Reading Financial Reports for Dummies

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Business/Finance

2nd Edition

Making Everything Easier!™

The ins and outs of

financial reports, explained

2nd Edition

in plain English

Open the book and find:

Want to make sense of financial reports? This easy-to-

• The accounting basics necessary to

Fi

understand financial reports

follow guide gives you a set of tools to understand these

n

complicated statements, helping you read between the

• New information on reporting

a

lines to determine a company’s true financial health. You’ll
standards for private/small versus

Reading

n Readi

/files/02/53/84/f025384/public/large businesses

make informed decisions about investing, spot possible

c

problems, and use these reports to manage your own

• Updates surrounding the 2007

ia

department or company for success.

law on international financial

l

reporting standards

R

• Get down to reporting basics — recognize different business

Financial Reports

n

• The impact of corporate

types and how their structure affects the books, and grasp the

e g

communications and new

accounting method underlying it all

p

technologies

o

• Analyze the annual report — make sense of the balance sheet,

• New real-world examples that

r

income and cash flow statements, and the notes while spotting

t

reflect current trends

red flags

s

• Know your numbers — keep an eye on whether a company is

• Updated Web sites and resources

making a profit or suffering a loss

• Tips for spotting the fluff in

• Understand how companies optimize operations — use reports

financial reports

to measure how efficiently management is using its resources

• Meet the financial watchdogs — from auditors to analysts, see

who certifies report accuracy and how recent scandals have

changed the rules

Learn to:

Go to dummies.com®

• Make sense of important financial

• Practice makes perfect — put your skills to the test by dissecting

for more!

documents, from balance sheets to

the annual reports of two similar companies throughout the

cash flow statements

book

• Locate the key areas to focus on when

reviewing reports

• Explore international accounting

standards that may soon be accepted

in the U.S.

$21.99 US
/ $23.99 CN / £14.99 UK

• Understand recent SEC and other

Lita Epstein, MBA,
is a seasoned financial writer who focuses on helping
governmental regulatory changes

ISBN 978-0-470-37628-7

people understand the complex worlds of money and finance. She was a financial manager for a medical clinic and content director for a financial services Web site, MostChoice.com. She also writes for AOL’s Blogging
Lita Epstein, MBA

Stocks and WalletPop.

Author,
Bookkeeping For Dummies
and

Epstein

Bookkeeping Workbook For Dummies

Reading Financial

Reports

FOR

DUMmIES‰

2ND EDITION

by Lita Epstein

Reading Financial Reports For Dummies
©
, 2nd Edition
Published by

Wiley Publishing, Inc.

111 River St.

Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774

www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada

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ISBN: 978-0-470-37628-7

Manufactured in the United States of America

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About the Author

Lita Epstein
ran the financial accounting lab when she worked as a teaching assistant as she completed her MBA at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. After receiving her MBA, she managed finances for a small non-profit organization and the facilities management section of a large medical clinic.

Now she enjoys helping people develop good financial, investing, and tax-planning skills. She designs and teaches online courses on topics such as investing for retirement, getting ready for tax time, and finance and investing for women. She is the author of more than 25 books, including
Working After
Retirement For Dummies
,
Bookkeeping For Dummies
,
Bookkeeping Workbook
For Dummies
(all published by Wiley),
Streetwise Crash Course MBA
, and
250

Questions You Should Ask to Avoid Foreclosure
(Adams Media Corporation).

Lita is also the coauthor of
Trading For Dummies
(Wiley).

Lita was the content director for a financial services Web site, MostChoice.

com, and managed the Web site, Investing for Women. She also wrote TipWorld’s Mutual Fund Tip of the Day in addition to columns about mutual fund trends for numerous Web sites. As a Congressional press secretary, Lita gained firsthand knowledge about how to work within and around the federal bureaucracy, which gives her great insight into how government programs work. Lita has also been a reporter at a daily newspaper, a magazine editor, and an associate director for development at The Carter Center.

For fun, Lita enjoys scuba diving and is certified as an underwater photogra-pher. She hikes, canoes, and enjoys surfing the Web to find its hidden treasures.

Dedication

To my father, Jerome Kirschbrown, an auditor and savings and loan exam-iner, who helped hone my financial skills and taught me to be leery of what I see in financial reports.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all the people at Wiley who helped make this book possible, especially my acquisitions editor, Stacy Kennedy, who first discussed this topic with me; my project editor, Chrissy Guthrie, who did a wonderful job of steering this book through the entire process and was always available to help me with any problems; and my copy editor, Todd Lothery, for his excellent work cleaning up the copy.

I also want to thank my agent, Jessica Faust, who finds all these great projects for me, and my outstanding technical editor, Michelle Wissman, who helped keep all the technical accounting stuff accurate for this book. And a special thank you to H.G. Wolpin, who puts up with all my craziness as I rush to meet deadlines.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at http://dummies.custhelp.com. For other comments, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002.

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Composition Services

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Project Coordinator:
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Senior Project Editor:
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Layout and Graphics:
Reuben W. Davis,

(
Previous Edition:
Traci Cumbay)

Nikki Gately, Christine Williams

Acquisitions Editor:
Stacy Kennedy

Proofreaders:
Christopher M. Jones,

Jessica Kramer

Copy Editor:
Todd Lothery

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Erin Calligan Mooney

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Cover Photo:
Image Source Pink

Cartoons:
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(www.the5thwave.com)

Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies