Introduction 1
Part I: Getting Started with Reading Financial Reports 5
Chapter 1: Opening the Cornucopia of Reports 7
Chapter 2: Recognizing Business Types and Their Tax Rules 19
Chapter 3: Public or Private: How Company Structure Affects the Books 27
Chapter 4: Digging into Accounting Basics 41
Part II: Checking Out the Big Show: Annual Reports 57
Chapter 5: Exploring the Anatomy of an Annual Report 59
Chapter 6: Balancing Assets against Liabilities and Equity 73
Chapter 7: Using the Income Statement 89
Chapter 8: The Statement of Cash Flows 105
Chapter 9: Scouring the Notes to the Financial Statements 119
Chapter 10: Considering Consolidated Financial Statements 137
Part III: Analyzing the Numbers 149
Chapter 11: Testing the Profits and Market Value 151
Chapter 12: Looking at Liquidity 169
Chapter 13: Making Sure the Company Has Cash to Carry On 179
Part IV: Understanding How Companies Optimize Operations 191
Chapter 14: How Reports Help with Basic Budgeting 193
Chapter 15: Turning Up Clues in Turnover and Assets 203
Chapter 16: Examining Cash Inflow and Outflow 215
Chapter 17: How Companies Keep the Cash Flowing 225
Part V: The Many Ways Companies Answer to Others 233
Chapter 18: Finding Out How Companies Find Errors: The Auditing Process 235
Chapter 19: Digging into Government Regulations 245
Chapter 20: Creating a Global Financial Reporting Standard 257
Chapter 21: Checking Out the Analyst–Corporation Connection 267
Chapter 22: How Companies Communicate with Shareholders 279
Chapter 23: Keeping Score When Companies Play Games with Numbers 293
Part VI: The Part of Tens 315
Chapter 24: Ten (+1) Financial Scandals That Rocked the World 317
Chapter 25: Ten Signs That a Company’s in Trouble 327
Glossary 333
Index 341