(Ebook) Accountants' Handbook, Volume 1: Financial Accounting and General Topics by D. R. Carmichael, O. Ray Whittington, Lynford Graham ISBN 9780471790389, 0471790389

(Ebook) Accountants' Handbook, Volume 1: Financial Accounting and General Topics by D. R. Carmichael, O. Ray Whittington, Lynford Graham ISBN 9780471790389, 0471790389

The eleventh edition of Accountants’ Handbook continues the tradition established in the first

edition over 82 years ago of providing a comprehensive single reference source for understanding

current financial statement and reporting issues. It is directed to accountants, auditors, executives,

bankers, lawyers, and other preparers and users of accounting information. Its presentation and

format facilitates the quick comprehension of complex accounting-related subjects updated for

today’s rapidly changing business environment.

This edition of the Handbook continues the presentation of two soft-cover volumes; this edition

contains a total of 49 chapters. To provide a resource with the encyclopedic coverage that has

been the hallmark of this Handbook series, this edition again focuses on financial accounting and

related topics, including those auditing standards and audit reports that are the common ground of

interest for accounting and business professionals.

In the period since the last edition we have witnessed the initial wave of changes to accounting

and auditing standards in response to the bankruptcies and frauds that prompted the Sarbanes-Oxley

Act of 2002. Issues of earnings management, off-the-balance-sheet related business entities, unrecognized

liabilities and the expensing of stock option grants are the focus of reinvigorated standard

setting. Similarly, sweeping changes in the auditing environment such as the newly required audits

of internal control (see Chapter 5 and the new structures for regulating public company auditors

that have been put in place. This edition of the Handbook places those events and changes in

context, and provides transition and understanding of the events that have led up to these reforms.

This edition provides expanded chapters on fraud and fraud-related issues, as these topics have

become more prominent in the business literature and in practice, and management and auditors

have by law and regulation, assumed, greater responsibility for preventing and detecting fraud.

In the period since the last edition, the harmonization of accounting and auditing principles

has become an important element in the direction of standards setting, both for accounting and

auditing. Few major accounting or auditing standards projects are undertaken without involvement

or collaboration with the international counterpart standards group. While some may be concerned

that this process may slow the standards setting process somewhat, the greater input from a broader

cross section of business environment and the broader focus of the standards that are being set, may

indeed provide a firmer foundation for promulgating more comprehensive and enduring standards.

Although the FASB continues to be the primary source of authoritative accounting guidance,

other sources of guidance are important in today’s practice. Pronouncements by the SEC, GASB,

and EITF are important, particularly in specialized areas. It is necessary to look to the EITF and

to the AICPA audit and accounting guides for guidance in industry-related or special-transaction

areas. All of those sources of accounting guidance are included in the scope of this edition of the

Handbook. 

This edition of the Handbook is divided into two convenient volumes:

Volume One: Financial Accounting and General Topics includes:

• A comprehensive review of the framework of accounting guidance today and the organizations

involved in its development, including the development of international standards

• A compendium of specific guidance on general aspects of financial statement presentation,

disclosure, and analysis, including SEC filing regulations

• Encyclopedic coverage of each specific financial statement area from cash through shareholders’

equity, including coverage of financial instruments

Volume Two: Special Industries and Special Topics includes:

• Comprehensive single-source coverage of the specialized environmental and accounting considerations

for key industries, including a chapter on the film industry

• Coverage of accounting standards applying to pension plans, retirement plans, and employee

stock compensation and other capital accumulation plans

• Diverse topics, including reporting by partnerships, estates and trusts, and valuation, bankruptcy,

and forensic accounting