Alan Bonham & Lita Epstein 
Interpreting Company Reports For Dummies 

Company financial reports are a key resource for investors, helping
them uncover priceless information about a company’s
profitability, or lack thereof, from the figures as well as through
other non-monetary indicators. Details of lawsuits, changes in
accounting methods, liquidations, and mergers and acquisitions can
all be ways of detecting red flags if you know where to look.

However the jargon and financial footnotes in financial reports
can be difficult to decipher, and this For Dummies guide on
the subject will help readers to understand company reports and
make sensible investment choices based on publicly held
information.

Taking you step-by-step through the finer points of financial
reports, this straightforward guide will help you get to grips with
the most accurate way to wade through the numbers, judge a
company’s performance, and make profitable investment
decisions.

This UK Adaptation focuses on the UK financial market, with the
FTSE index as the focus of the book.

Table of Content

Introduction.

Part I: Getting Down to Financial Reporting Basics.

Chapter 1: Discovering What Reports Reveal.

Chapter 2: Recognising Different Business Types.

Chapter 3: Discovering How Company Structure Affects the
Books.

Chapter 4: Digging into Accounting Basics.

Part II: Understanding Published Information: Annual
Reports.

Chapter 5: Exploring the Anatomy of an Annual Report.

Chapter 6: Balancing Assets Against Liabilities and Equity.

Chapter 7: Using the Income Statement.

Chapter 8: The Statement of Cash Flows.

Chapter 9: Scouring the Notes to the Financial Statements.

Chapter 10: Considering Consolidated Financial Statements.

Part III: Analysing the Numbers.

Chapter 11: Testing the Profits and Market Value.

Chapter 12: Looking at Liquidity.

Chapter 13: Making Sure the Company Has Cash to Carry On.

Part IV: Understanding How Companies Optimise
Operations.

Chapter 14: Using Basic Budgeting.

Chapter 15: Turning Up Clues in Turnover and Assets.

Chapter 16: Examining Cash Inflow and Outflow.

Chapter 17: How Companies Keep the Cash Flowing.

Part V: The Many Ways Companies Answer to
Stakeholders.

Chapter 18: Finding Out How Companies Find Errors: The Auditing
Process.

Chapter 19: Checking Out the Analyst-Company
Connection.

Chapter 20: How Companies Soothe the Shareholders.

Chapter 21: Keeping Score When Companies Play Games with
Numbers.

Part VI: The Part of Tens.

Chapter 22: Ten Financial Crises That Rocked the World.

Chapter 23: Ten Signs That a Company’s in Trouble.

Chapter 24: Ten Top-Notch Online Resources.

Part VII: Appendixes.

Appendix A: Financial Statements.

Appendix B: Glossary.

Index.

About the author

Alan Bonham: Since qualifying as a Chartered Accountant,
most of Alan’s time has been spent training others. He was a
Director at Anderson’s Tutors Limited where he prepared
students for ICAEW exams. From there, he joined Neville Russell
where he became Training Manager. He then spent 16 years as a
freelance lecturer and training consultant specialising in audit
and accounting topics.

Most recently, Alan was Director of Training for SWAT Ltd. As part
of his role, he was responsible for the development of SWAT’s
national programme of CPD training as well as presenting a number
of courses himself. Alan had been Managing Director of Pentagon
Training Ltd until the company was acquired by SWAT in October
2005.

Alan is now working again as a freelance lecturer – he is one
of the few lecturers who can make auditing interesting. He also
advises firms on their audit procedures and offers practical help
in achieving compliance in a cost-effective manner. He has also
worked with non-accountants, and is the co-author with Ken Langdon
of Smart Things to Know about Business Finance which also
demystifies the language of finance.

Ken Langdon: With a background in technology, Ken has
been a trainer and consultant to many of the computer majors around
the world. He has lectured in the USA, Australia, and all over the
Far East and Europe.

In particular he has taught finance for non-financial managers and
worked hard on explaining how the slightly esoteric world of
finance reflects the real life world of businesses.

He is the author of a number of books on this and related
topics.

Lita Epstein ran the financial accounting lab when she
worked as a teaching assistant as she completed her MBA programme
at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. After
receiving her MBA, she managed finances for a small, non-profit
organisation, 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
Streetwise Crash Course MBA and Streetwise Retirement
Planning (Adams Media Corporation). Lita is the co-author of
Trading For Dummies (Wiley), and Teach Yourself
Retirement Planning in 24 Hours (Penguin Putnam).