmental process of Kuhnian form. The text is constructed around the various stages identified by Kuhn and selected readings are categorised accordingly.

This volume illustrates the research not only of French accountants (Colasse, Durand, Jouanique, Lemarchand, Nikitin, Richard, Tessier) but also the work of Belgian authors writing in French (Stevelinck, Haulotte) and of French non-accountants (de Swarte, Durdilly, Sauvy). The work of British and North American academics, writing in English on French accounting history is also illustrated from the 1930s (Howard, Edwards), through to the 1960s (Parker) and the more recent research of Standish, Fortin and Bhimani. The contributions to this volume have been arranged both chronologically and thematically as follows: the earliest business accounting records; the first French accounting authors; Colbert, Savbary and the Ordonnance de Commerce; the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; cost accounting; the national accounting plan; national income accounting; government accounting and accounting theory. An abstract of each contribution is given in both English and French.

This book is a resource book for the comprehensive study of the development of accounting thought. It is designed to facilitate the study of the original works and stimulate further study of important accounting theory forbears. It covers: accounting theory accounting concepts of profit financial accounting and the foundations of accounting measurement accounting evaluation and economic behaviour.

The book contains a collection of papers dealing with a range of controversial accounting issues which exercised the minds of local authority officials during the period 1909-1934 and the "solutions" embodied in the Accounts (Boroughs and Metropolitan Boroughs) Regulations 1930. The contributors to the debate were mainly local government officials and the items reproduced cover a wide range of matters such as the content of the abstract accounts; the need for standardization and an illuminating comparison of the nature and contents of municipal accounts with those of limited companies. A number of issues which received close attention from the literature during the early part of the present century were related to the growth of municipal trading undertakings (water, gas, tramways and electricity). The pricing of these services was a matter of considerable debate; questions included whether these services should be priced to generate a profit, break-even or receive a subsidy from the rates. The depreciation question and the related issues of loan periods and the need for a sinking fund receive some attention as do the growing concern of municipal debt.

In-depth coverage of the valuation of accounting practices and of partial ownerships in those practices

Fundamental concepts and approaches related to accounting practices

• Illustrative income approach valuation methods
• Illustrative market approach valuation methods
• Illustrative asset-based approach valuation methods
• Preparing the overall accounting practice valuation synthesis and conclusion
• Identification and quantification of accounting practice valuation discounts and premiums, and other special topics related to the valuation of partial ownership interests
• Special topics related to the valuation of accounting practices
• Reporting the results of the accounting practice appraisal

This comprehensive guide covers every aspect of accounting firm valuation, from determining the circumstances in which the procedure should be undertaken to compliance with standards for reporting valuation results. It provides a solid conceptual and theoretical foundation for the analysis and appraisal of accounting practices along with numerous practical applications and illustrations.

The main body of the book is divided into four sections. The first section addresses the planning stages of the valuation, including motivations for conducting an appraisal, its purpose and objective, professional valuation standards, selecting a valuation approach, and data gathering. In the second section, specific accounting practice valuation methods are discussed and illustrated. These include market-based, income-based, and asset-based methods. This section also examines the process of determining the overall value of the business.

The third section of Valuing Accounting Practices focuses on the valuation of fractional or partial interests in an accounting firm. A large part of this discussion centers on the identification and valuation of discounts and premiums related to partial or minority ownership, with an emphasis on marketable versus nonmarketable interest and discounts for lack of marketability. Topics include empirical research, factors affecting marketability, consideration of transferability restrictions, and discounts and premiums for other nonsystematic factors. The fourth section defines standards for accounting practice valuation reports and provides a comprehensive sample report. Lastly, special practice valuation topics are discussed.

Supplemented with numerous checklists, quantitative examples, appendices, and bibliographies, this handbook is an indispensable resource for accountants and appraisers who value accounting practices. It is an excellent guide for sole practitioners or members of small and medium-size accounting firms who need to conduct self-appraisals for merger negotiations, new firm formation, litigation, or any other reason. It is also an important reference for divorce attorneys.

A must-have reference for financial advisors In step-by-step detail, Success as a Financial Advisor For Dummies covers how a current or would-be financial advisor can maximize their professional success through a series of behaviors, activities, and specific client-centric value propositions. In a time when federal regulators are changing the landscape on the standard of care that financial services clients should expect from their advisors, this book affords professionals insight on how they can be evolving their practices to align with the regulatory and technological trends currently underway. Inside, you'll find out how a financial advisor can be a true fiduciary, how to compete against the growing field of robo-advisors, and how the passive investing trend is actually all about being an active investor. Additionally, you'll discover time-tested advice on building and focusing on client relationships, having a top advisor mindset, and much more. Master the seven core competencies Attract and win new business Pick the right clients Benchmark your performance Start your own firm Brimming with practical expert advice, Success as a Financial Advisor For Dummies is a priceless success tool for any wannabe or experienced financial advisor.

Valuation: Theories and Concepts provides an understanding on how to value companies that employ non-standard accounting procedures, particularly companies in emerging markets and those that require a wider variety of options than standard texts provide. The book offers a broader, more holistic perspective that is perfectly suited to companies and worldwide markets. By emphasizing cases on valuation, including mergers and acquisition valuation, it responds to the growing expectation that students and professionals must generate comprehensive perspectives based on thorough investigations and a library of valuation theories. Readers will gain a better understanding of the development of complete analyses, including trend analysis of financial parameters, ratio analysis, and differing perspectives on valuation and strategic initiatives. Case studies include stock market performance and synergies and the intrinsic value of the firm are compared with offer price. In addition, full data sets for each chapter are available online.

Financial analysis is integral to business sustainability in determining an organisation's financial viability and revealing its strengths and weaknesses, a key requirement in today's competitive business environment. In a first of its kind, Financial Statements Analysis: Cases from Corporate India: evaluates the financial performance and efficiency of various corporate enterprises in India; presents actual case studies from eight core sectors (in manufacturing and services) - construction, cement, steel, automobile, power, telecom, banking, and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO); examines the financial statements on parameters such as financial ratios (profitability, solvency, and liquidity), while appraising their operating efficiency, market potential and valuation; and investigates their implications for larger decision-making and policy recommendations. It will be an important resource for scholars, teachers and students of business and management, commerce, finance, and accounting. It will also appeal to corporate trainers, senior executives and consultants in related fields.