How to cut through the public relations jargon and analyze a company's financial health and future prospects as it's spelled out in an annual report. Sound advice for non-expert investors in the stock market. New topics covered and explained in this edition include annual reports on the Internet, materiality, and financial derivatives. Titles in the easy-to-understand Business Keys series are directed at consumers and non-professionals, with advice on saving, investing, protecting assets, and increasing wealth through prudent money management. The books define terms, cut through business jargon, speak in plain language, and take the mystery out of business.

Annual corporate reports provide a window into a company?s strategy for future growth; however, many financial managers as well as the investing public focus exclusively on corporate earnings and fail to understand all the factors that comprise the earnings computation. Understanding Corporate Annual Reports explains the regulatory environment surrounding annual reports, providing a detailed review of how to read reports correctly. Using Home Depot?s annual report as the primary example, Brian Stanko and Thomas Zeller?s easy-to-use guide examines a variety of types of financial reports, addressing both SEC and FASB regulations. Understanding Corporate Annual Reports allows readers to appreciate the complete implications of a corporate annual report.

A comprehensive guide to reading and understanding financial reports Financial reports provide vital information to investors, lenders, and managers. Yet, the financial statements in a financial report seem to be written in a foreign language that only accountants can understand. This comprehensive version of How to Read a Financial Report breaks through that language barrier, clears away the fog, and offers a plain-English user's guide to financial reports. The book features new information on the move toward separate financial and accounting reporting standards for private companies, the emergence of websites offering financial information, pending changes in the auditor's report language and what this means to investors, and requirements for XBRL tagging in reporting to the SEC, among other topics. Makes it easy to understand what financial reports really say Updated to include the latest information financial reporting standards and regulatory changes Written by an author team with a combined 50-plus years of experience in financial accounting This comprehensive edition includes an ancillary website containing valuable additional resources With this comprehensive version of How to Read a Financial Report, investors will find everything they need to fully understand the profit, cash flow, and financial condition of any business.

Read and understand financial reports like an expert, including the “big three” financial statements Accompanying the new 10th edition of How to Read a Financial Report, How to Read a Financial Report Workbook provides hands-on exercises and active tools that teach readers not just how to read, analyze, and interpret a variety of financial reports but in addition, provides bonus material related to better understanding the types of capital used by companies to support business growth. To explain concepts in an easy-to-understand way, this book is lighter on text and instead features a wealth of exhibits and accompanying companion exhibits to first showcase various scenarios and then compare two scenarios using different assumptions. This workbook also includes “in the trenches” content that enables readers to equate key concepts with commonly used “street” language in finance. In this workbook, readers will learn and expand their knowledge with: Cash flows & capital sources, financial condition (i.e., the balance sheet), and profit performance reports (AKA the “big three” financial statements) Balance sheets, income statements, financial ratio analyzes, and statements of changes in shareholder equity Typical financial statement line items including earned sales revenue, costs of sales revenue, operating expenses, EBITDA, income taxes, accounts receivable, inventory, capital and other long-term assets, accounts payable, accrued liabilities, short-term debt, deferred revenue, long-term debt, and types of equity capital Most commonly used accounting and finance terminology, enabling you to speak the language of business finance Bonus material that covers key concepts with understanding capital sources, the capital table (i.e., cap table), and the critically important cap stack How to Read a Financial Report Workbook is a helpful interactive learning resource that can be used every day by investors, lenders, business leaders, analysts, and managers seeking to enhance their career path and upward mobility by gaining more knowledge in understanding financial information and performances.

Annual Reports 101 gets past the PR machine to show the meaning behind the spin. This ultra-practical guide shows you how to thoroughly translate and read "between the lines" of the balance sheet, income statement, cash flow report, and the accompanying text. The book helps you get a true sense of the "big picture" behind the company, allowing you to move beyond the numbers themselves and the fluffy, PR-driven copy. Before you know it, you'll have the tools to spot red flags, decipher footnotes, and see past common practices that, while legal, may not give the most accurate picture.

For courses in Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting, Financial Statement Analysis, Introduction to Business, or MBA finance courses. Understanding the Corporate Annual Report: Nuts, Bolts, and A Few Loose Screws provides a clearly written, step-by-step guide to understanding corporate annual reports. Authors Fraser and Ormiston instruct readers on how to ignore the PR letters from the corporate management team, engaging graphics, and other "garnishes" that typically accompany current annual reports in order to focus on what really counts--a company's performance and financial health! Throughout the text, the authors examine management's attempts to manipulate earnings and other performance measures, and they explain what the numbers in the report really mean.