"The latest edition goes beyond ho-hum analysis techniques and provides concrete problem solving. The text is sprinkled with real-world problems (and the analytical tools to solve them) that will be familiar to accounting professionals everywhere. A must-have for anyone looking to improve their company's decision making . . . and their own role in it."
--George R. MacEachern President, Grosvenor Financial Services

"Steve Bragg has presented yet another comprehensive reference tool for the finance professional. "Financial Analysis: A Controller's Guide" is the perfect reference guide for today's controller, presenting not only traditional financial analysis information, but also various types of analyses that will benefit any type of organization. This book is a must-have for any financial professional desiring to make a relevant contribution to his/her organization."
--Jodi Nefzger, CPP Director of Finance, Masonic Home of Missouri

Today's proactive controllers can soar past their mundane responsibilities and become active participants in their corporation's success with the visionary tools found in Steven Bragg's "Financial Analysis: A Controller's Guide, Second Edition,"

Now updated to include analyses of intangible asset measurement and performance improvement as well as evaluation methods to determine which products and services should be eliminated, "Financial Analysis: A Controller's Guide, Second Edition" helps financial managers upgrade their skills so they can answer their organization's call for company operations reviews, investment evaluations, problem reporting, and special investigation requests. Controllers prepared to address this growing need formore innovative financial analysis will open doors to a variety of promotions and high-level interactions with other departments.

Become a highly valued member of your company's infrastructure with the indispensable tools found in "Financial Analysis: A Controller's Guide, Second Edition,"

The security criteria of the International Standards Organization (ISO) provides an excellent foundation for identifying and addressing business risks through a disciplined security management process. Using security standards ISO 17799 and ISO 27001 as a basis, How to Achieve 27001 Certification: An Example of Applied Compliance Management helps an organization align its security and organizational goals so it can generate effective security, compliance, and management programs. The authors offer insight from their own experiences, providing questions and answers to determine an organization's information security strengths and weaknesses with respect to the standard. They also present step-by-step information to help an organization plan an implementation, as well as prepare for certification and audit. Security is no longer a luxury for an organization, it is a legislative mandate. A formal methodology that helps an organization define and execute an ISMS is essential in order to perform and prove due diligence in upholding stakeholder interests and legislative compliance. Providing a good starting point for novices, as well as finely tuned nuances for seasoned security professionals, this book is an invaluable resource for anyone involved with meeting an organization's security, certification, and compliance needs.

Written by two experienced lecturers, this is the first student-centered textbook to bridge the technical and theoretical aspects of management accounting change. Packed full of pedagogical features, including mini-cases, learning outcomes, key terms, article summaries, key concept boxes, real-world cases, chapter summaries and further reading suggestions and resources, it is clear and accessibly written, covering all the major emerging topics in management accounting theory.

Discussing technical developments in management accounting from conventional cost accounting to contemporary strategic management accounting and beyond, in four parts it:

• shows how conventional cost accounting techniques and management control models evolved in line with the development of mass production and bureaucracy
• explores how recent developments such as customer and strategic orientations in business, flexible manufacturing, post-bureaucracy, network and virtual organizational technologies implicate in management accounting
• provides a number of alternative theories through which the transition of management accounting from mechanistic to post-mechanistic approaches can be explained - elaborating both rational and interpretive/critical theories.

This excellent text meets a desperate need for an advanced management accounting textbook that incorporates theory and practice that is accessible and engaging for all those studying in this challenging area.

Written by two experienced lecturers, this is the first student-centered textbook to bridge the technical and theoretical aspects of management accounting change. Packed full of pedagogical features, including mini-cases, learning outcomes, key terms, article summaries, key concept boxes, real-world cases, chapter summaries and further reading suggestions and resources, it is clear and accessibly written, covering all the major emerging topics in management accounting theory.

Discussing technical developments in management accounting from conventional cost accounting to contemporary strategic management accounting and beyond, in four parts it:

• shows how conventional cost accounting techniques and management control models evolved in line with the development of mass production and bureaucracy
• explores how recent developments such as customer and strategic orientations in business, flexible manufacturing, post-bureaucracy, network and virtual organizational technologies implicate in management accounting
• provides a number of alternative theories through which the transition of management accounting from mechanistic to post-mechanistic approaches can be explained - elaborating both rational and interpretive/critical theories.

This excellent text meets a desperate need for an advanced management accounting textbook that incorporates theory and practice that is accessible and engaging for all those studying in this challenging area.

This book is designed to act as a financial statement phrase book and dictionary rolled into one. It will enable those new to the financial world to draw meaning from the wealth of information contained within financial documents that were previously considered out of bounds.
Furthermore, although the pages within this book will be an invaluable springboard to those starting out in the world of accountancy, its primary aim is to enable commercial managers working within every facet of a business to meet clearly defined objectives.
It will enable these professionals to take commercial documents and visualise how they interact with the work of an accountant, explaining why every board of management appears to focus on financial data.
* Explains the impact of choices in accounting treatment upon the financial data an entity produces
* Uses tools to complement the financial data, encourages asking perceptive questions that elicit answers that would not otherwise be made available
* Adds value within a commercial business environment

Planning and Budgeting is one of the hottest topics in accounting; global spending on budgeting software is booming and is predicted to continue to grow throughout this decade. It's big business.
This book focuses on 'Driver-Based' budgeting (ie using external and internal non-financial drivers to predict live item expenses). The book shows the benefits that Driver-Based Budgeting brings and as such is a 'tool kit for change'. Case studies and worked examples are used throughout to ensure understanding, as well as checklists on implementation issues.
Transform the process of implementing new budgeting software with Driver-Based Budgeting
Shows how organisations can slash the time and cost involved in preparing their annual budget
Accountants learn how to manage uncertainty and quickly assess the impact of both internal and external changes

Change is a crucial and inescapable process for many organisations. It remains a constant challenge for managers and many change management initiatives fail. Burns and Stalker's seminal text on managing change, The Management of Innovation, has often been used as a basis for research in mainstream management journals and has been represented as an important theory in popular and long-established management textbooks. The issues raised in that book are still being grappled with by academics and practitioners today. Miriam Green provides a critical analysis of the mainstream construction of knowledge on change management through an examination of representations of that text. The main thesis of her book is that this literature, though valuable, does not provide a full picture. Its objectivist approach ignores the role of other factors raised in the original study. These factors include the effects of power, politics, resistance and employee influence on the outcomes of managerial change strategies and on other organisational processes, with important consequences for the understanding of change initiatives by both academics and practitioners. This is part of an ongoing debate in management studies and more widely in the social sciences about theoretical approaches and research methods. The originality of this book lies in its in-depth comparison of an entire monograph on organisations facing technological and commercial change, with an equally in-depth analysis of the ways this work has been represented and used as a basis for teaching and research. It highlights the limitations of the exclusive use of one approach to explain the complications arising from organisational change. It challenges the scientific justification offered for that approach and supports arguments for more inclusive and sustainable scholarship, of greater relevance to academics, managers and other organisational stakeholders.

Designed for those who want to gain an understanding of the fundamental concepts and techniques used in financial management. An underlying premise of the book is that the objective of the firm is to maximize value or wealth. Drawing on a wealth of experience in the academic and professional worlds, the authors discuss how firms can accomplish this objective by making appropriate investment and financing decisions.

Bridging the gap between financial theory and practice, the authors present fundamental concepts in an intuitive and nontechnical way, and provide numerous practical financial tips to readers. The focus is on current practice, using results from recent surveys to show the most popular techniques and approaches used by financial managers today.

A range of instructor’s resources are available at the accompanying website. Visit www.blackwellpublishing.com/baker for full details.

This book examines the transgressions of the credit rating agencies before, during and after the recent financial crisis. It proposes that by restricting the agencies' ability to offer ancillary services there stands the opportunity to limit, in an achievable and practical manner, the potentially negative effect that the Big Three rating agencies - Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch - may have upon the financial sector and society moreover. The book contains an extensive and in-depth discussion about how the agencies ascended to their current position, why they were able to do so and ultimately their behaviour once their position was cemented. This work offers a new framework for the reader to follow, suggesting that investors, issuers and the state have a 'desired' version of the agencies in their thinking and operate upon that basis when, in fact, those imagined agencies do not exist, as demonstrated by the 'actual' conduct of the agencies. The book primarily aims to uncover this divergence and reveal the 'real' credit rating agencies, and then on that basis propose a real and potentially achievable reform to limit the negative effects that result from poor performance in this Industry. It addresses the topics with regard to financial regulation and the financial crisis, and will be of interest to legal scholars interested in the intersection between business and he law as well as researchers, academics, policymakers, industry and professional associations and students in the fields of corporate law, banking and finance law, financial regulation, corporate governance and corporate finance.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is a mandatory requirement for all corporations listed in the US. Compliance is not an option.
This book is written as a working manual for the senior management to grasp the Act and its implications. It provides a section by section overview of the Act and the appropriate action to take in each case. The companion website accompanying the book provides Certification templates, a What to do and Check List and a description of the COSO Framework - the most popular Internal Control System framework.
There is coverage of how UK companies listed in, or doing business with America also have to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. A description of the UK version of SOX is also included.
The Appendix describes the (minor) variations for Canadian listed corporations based on Ontario Securities Commission and British Columbia Securities Commission rules.
* A simple explanation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for senior management looking for a no-nonsense guide
* Provides a systematic procedure for compliance
* Companion website includes templates and checklists to ease understanding and preparation for compliance"

The Controller's Guide to Planning and Controlling Operations is a comprehensive guide for controllers, CFOs, and budget managers who need to determine: The soundness of sales forecastsThe best approach for setting product pricesThe profitability of customers and market segmentsFederal tax remittance rulesThe impact of a just-in-time system on inventory levels

Packed with clear and realistic strategies, it helps create a coherent framework of financial plans that apply to the full breadth of ongoing corporate control systems, as well as illustrates: When to use labor and materials standards to control manufacturingHow to control research and development costsHow to grant appropriate credit levels to customersHow to set up an effective capital budgeting processHow to create a cost-of-capital calculation

This indispensable resource explains principles of financial planning and financial psychology to help teens and young adults make good financial decisions now and achieve their financial goals. Financial literacy for savvy teens and young adults means meeting them where they are, which is in high school and college. It also means understanding how they differ from their Gen X and elder millennial parents. For example, they tend to be debt-averse, thrifty, and responsible but may err on the side of taking too little risk, such as not investing early enough. This book uses economics and psychology to help Generation Z students make better decisions throughout their lives and especially in their formative years. Financial Literacy for Generation Z addresses decisions students have to make while still in school, after graduation, and later, with the greatest emphasis on the decisions closest at hand to them. It encompasses not just money talk-for example, how much to contribute to your 401(k)-but also decisions that are directly connected to money, such as choosing a major and a career, building a credit record, and managing your first real income. Honors the range of financial goals from simply being comfortable through becoming rich Provides case illustrations of how young people of different personality types engage the financial world Offers references to information on modern and reputable websites including NerdWallet.com and CreditKarma.com Includes plenty of "street smart" advice

This book analyzes the political economy of higher education finance across a range of OECD countries, exploring why some students pay extortionate tuition fees whilst for others their education is free. What are the redistributional consequences of these different tuition-subsidy systems? Analysing the variety of existing systems, Garritzmann shows that across the advanced democracies "Four Worlds of Student Finance" exist. Historically, however, all countries' higher education systems looked very much alike in the 1940s. The book develops a theoretical model, the Time-Sensitive Partisan Theory, to explain why countries have evolved from a similar historical starting point to today's very distinct Four Worlds. The empirical analyses combine a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative evidence, studying higher education policies in all advanced democracies from 1945-2015.

Environment and sustainable development challenges are a matter of global concern. Trillions of dollars of mostly public money are invested every year in domestic and international policies and programs to address these challenges. The effectiveness of these policies and programs is critical to environmental sustainability. Performance audits that examine the effectiveness of governmental policies and programs heavily influence their implementation. Despite this, performance auditing in the environment field has received very little academic attention. This book takes a closer look at performance auditing of public sector environmental policies and programs. It examines trends in global environmental performance auditing; and how it is currently practiced drawing on a global survey and case studies from Canada, India and Australia. In doing so, it identifies issues and challenges faced by Supreme Audit Institutions in undertaking these performance audits. This book will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners of sustainable development, environmental auditing and public sector auditing as well as to donor organisations engaged in these areas.

From internal control structures that are not fraud-specific to insufficient communication in the fraud discovery-to-investigation and conviction process, fraudulent activity is a widespread fact of life in the business world. Historically, the corporate tendency has been to react to fraud after the fact, rather than to be proactive in its prevention. And in most cases, blame is directed at accountants and auditors. Unfortunately, these officers are rarely provided with the resources, proper training, and commitment from top management that are essential to effective fraud detection and control. The Accountants Guide to Fraud Detection and Control offers comprehensive direction for this largely uncharted area.
Two types of fraud are addressed in this book: fraudulent financial reporting, also known as "Treadway" fraud, usually originating in the top management sector; and "asset-theft" fraud, the more common and more costly type, likely to be practiced by virtually anyone, including outsiders. Treadway fraud is being adequately detected by independent auditors (CPAs) in their annual audits. Asset-theft fraud is not being adequately detected by anyone, with very few exceptions. From following clues to achieving a prosecution, here is sound advice that accountants and auditors will find invaluable.

Businesses lose over $100 billion a year to fraud. Only 20 percent is discovered. Whos to blame?

Accountants and internal auditors are often the scapegoats for managements insufficient fraud detection operations and guidelines. At last, here is comprehensive, intermediate training for evaluating, devising, and installing fraud-specific internal controls, and for conducting proactivefraud-specific examinations. Including actual case studies, the authors show accountants and auditors how to:

• Anticipate problems and follow clues
• Successfully disclose fraud
• Compile the evidence necessary to prosecute acts of fraud
• Develop investigative techniques
• Create effective internal controls . . . and much more, to fill the needs of this crucial area.

www.wiley.com/account ing

No trained bookkeeper on staff? No problem. Many nonprofits don't have a trained bookkeeper on staff. This crucial function goes to whoever has the time and the willingness to do it. Lack of accounting training or background is not only frustrating for the individual, but also potentially risky for the nonprofit. Bookkeeping Basics will enable you to successfully meet the basic bookkeeping requirements of your organization. It gives you the knowledge and skills to track the financial activity of your nonprofit in a way that brings order out of chaos, safeguards the organization's assets, and provides useful information for making sound decisions. Clearly defines what you most need to know In plain language, the book explains concepts and processes you most need to know, including: single- versus double-entry bookkeeping; cash versus accrual basis accounting; posting financial transactions; keeping a "paper trail" of source documents; preparing a trial balance; creating financial statements; establishing internal controls; preparing for your annual audit; and closing out your fiscal year. Step-by-step instructions, clear definitions of terms, and detailed examples help you put concepts into actions. Reproducible forms include an accounts payable register, accounts receivable register, accounts receivable register, general ledger, financial summary form, grant tracking form, internal controls activity flow chart, and an audit preparation checklist.  Bottom line: If you're the bookkeeper for your nonprofit—by choice or default—this book is for you!

Bookkeeping Basics No trained bookkeeper on staff? No problem. Many nonprofits don't have a trained bookkeeper on staff. This crucial function goes to whoever has the time and the willingness to do it. Lack of accounting training or background is not only frustrating for the individual, but also potentially risky for the nonprofit. Bookkeeping Basics will enable you to successfully meet the basic bookkeeping requirements of your organization. It gives you the knowledge and skills to track the financial activity of your nonprofit in a way that brings order out of chaos, safeguards the organization's assets, and provides useful information for making sound decisions. Clearly defines what you most need to know In plain language, the book explains concepts and processes you most need to know, including: single- versus double-entry bookkeeping; cash versus accrual basis accounting; posting financial transactions; keeping a ""paper trail"" of source documents; preparing a trial balance; creating financial statements; establishing internal controls; preparing for your annual audit; and closing out your fiscal year. Step-by-step instructions, clear definitions of terms, and detailed examples help you put concepts into actions. Reproducible forms include an accounts payable register, accounts receivable register, accounts receivable register, general ledger, financial summary form, grant tracking form, internal controls activity flow chart, and an audit preparation checklist. Bottom line: If you're the bookkeeper for your nonprofit--by choice or default--this book is for you

As the world's third-ranking economic power, Japan's style of management, such as the lifetime employment system, the seniority system, and an enterprise union, has been well studied. However, little else is known about the Japanese management control systems (MCSs) and management accounting systems, which are significantly different from other economic powers. This book sheds light on Japanese MCSs and the differences with those of the United States, illustrated with examples from Mitsubishi Electric, Kao, and more. This book aids not only researchers in management accounting, but also provides more useful insight for international investors and management accountants that can prove useful in business management.

This title was first published in 2003. Based on psychological research, auditing studies have focused on 'belief revision' as a way of understanding how auditors evaluate evidence. Moreover a belief revision process is consistent with US auditing standards. UK standards on the other hand do not appear to give guidance on the process to follow when evaluating evidence. Research in the US indicates that auditors do in fact follow a belief revision process in accordance with US standards. Employing survey research (based on personal interviews with a number of experienced UK auditors) this book demonstrates how auditors prefer to be described as following the open mind approach. Building on the findings of the interviews the book then describes an experimental study to investigate the differences between the belief revision and open mind approaches in terms of their effect on the efficiency and effectiveness of the audit process. The book concludes that the belief revision approach would improve the efficiency of the audit process without affecting its effectiveness or outcomes.

This book investigates the legitimacy of the current Australian Financial Services Licensee-Authorised Representative (AFSL-AR) licensing model, as specified in the Commonwealth Corporations Act 2001. The book rectifies the deficiency in scholarly attention to this matter by developing a new conceptualised framework for the financial planning discipline. It takes into account theories in agency, legislation, legitimacy and the independent individual regulatory regimes in other professions; thereafter integrating this framework with the financial planning theory to examine the legitimacy, or what was found to be the illegitimacy of licensing advisers via multiple third party conflicted commercially oriented licensees. This book makes a very useful reference to understanding financial planning licencing model in Australia.

Contemporary Environmental Accounting: Issues, Concepts and Practice has been written by two of the world's leading experts in the field in order to provide the most comprehensive and state-of-the-art textbook on environmental accounting yet attempted. The book is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate students and their teachers, professional accountants, and corporate and organisational managers. Although no prior knowledge of environmental accounting is necessary to understand the critical issues at stake, academic accountants will also find that the book provides a useful introduction to the topic. The goals of the book are to discuss and illustrate contemporary conceptual approaches to environmental accounting; to make readers aware of crucial controversial topics; and to offer practical examples of how the concepts have been applied throughout Europe, North America and Australia. In order to increase the usefulness of the book for relevant courses, each chapter concludes with a set of questions for review. This book is essential reading for all those who are interested in how environmental issues influence accounting. A solutions manual is available on request with the purchase of this book.

This volume describes a range of experiences of internal audit in higher education institutions from the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Germany. It presents approaches to best practice designed to enable readers to assess and develop their own audit procedures.

Since the early 1980s there has been an explosion of auditing activity in the United Kingdom and North America. Why has this happened? What does it mean when a society invests so heavily in an industry of checking and when more and more individuals find themselves subject to formal scrutiny? Does it lead to greater efficiency and accountability?

This book is the first systematic exploration of `audit' as a principle of social organization and control. The author critically examines the reasons, means, and consequences of this audit explosion. He raises important questions about the efficacy of audit processes and suggests that the consequences of this must be carefully evaluated.

The concept of opportunity cost, an integral part of classical economic theory, is more than two hundred years old. Yet it is still not fully understood today. This work focuses on opportunity cost as it affects decision making, managing, and business problem solving--where the acceptance of one alternative precludes the acceptance of others. H.G. Heymann and Robert Bloom clarify the issues associated with the opportunity cost principle, the measurement of opportunity costs, and its practical applications in the areas of finance and accounting. By providing numerous examples to demonstrate these specific issues, they make an important, complex economic concept simple to understand.

Heymann and Bloom begin their work with simple examples that relate to the opportunity cost principle and introduce the framework in which it has been defined. Following a discussion of basic concepts, applications in economic theory, finance, and accounting are reviewed and analyzed, and increasingly complex, multidimensional, and interdependent problem statements are considered in relation to practical management procedures. The book's interdisciplinary approach addresses a number of issues related to opportunity cost, including the environment in which theories, models, and concepts are developed; the multiple dimensions of problem situations faced by practicing managers; various interpretations of opportunity cost in economic theory; and the relevance of opportunity cost in computer-aided Decision Support Systems. Written in a way that even people with a minimum background in economics can understand, "Opportunity Cost in Finance and Accounting" will enhance the reader's appreciation of the many complex issues that relate to organizational management, financial decision making, valuation, and opportunity costs. It will be a valuable supplementary text for courses in business and public administration, as well as for developmental seminars for professionals in finance, investment, and accounting. It will also be a significant addition to public, academic, and business libraries.