The updated new edition of the comprehensive guide to reading and understanding financial reports

Financial reports are used to provide a range of vital information, including an organization’s cash flow, financial condition, and profit performance (aka The Big Three Financial Statements). Financial statements are often complex and extremely difficult to understand for anyone other than accounting and finance professionals. How to Read a Financial Report enablesinvestors, lenders, business leaders, analysts, and managers to read, analyze, and interpret financial accounting reports. Designed specifically for non-specialists, this reader-friendly resource covers the fundamentals of financial reporting in jargon-free English. Topics such as sales revenue & recognition, costs of goods sold, sources & uses of capital/cash, non-cash expenses (e.g., depreciation expense), income tax obligations, understanding profits & financial stability, and financial statement ratios & analysis are covered throughout the book.

Now in its ninth edition, this bestselling guide has been thoroughly revised to reflect changes in accounting and financial reporting rules, current practices, and recent trends. New and expanded content explains managing cash flow, illustrates the deceitful misrepresentation of profits in some financial reports (aka Financial Engineering), and more. Further, end-of-chapter activities help readers learn the intricacies of the balance sheet and cash flow statement, while updated sections address shifts in regulatory standards. Written by two highly experienced experts in financial accounting, this resource: 

• Enables readers to cut through the noise and focus on what financial reports and financial statements are really saying about a company
• Clarifies commonly misunderstood aspects of financial reporting and how companies can “financially engineer” operating results
• Offers comprehensive, step-by-step guidance on analyzing financial reports
• Provides numerous examples and explanations of various types of financial reports and analysis tools

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.

Cash Flow For Dummies offers small business owners, accountants, prospective entrepreneurs, and others responsible for cash management an informational manual to cash flow basics and proven success strategies. Cash Flow For Dummies is an essential guide to effective strategies that will make your business more appealing on the market. Loaded with valuable tips and techniques, it teaches individuals and companies the ins and outs of maximizing cash flow, the fundamentals of cash management, and how it affects the quality of a company's earnings.

Cash flow is the movement of cash into or out of a business, project, or financial product. It is usually measured during a specified, finite period of time, and can be used to measure rates of return, actual liquidity, real profits, and to evaluate the quality of investments. Cash Flow For Dummies gives you an understanding of the basic principles of cash management and its core principles to facilitate small business success.

• Covers how to read cash flow statements
• Illustrates how cash balances are analyzed and monitored—including internal controls over cash receipts and disbursements, plus bank account reconciliation and activity analysis
• Tips on how to avoid the pitfalls of granting credit—evaluating customer credit, sources of credit information, and overall credit policy
• Advice on how to prevent fraud and waste
• Covers cash-generating tactics when doing business with dot-coms, other start-ups, and bankrupt customers

Cash Flow For Dummies is an easy-to-understand guide that covers all of these essentials for success and more.

Small Business Financial Management Kit For Dummies explains step by step how to handle all your financial affairs, from preparing financial statements and managing cash flow to streamlining the accounting process, requesting bank loans, increasing profits, and much more. The bonus CD-ROM features handy reproducible forms, checklists, and templates—from a monthly expense summary to a cash flow statement—and provides how-to guidance that removes the guesswork in using each tool. You’ll discover how to:

• Plan a budget and forecast
• Streamline the accounting process
• Improve your profit and cash flow
• Make better decisions with a profit model
• Raise capital and request loans
• Invest company money wisely
• Keep your business solvent
• Choose your legal entity for income tax
• Avoid common management pitfalls
• Put a market value on your business

Complete with ten rules for small business survival and a financial glossary, Small Business Financial Management Kit For Dummies is the fun and easy way® to get your finances in order, perk up your profits, and thrive long term!

Note: The Kindle edition of this book does not include any CDs or DVDs.