"Financial Times" Guide to Using and Interpreting Company Accounts

Reading and using company accounts is an essential skill for any manager. Yet most managers find analysing accounts a daunting prospect.
The Financial Times Guide to Using and Interpreting Company Accounts solves the problem but not only guiding you through the accounts but also by providing the tools to help you interpret them and make informed decisions.
The book begins by illustrating the information to be found in the accounts and looks at the key elements of financial statements. It looks at each statement in the accounts, identifies what they tell you and explains how to read the relevant notes in both UK and overseas accounts. The author then moves on to illustrate what these say about a company's financial performance and shows how to calculate the relevant ratios from a set of published accounts and how to use them to best affect. The final section of the book shows you how to apply this knowledge on a daily basis, in negotiations with your suppliers and customers, in assessing the financial performance of competitors and identifying the acquisition potential of a company.

The non-financial manager's expert guide to corporate accounts.

* Don't just read corporate accounts: interpret them accurately, and use them to make the best possible decisions.
* How to use financial ratios — and what they don't tell you.
* Using financial analysis to understand your suppliers, customers, competitors, and acquisition targets.

Every senior manager should be able to understand company accounts, yet many find it a daunting task.

This book shows you how.

You'll discover what you'll find in a set of accounts, and how to analyze that information to discover how any company is performing. Wendy McKenzie walks you through a complete set of company accounts, explaining what you'll find, what the documents are trying to tell you, the judgments involved in preparing the documents, and key differences in accounting between the US, UK, and other countries.

You'll learn how to approach and structure your analysis, which ratios to use — and what the ratios don't tell you. Finally, you'll learn how to use the information you generate, to make decisions about suppliers, customers, competitors, and potential acquisition targets.

For non-financial managers who need to understand company accounts in order to make better decisions.