The Financial Numbers Game: Detecting Creative Accounting Practices - Softcover

Mulford, Charles W.; Comiskey, Eugene E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0471770736 ISBN 13: 9780471770732

Publisher: Wiley, 2005

Synopsis

Praise for The Financial Numbers Game

"So much for the notion 'those who can, do-those who can't, teach.' Mulford and Comiskey function successfully both as college professors and real-world financial mercenaries. These guys know their balance sheets. The Financial Numbers Game should serve as a survival manual for both serious individual investors and industry pros who study and act upon the interpretation of financial statements. This unique blend of battle-earned scholarship and quality writing is a must-read/must-have reference for serious financial statement analysis." --Bob Acker, Editor/Publisher, The Acker Letter

"Wall Street's unforgiving attention to quarterly earnings presents ever increasing pressure on CFOs to manage earnings and expectations. The Financial Numbers Game provides a clear explanation of the ways in which management can stretch, bend, and break accounting rules to reach the desired bottom line. This arms the serious investor or financial analyst with the healthy skepticism required to drive beyond reported results to a clear understanding of a firm's true performance." --Mark Hurley, Managing Director, Training and Development, Global Corporate and Investment Banking, Bank of America

"After reading The Financial Numbers Game, I feel as though I've taken a master's level course in financial statement analysis. Mulford and Comiskey's latest book should be required reading for anyone who is serious about fundamentally analyzing stocks." --Harry Domash, San Francisco Chronicle investing columnist and investment newsletter publisher

About this title

From the Inside Flap

To hide falling profits, some managers ply the flexibility found in accounting principles to alter their financial reports. Others go further and use fraud in their deception. It is vitally important that investors, analysts, and other users of financial statements detect these creative accounting practices as early as possible in order to avoid negative earnings surprises and potential share-price declines. The Financial Numbers Game identifies the steps businesses may take to misstate financial performance and helps its readers to identify those situations where reported results may not be what they seem.

Authors Mulford and Comiskey also describe the flexibility built into the GAAP principles and discuss ways companies can take advantage of that flexibility while remaining within the rules of proper reporting. The role of the SEC in enforcing securities laws is explored, as are the specific statutes the SEC uses to prosecute those it deems to have gone too far. The authors present the results of a survey of important financial professionals on their views of the propriety of many financial reporting practices and on the steps they use to detect creative accounting practices. This survey shows a wide range of opinions on what is allowable and the best methods for detecting what is not allowable.

The Financial Numbers Game presents an expert analysis of creative accounting procedures, as well as:

• Real-world examples of aggressive and fraudulent financial reports
• What signs to look for in detecting earnings manipulation
• Ready-made checklists for detecting accounting misdeeds
• Advice from such experts as analysts, CFOs, and CPAs
• Help foranyone interested in understanding true financial performance

The Financial Numbers Game offers all users of financial statements a comprehensive resource for understanding, detecting, and avoiding the vast assortment of creative accounting techniques found in practice today.

About the Author

CHARLES W. MULFORD is Invesco Chair and Professor of Accounting and EUGENE E. COMISKEY is Callaway Chair and Professor of Accounting in the DuPree College of Management at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0471770736
• ISBN 13: 9780471770732
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416