Customer Reviews

Understanding Financial Statements

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a wonderful book for those who are new to the world of corporate finance and do not have a working knowledge of the language of finance. The definitions are clear and the examples are easy to understand. The book is thorough in its coverage of balance sheet, income statements, statements of retained earnings, and cash flow, and explains how to uncover hidden problems in review of a firm's financial statements. This is a great book for students and those who want to have the mysteries of the financial report revealed.

I purchased the fifth edition of this book back in 1997 and still have it. I work through it, from start to finish, every three months in order to keep myself fresh and thoroughly knowledgeable about income statements, balance sheets, and cash flows. The exercises are challenging enough to require you to do a little extra research and thinking on your own, i.e., not everything in the questions can be answered by consulting the book. IMPORTANT NOTE TO PROSPECTIVE PURCHASERS OF THIS BOOK: You will have difficulty thoroughly understanding this material unless you have at least a year of financial accounting coursework under your belt. Although I already had 8 accounting courses under my belt by the time I purchased this book, it helped me understand financials like I had never understood them before. A very useful text for those interested in the analysis of, particularly, the income statement and the balance sheet.

This book may be readable, but as for any type of understanding with the case questions at the end of the chapters, forget it. I purchased this book because I had to, and I have yet to understand what they expect right away. I've had to e-mail my professor almost every time because the book doesn't explain what it's really looking for. There's no way I would even touch this book to learn about accounting if I didn't have to. My professor even admits it's not a very good text.

The book reads extremely well. However, since one of the "goals" of the text is to assist persons wanting to learn the basic material on their own, then the answers to the supplementary cases, problems, etc., at the end of each chapter should be made available for either purchase or similar type problems should be made available (with the answers). When I contacted the publisher (Pearson) they sent me to the Pearsonstore to purchase student supplements. These supplements were in no way related to the book in question, and it appeared the publisher was unloading outdated stock onto unsuspecting purchasers.

People if your going to publish a book that has additional questions, cases and problems for people to do, and state that the book can serve as a "stand alone text" for those wanting to utilize it, then make the answers available. Yeah there are "multiple guess" questions available with answers, however the learning by doing part comes from answering the cases, problems and additional exercises listed at the end of each chapter after the "multiple guess" questions. If not, then why make the book available for purchase. At that point it becomes a ruse. Thank God I purchased it on the Amazon site and not on Pearson's at the outrageous price of $99.

Hence my reason for the one star.

This book cuts to the chase of how to read and understand financial statements. It provides in depth details and examples with very clear explanation. Would recommend this book to anyone who is interests in trying to understand what a financial statement is and what it tells about a company performance.

This book, authored by the excellent M/s Fraser & published by StudentAid, will be useful both to the successful student and/or the less experienced practioner because it acts as a refresher for those whose student days are almost forgotten as well as a pathfinder for those who want to move on from the banal student text books offered by others. I teach financial analysis and unhesitatingly recommend this to all but the most experienced or competent as a welcome opportunity to learn. Each chapter culminates with a series of questions increasing in difficulty. There are useful hints as to where to find raw & comparative data & some good case studies. For the more experienced, perhaps this will be a little undemanding, in which case try "Financial Statement Analysis & Security Valuation" by Stephen Penman or one of the excellent books by Comiskey & Mulford.

I bought this for a university class, but it does not read like a textbook. It was very easy to understand to read and concepts are clearly explained. The supporting website contains a good template for beginning financial analysis.

Great book for learning accounting for the novice. Easy to understand and the problems and discussion help the learning process.

I bought this book for school. It is an easy to read, comprehensive guide to understanding what goes into financial statements.

I am in a graduate program and this is the first time in 16 years of education that I have ever come across such a poorly written textbook! As a previous rater stated, "The presentation of the content assumes that the reader has some knowledge of this content area and at times leaves him/her confused as to what was discussed, making it difficult to understand. Examples that are used are often incomplete and do not provide a complete picture of how statements are generated." I second his sentiment, "Too bad I could not give it zero stars." I would love to contact these individuals and their publisher and recommend they never write again. I need a book I can use again and again when my class is finished, not one I would sooner burn.