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The Accounting World Magazine:
Understanding financial shenanigans
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The books' Financial Shenanigans, The Financial Numbers Game, Quality of Earnings  appropriateness could not have been more acutely felt than now. Given the Enron debacle that shocked investors, accountants and regulators all over the world, financial statements of companies are viewed with skepticism. Most investors will learn a great deal about financial reporting. Most importantly, readers will learn how to protect themselves as investors. These books give an excellent tutorial to help readers understand the nuances of financial reporting and accounting.

It is generally known to many that the behavior of any company's management is affected by rewards and punishment. Wall Street's unforgiving attention to quarterly earnings presents an ever-increasing pressure on CFOs to manage earnings and expectations. An incentive for using shenanigans arises to meet Wall Street's expectations if not exceed them and stock price performance linked bonuses encourage managers to post higher sales and profits. Also an incentive for using shenanigans is created when bonuses encourage managers to post higher sales and profits. Ways in which management can stretch, bend, and break accounting rules to reach the desired bottom line and get away with it are ample. Financial shenanigans are actions or omissions intended to hide or distort the real financial performance or financial condition of an entity. They range from minor deceptions (such as failing to clearly segregate operating from non-operating gains and losses) to more serious misapplications of accounting principles (such as failing to write-off worthless assets; they also include fraudulent practices like recording of fictitious revenue to overstate the real financial performance). Since management is clever hiding its tricks, investors and others must be alert for signs of shenanigans. Unless the serious investor or financial analyst is armed with the healthy skepticism that is required to drive beyond reported results, it is difficult to have a clear understanding of a firm's true performance.

 
 

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