All business organizations produce financial statements, and the information communicated (or hidden) in these is relevant to a wide range of users. After a number of recent financial scandals from banks to supermarkets, the need to fully understand financial statements has never been so imperative, and the topic itself so pertinent. With updated examples to reflect the current business environment, including new material on the ethical considerations, and a wider array of business examples, from retail to services and banks, O'Hare continues to demist financial statements for non-specialists. In this new and refreshed edition, he once again covers the topic in an accessible way and assumes no prior training or study in accounting. Offering a range of extra resources, including end of chapter questions, topics for further discussion and brimming with real-world examples, this concise new edition provides a comprehensive resource that will be welcomed by lecturers and instructors charged with delivering classes on financial statements.

All business organizations produce financial statements, and the information communicated (or hidden) in these is relevant to a wide range of users. After a number of recent financial scandals from banks to supermarkets, the need to fully understand financial statements has never been so imperative, and the topic itself so pertinent. With updated examples to reflect the current business environment, including new material on the ethical considerations, and a wider array of business examples, from retail to services and banks, O'Hare continues to demist financial statements for non-specialists. In this new and refreshed edition, he once again covers the topic in an accessible way and assumes no prior training or study in accounting. Offering a range of extra resources, including end of chapter questions, topics for further discussion and brimming with real-world examples, this concise new edition provides a comprehensive resource that will be welcomed by lecturers and instructors charged with delivering classes on financial statements.

It is clear that value added methods provide relevant, useful information for financial analysis, market valuation, and financial decision making in corporate settings. Value added methods can be used in ratio analysis, in the determination of earnings as an earnings management tools, and can be substituted for earnings in equity valuation. When included in a wealth measurement it can vastly improve the quality of decision making. Riahi-Belkaoui covers these topics and more. His book is a probing, essential examination of what the latest value added methods are and what they can do, not only for accounting professionals but for academics and top corporate management as well.

Value added reporting is popular in most European countries and in New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia. Most emerging countries are using it too, or considering it. Riahi-Belkaoui explicates latest developments in value-added practice and research, first covering the meaning of the concept, the history behind value added's development and its implied advantages and disadvantages. He then covers the derivation of a value added report, using a fictional case and the resulting data, before moving to an overview of the empirical literature most concerned with value added in the United States. Documenting the overall behavior of the net value added earnings policy model, he lays the foundation for more contextually specific approaches and investigates the usefulness of the substitution of net-value added in equity valuation. The book concludes with an examination of whether accounting knowledge is associated with a decision maker's tendency to ignore value added in wealth measurement in favor of the profit concept. Riahi-Belkaoui draws heavily on his own important writings, to further illustrate and explain the methods and benefits of value added approaches in accounting and other forms of financial decision making.

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.

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.

Business sustainability has advanced from greenwashing and branding to being a business imperative. Stakeholders, including shareholders, demand, regulators require, and companies now need to report their sustainability performance. No longer is this a choice for businesses. A decade ago, fewer than 50 companies released sustainability reports, and now more 8,000 global public companies disclose sustainability performance information on some or all five economic, governance, social, ethical, and environmental (EGSEE) dimensions of sustainability performance, and this trend is expected to continue. Indeed, more than 6,000 European public companies would be required to disclose their environmental, social, governance and diversity information for their 2017 reporting year. However, the proper determination of sustainability performance, accurate and reliable reporting and independent assurance of sustainability information remain major challenges for organizations of all types and sizes. Through reading this book, you will: Identify sustainability strategies to create innovation in new products, services, energy-efficiency, environmental facilities and green initiatives. Understand the role and responsibilities of all participants in the corporate reporting process, including directors, officers, internal auditors, external auditors, legal counsel, and investors. See ways to improve public trust, investor confidence, business reputation, employee satisfaction, corporate culture, social responsibility and environmental performance. Learn all five economic, governance, social, ethical and environmental (EGSEE) dimensions of sustainability performance separately and their integrated and interactive effects on achieving the goal of creating sustainable value for all stakeholders, including shareholders. Learn how to adopt best practices in sustainability development and performance, and deliver effective integrated sustainability reporting and assurance.

Business sustainability has advanced from greenwashing and branding to being a business imperative. Stakeholders, including shareholders, demand, regulators require, and companies now need to report their sustainability performance. No longer is this a choice for businesses. A decade ago, fewer than 50 companies released sustainability reports, and now more 8,000 global public companies disclose sustainability performance information on some or all five economic, governance, social, ethical, and environmental (EGSEE) dimensions of sustainability performance, and this trend is expected to continue. Indeed, more than 6,000 European public companies would be required to disclose their environmental, social, governance and diversity information for their 2017 reporting year. However, the proper determination of sustainability performance, accurate and reliable reporting and independent assurance of sustainability information remain major challenges for organizations of all types and sizes. Through reading this book, you will: Identify sustainability strategies to create innovation in new products, services, energy-efficiency, environmental facilities and green initiatives. Understand the role and responsibilities of all participants in the corporate reporting process, including directors, officers, internal auditors, external auditors, legal counsel, and investors. See ways to improve public trust, investor confidence, business reputation, employee satisfaction, corporate culture, social responsibility and environmental performance. Learn all five economic, governance, social, ethical and environmental (EGSEE) dimensions of sustainability performance separately and their integrated and interactive effects on achieving the goal of creating sustainable value for all stakeholders, including shareholders. Learn how to adopt best practices in sustainability development and performance, and deliver effective integrated sustainability reporting and assurance.

As the monetary cost of fraud escalates globally, and the ensuing confidence in financial markets deteriorates, the international demand for quality in financial statements intensifies. But what constitutes quality in financial statements? This book examines financial statement fraud, a topical and increasingly challenging area for financial accounting, business, and the law. Evidence shows that accounting anomalies in an organization's financial statements diminish the quality and serviceability of financial information. However, an anomaly does not necessarily signal fraud. Financial statement fraud is intended to mislead shareholders and other stakeholders. In this book, elements that underpin diversity of accounting anomalies likely found in fraudulent financial accounting statements are revealed. Multiple research methods are used in the analysis of selected international fraud cases, each illustrating examples of financial statement fraud, including: revenue recognition, overstatement and/or misappropriation of assets, understatement of expenses and liabilities, disclosure fraud, bribery and corruption. Additionally, the phoenix phenomenon with regard to fraud in financial accounting is investigated. Drawing on documented observations of commercial and legal cases globally this study highlights the necessity for continued development of financial audit practices and other audit services.

In Time Series Analysis and Adjustment the authors explain how the last four decades have brought dramatic changes in the way researchers analyze economic and financial data on behalf of economic and financial institutions and provide statistics to whomsoever requires them. Such analysis has long involved what is known as econometrics, but time series analysis is a different approach driven more by data than economic theory and focused on modelling. An understanding of time series and the application and understanding of related time series adjustment procedures is essential in areas such as risk management, business cycle analysis, and forecasting. Dealing with economic data involves grappling with things like varying numbers of working and trading days in different months and movable national holidays. Special attention has to be given to such things. However, the main problem in time series analysis is randomness. In real-life, data patterns are usually unclear, and the challenge is to uncover hidden patterns in the data and then to generate accurate forecasts. The case studies in this book demonstrate that time series adjustment methods can be efficaciously applied and utilized, for both analysis and forecasting, but they must be used in the context of reasoned statistical and economic judgment. The authors believe this is the first published study to really deal with this issue of context.

Assessing and Responding to Audit Risk in a Financial Statement Audit is the definitive source for guidance on applying the core principles of the risk-based audit methodology that must be used on all financial statement audits. This guide is written in an easy-to-understand style that allows auditors of all experience levels find answers to the issues they encounter in the field. Unique insights, examples, and a comprehensive case study clarify critical concepts and requirements.

This book provides an illuminating analysis of Internally Generated Goodwill from a strategic point of view. The author launches his strategic analysis from a foundational understanding of Internally Generated Goodwill as determined largely in relationship to intangible resources and competitive differentials. Arguing that intangible resources are at the origin of competitive differential--and accordingly at the origin of the achievement of economic profit--the author shows how Internally Generated Goodwill can be considered as the economic expression of competitive differentials and, therefore, as the expression of the greater firm s value that originates from those differentials.

In addition to offering this innovative theoretical framework, the author develops a variety of practical tools for generating value estimates and value breakdowns of IIG. The masterful analysis provided here focuses on developing methods for identifying the elements that compose IIG and on achieving an accurate estimate of its value, ultimately seeking to evaluate the limitations and advantages of the existing variety of approaches to analyzing the constituent parts of IIG and to devise accounting practices that will help academics and professionals alike to obtain more significant and lucid results.

Better Corporate Reporting outlines the latest frameworks for enhancing non-financial and sustainability reporting. It includes guides to: the International Integrated Reporting Council's new framework; the Global Reporting Initiative's G4 framework; and a detailed look at the concept at the heart of both of these new frameworks, materiality.

Accountability, Social Responsibility and Sustainability addresses the broad and complicated interactions between organisational life, civil society, markets, inequality and environmental degradation through the lenses of accounting, accountability, responsibility and sustainability. Placing the way in which organisations are controlled and the metrics by which they are run at the heart of the analysis, this text also explores how this system opposes the very concerns of societal well-being and environmental stewardship that form the basis of civilised society. Gray, Adams and Owen offer an in-depth and nuanced guide to this theory, recognising the crucial role played by scholars and practitioners in approaching these central tensions. The theory is extensively supported by analysis of developments in practice and in a real-world context. Aimed principally at undergraduate and postgraduate Accounting students, Accountability, Social Responsibility and Sustainability will prove invaluable to any student, teacher or practitioner with an interest in the central role accounting, finance, accountability, CSR and sustainability play in the future of society and the planet.

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.

Praise for "The Financial Numbers Game"

"So much for the notion 'those who can, do--those who can't, teach.' Mulford and Comiskey function successfully both as college professors and real-world financial mercenaries. These guys know their balance sheets. The Financial Numbers Game should serve as a survival manual for both serious individual investors and industry pros who study and act upon the interpretation of financial statements. This unique blend of battle-earned scholarship and quality writing is a must-read/must-have reference for serious financial statement analysis."
--Bob Acker, Editor/Publisher, "The Acker Letter"

"Wall Street's unforgiving attention to quarterly earnings presents ever-increasing pressure on CFOs to manage earnings and expectations. The Financial Numbers Game provides a clear explanation of the ways in which management can stretch, bend, and break accounting rules to reach the desired bottom line. This arms the serious investor or financial analyst with the healthy skepticism required to drive beyond reported results to a clear understanding of a firm's true performance."
--Mark Hurley, Managing Director, Training and Development Global Corporate and Investment Banking, Bank of America

"After reading The Financial Numbers Game, I feel as though I've taken a master's course in financial statement analysis. Mulford and Comiskey's latest book should be required reading for anyone who is serious about fundamentally analyzing stocks."
--Harry Domash, Investing Columnist, "San Francisco Chronicle" and Publisher, "Winning Investing"

"The Financial Numbers Game" identifies the steps businesses may take to misstate financial performanceand helps its readers to identify those situations where reported results may not be what they seem.

The rise of the British accountancy profession from the late nineteenth century to the present day, and the world-wide success of its accountancy firms, were to a large extent based on the growth of the audit function. This book explores the history of the audit process in Britain, demonstrating that the characteristic features of the auditing industry are a diversity in practice based largely on the different types of clients the auditors serve. The book examines the innovation that was brought about by the staggering developments in information technology which have been seen over the last few centuries. This comprehensive history will be a useful reference tool for accounting, business and economic historians and will also be an enlightening read for all those with an interest in auditing procedures.

Accounting and Distributive Justice challenges the basic assumptions on which the current practice of financial reporting is based. It argues that the objective of financial reporting should be to contribute to the achievement of distributive justice and not the optimal allocation of resources as in the traditional capitalist paradigm. It explains in non-technical terms the principle philosophical theories of justice and argues that a firm has a moral responsibility to seek distributive justice in its dealings with its shareholders, employees, suppliers, customers, and other people with whom it has dealings, who are considered to be the firm's stakeholders. The book introduces concepts of distributive justice to accountants and provokes them into reflecting on how the discipline of accounting can best serve the cause of justice. Accounting and Distributive Justice provides both a philosophical foundation and a practical game plan for the future of a more sustainable accounting practice.

The failure of current mechanisms to either predict the collapse of various companies or curb corrupt practises has kept the subject of external reporting to the fore. Is Fair Value Fair? Financial Reporting in an International Perspective contains contributions from many highly-respected individuals involved in external reporting, regulation and standard setting. Their contributions discuss the future of

• regulation
• application of standards
• supervision
• audit

The new IFRS regulations coming into force in 2005 are set to radically change the various methods of financial reporting. Is Fair Value Fair? fully prepares readers for these changes and is an invaluable tool for corporate financiers and institutional investors with an interest in the regulatory environment.

The increasing pace of global conformance towards the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) highlights the need for accounting students as well as accounting practitioners to be conversant with IFRS. Teaching IFRS offers expert descriptions of, and insights into, the IFRS convergence process from a teaching and learning perspective. Hence this book is both timely and likely to have considerable impact in providing guidance for those who teach financial reporting around the world. The contents of the book come from authoritative sources and offer something distinctive to complement the existing textbooks which typically focus on the technical aspects of IFRS and their adoption. Drawing upon the experiences of those who have sought to introduce IFRS-related classroom innovations and the associated student outcomes achieved therefrom, the book offers suggestions about how to design and deliver courses dealing with IFRS and catalogues extensive listings of IFRS-related teaching resources to support those courses. This book was originally published as a special issue of Accounting Education: An international journal.

How can we ensure our strategy will succeed, especially in changing and uncertain times? The answer, as explained in Strategy Mapping for Learning Organizations, is to become a more responsive organization - one that captures its strategy in strategy maps, learns from that strategy and can adapt to deliver results. For anyone involved in managing strategy and performance, applying the powerful strategy mapping techniques will move your balanced scorecard from an operational tool to one of strategy and change. It will help you capture, communicate and manage your strategy more effectively. However, strategy can no longer be simply a top down, annual process. It needs to be more iterative, emergent and involving. Many agile organizations have adopted rolling plans and budgets. To bring greater agility into the wider strategy and performance management processes requires the tools and techniques described in Strategy Mapping for Learning Organizations. Phil Jones provides a detailed guide to developing, rolling out and managing with modern strategy maps and scorecards, building in agility and learning. His book incorporates the latest strategic thinking and models. It places the balanced scorecard in a wider governance context that includes the management of risk and environmental and social responsibility. Fully illustrated with examples from many different organizations, this book will help you deliver your strategy better.

Since the global financial crisis of 2007-8, new laws and regulations have been introduced with the aim of improving the transparency in financial reporting. Despite the dramatically increased flow of information to shareholders and the public, this information flow has not always been meaningful or useful. Often it seems that it is not possible to see the wood for the trees. Financial scalds continue, as Wirecard, NMC Health, Patisserie Valerie, going back to Carillion (and many more) demonstrate. Financial and corporate reporting have never been so fraught with difficulties as companies fail to give guidance about the future in an increasingly uncertain world aided and abetted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This concise book argues that the changes have simply masked an increase in the use of corporate PR, impression management, bullet points, glossy images, and other simulacra which allow poor performance to be masked by misleading information presented in glib boilerplate texts, images, and tables. The tone of the narrative sections in annual reports is often misleading. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with insiders and experts, this book charts what has gone wrong with financial reporting and offers a range of solutions to improve information to both investors and the public. This provides a framework for a new era of forward-looking corporate reporting and guidance based on often conflicting multiple corporate goals. The book also examines and contrasts the latest thinking by the regularity authorities. Providing a compelling exploration of the industry's failings and present difficulties, and the impact of future disruption, this timely, thought-provoking book will be of great interest to students, researchers, and professionals as well as policy makers in accounting, financial reporting, corporate reporting, financial statement analysis, and governance.

Accounting and Distributive Justice challenges the basic assumptions on which the current practice of financial reporting is based. It argues that the objective of financial reporting should be to contribute to the achievement of distributive justice and not the optimal allocation of resources as in the traditional capitalist paradigm. It explains in non-technical terms the principle philosophical theories of justice and argues that a firm has a moral responsibility to seek distributive justice in its dealings with its shareholders, employees, suppliers, customers, and other people with whom it has dealings, who are considered to be the firm's stakeholders. The book introduces concepts of distributive justice to accountants and provokes them into reflecting on how the discipline of accounting can best serve the cause of justice. Accounting and Distributive Justice provides both a philosophical foundation and a practical game plan for the future of a more sustainable accounting practice.

Goodwill, sometimes purchased but often more significantly internally generated, is the major constituent of the value of many listed companies. Accounting aims to provide users of financial statements with useful information, and more than fifty current International Financial Reporting Standards prescribe accounting disclosure requirements in minute detail. However, these Standards dismiss internally generated goodwill with a single brief provision that it is not to be brought to account at all. The impairment regime now laid down for dealing with purchased goodwill contains severe flaws, while previous methods have also been found to be unsatisfactory. This book traces the history of the goodwill accounting controversy in detail and demonstrates that it has been a prime example of an issue 'conceived in a way that it is in principle unsolvable'. It explores the problem of recognising the importance of goodwill as a whole and finding a way of presenting meaningful information regarding it in the context of the financial statements. The author's proposed solution builds upon research undertaken and uses a Market Capitalization Statement, based on a modification of nineteenth century 'double accounting' in a modern context. Examples show that the proposed Market Capitalization Statement has the potential to provide significant information not currently available form conventional financial statements, which in turn are freed to present clearer information.

Despite a plethora of techniques to analyse the financial performance of a business, there has been no single methodology that has been overwhelmingly preferred by users. This could be an indication that either the methods themselves are deficient or they are limited by other factors that are not easily overcome. Unlike the current offerings in the field, which focus on issues relating to business performance management or non-financial aspects (such as market efficiency, satisfaction and workforce productivity), this book offers a solution to a major gap in the literature and understanding for those seeking to measure, analyse and benchmark the financial performance of any organisation (for-profit, not-for-profit and government agencies). It clearly identifies why current techniques fail; proposes and evidences a solution that overcomes these issues by including two algorithms that can be combined, to solve this problem; and demonstrates the practical application of the technique to the benefit of users in order to pinpoint real performance levels and insights. One of the largest issues this book will help to overcome is the inability to compare the accounts of businesses/organisations from different countries that report in different currencies. This technique eliminates the need for currency translations and the issues that arise with that process. This book is an invaluable and practical guide to assist accounting and finance practitioners in measuring and comparing financial performance across firms with different business models, different accounting policies and different scales of operations.

A History of Corporate Financial Reporting provides an understanding of the procedures and practices which constitute corporate financial reporting in Britain, at different points of time, and how and why those practices changed and became what they are now. Its particular focus is the external financial reporting practices of joint stock companies. This is worth knowing about given the widely held view that Britain (i) pioneered modern financial reporting, and (ii) played a primary role in the development of both capital markets and professional accountancy. The book makes use of a principal and agent framework to study accounting's past, but one where the failure of managers always to supply the information that users' desire is given full recognition. It is shown that corporate financial reporting did not develop into its current state in a straightforward and orderly fashion. Each era produces different environmental conditions and imposes new demands on accounting. A proper understanding of accounting developments therefore requires a careful examination of the interrelationship between accountants and accounting techniques on the one hand and, on the other, the social and economic context within which changes took place. The book's corporate coverage starts with the legendary East India Company, created in 1600, and continues through the heyday of the statutory trading companies founded to build Britain's canals (commencing in the 1770s) and railways (commencing c.1829) to focus, principally, on the limited liability company fashioned by the Joint Stock Companies Act 1844 and the Limited Liability Act 1855. The story terminates in 2005 when listed companies were required to prepare their consolidated accounts in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, thus signalling the effective end of British accounting.