Maire Loughran & Steven Collings 
Financial Accounting For Dummies – UK, UK Edition 

Your plain-English guide to financial accounting for
students and trainees.

Financial Accounting For Dummies provides students who
are studying finance, accounting and business with the basic
concepts, terminology, and methods to interpret, analyse, prepare
and evaluate financial statements. Covers concepts accountants and
other business professionals use to prepare reports; mergers and
acquisitions purchase and pooling; free cash flow; and financial
statement analysis.

Whether you’re a student on your way to earning a degree,
working towards your ACCA qualification, or a trainee just starting
out in your accounts career, Financial Accounting For
Dummies gives you a wealth of information to grasp the
subject.

* This UK version is adapted to take in UK accounting practice
and international reporting standards

* Provides a firm grounding in interpreting, analysing, preparing
and evaluating corporate financial statements

* Includes easy-to-understand explanations and
real-life examples to consolidate learning

Table of Content

Introduction 1

Part I: Getting Started with Financial Accounting
7

Chapter 1: Seeing the Big Picture of Financial Accounting and
International Accounting 9

Chapter 2: Making a Career in Financial Accounting 25

Chapter 3: Introducing the Primary Financial Statements 37

Chapter 4: Acronym Alert! Setting the Standards for Financial
Accounting 53

Part II: Looking at Some Accounting Basics 65

Chapter 5: Doing the Books: The Process behind Financial
Accounting 67

Chapter 6: Taking a Butcher’s at Accounting Methods Under
UK GAAP and IFRS 87

Part III: Bonding with the Balance Sheet 97

Chapter 7: Looking at Assets 99

Chapter 8: Grappling with Liabilities 115

Chapter 9: Examining the Equity Section 131

Part IV: Investigating Income and Cash Flow 143

Chapter 10: Understanding Profi t or Loss 145

Chapter 11: Figuring Out the Statement of Cash Flows under UK
GAAP and IFRS 165

Chapter 12: Discovering and Understanding Depreciation 181

Chapter 13: Dealing with and Accounting for Inventory 195

Part V: Analysing the Financial Statements 207

Chapter 14: Using Ratios and Other Tools 209

Chapter 15: Delving into the Disclosures 225

Chapter 16: Reporting to Shareholders 241

Part VI: Tackling More Advanced

Financial Accounting Topics 255

Chapter 17: Accounting for Business Combinations 257

Chapter 18: Accounting for Income Taxes 275

Chapter 19: Accounting for Leases 287

Chapter 20: Reporting Changes in Policies and Estimates and
Correcting Errors 299

Part VII: The Part of Tens 311

Chapter 21: Ten Financial Accounting Shenanigans 313

Chapter 22: Ten Industries with Special Accounting Standards
321

Index 329

About the author

Steve Collings is the audit and technical director for Leavitt Walmsley Associates Ltd, a Chartered Certified Accountants based in Sale, south Manchester. He specialises in financial reporting and auditing, and has an interest in small business taxation issues. Steve has written extensively for Accounting WEB.co.uk and is author of The Interpretation and Application of International Standards on Auditing and IFRS For Dummies, also published by Wiley. Maire Loughran, CPA, is a member of the American Association of Certified Public Accountants. An adjunct professor of auditing, accounting and taxation courses, she is also the author of Auditing For Dummies.