How is accounting used in business?
It might seem obvious, but in managing a business, it’s important to understand how the business makes a profit. A company needs a good business model and a good profit model.  A business sells products or services and earns a certain amount of margin on each unit sold. The number [...]

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What does an audit report contain?
Most audit reports on financial statements give the business a clean bill of health, or a clean opinion. At the other end of the spectrum, the auditor may state that the financial statements are misleading and should not be relied upon. This negative audit report is called an adverse opinion. [...]

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What does an audit do?
If a business breaks the rules of accounting and ethics, it can be liable for legal sanctions against it. It can deliberately deceive its investors and lenders with false or misleading numbers in its financial report. That’s where audits come in. Audits are one means of keeping misleading financial reporting to [...]

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What is accounting fraud?
Accounting fraud is a deliberate and improper manipulation of the recording of sales revenue and/or expenses in order to make a company’s profit performance appear better than it actually is. Some things that companies do that can constitute fraud are:
–Not listing prepaid expenses or other incidental assets
–Not showing certain classifications of current [...]

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What are independent auditors?
Indpendent CPA auditors are like referees in the financial reporting arena. The CPA comes in, does an audit of the business’s accounting system and methods and gives a report that is attached to the company’s financial statements. Publicly owned businesses are required to have their annual financial reports audited by independent CPA [...]

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What is acid test ratio and ROA ratio?
Investors calculate the acid test ratio, also known as the quick ratio or the pounce ratio. This ratio excludes inventory and prepaid expenses, which the current ratio includes, and it limits assets to cash and items that the business can quickly convert to cash. This limited category of [...]

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What are other ratios used in financial reporting
The dividend yield ratio tells investors how much cash income they’re receiving on their stock investment in a business. This is calculated by dividing the annual cash dividend per share  by the current market price of the stock. This can be compared with the interest rate on high-grade [...]

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43 What’s the difference between private and public company reporting
A public corporation is a business whose securities are traded on the public stock exchanges, such as the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. A private company is held solely by its owners and is not traded publicly.  When the shareholders of a private business receive [...]

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42 What is price/earnings ratio
The price/earning (P/E) ratio is another measurement that’s of particular interest to investors in public businesses. The P/E ratio gives you an idea of how much you’re paying in the current price for stock shares for each dollar of earning. Earnings prop up the market value of stock shares, not the [...]

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What is earnings per share
Publicly owned companies must report earnings per share (EPS) below the net income line in their income statements. This is mandated by generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP). The EPS gives investors a means of determining the amount the business earned on its stock share investments. In other words, EPS tells investors [...]

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