(Ebook) Accountants' Handbook, Volume 2: Special Industries and Special Topics by D. R. Carmichael, O. Ray Whittington, Lynford Graham ISBN 9780470116722, 9780471790396, 0470116722, 0471790397

(Ebook) Accountants' Handbook, Volume 2: Special Industries and Special Topics by D. R. Carmichael, O. Ray Whittington, Lynford Graham ISBN 9780470116722, 9780471790396, 0470116722, 0471790397

This highly regarded reference is relied on by a considerable part of the accounting profession in their day-to-day work. This handbook is the first place many accountants look to find answers to practice questions. Its comprehensive scope is widely recognized and relied on. It is designed as a single reference source that provides answers to all reasonable questions on accounting and financial reporting asked by accountants, auditors, bankers, lawyers, financial analysts, and other preparers and users of accounting information. The eleventh edition of Accountants’ Handbook continues the tradition established in the firstedition over 82 years ago of providing a comprehensive single reference source for understandingcurrent financial statement and reporting issues. It is directed to accountants, auditors, executives,bankers, lawyers, and other preparers and users of accounting information. Its presentation andformat facilitates the quick comprehension of complex accounting-related subjects updated fortoday’s rapidly changing business environment.This edition of the Handbook continues the presentation of two soft-cover volumes; this editioncontains a total of 49 chapters. To provide a resource with the encyclopedic coverage that hasbeen the hallmark of this Handbook series, this edition again focuses on financial accounting andrelated topics, including those auditing standards and audit reports that are the common ground ofinterest for accounting and business professionals.In the period since the last edition we have witnessed the initial wave of changes to accountingand auditing standards in response to the bankruptcies and frauds that prompted the Sarbanes-OxleyAct of 2002. Issues of earnings management, off-the-balance-sheet related business entities, unrecognizedliabilities and the expensing of stock option grants are the focus of reinvigorated standardsetting. Similarly, sweeping changes in the auditing environment such as the newly required auditsof internal control (see Chapter 5 and the new structures for regulating public company auditorsthat have been put in place. This edition of the Handbook places those events and changes incontext, 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 havebecome more prominent in the business literature and in practice, and management and auditorshave 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 principleshas become an important element in the direction of standards setting, both for accounting andauditing. Few major accounting or auditing standards projects are undertaken without involvementor collaboration with the international counterpart standards group. While some may be concernedthat this process may slow the standards setting process somewhat, the greater input from a broadercross section of business environment and the broader focus of the standards that are being set, mayindeed 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 andto the AICPA audit and accounting guides for guidance in industry-related or special-transactionareas. All of those sources of accounting guidance are included in the scope of this edition of theHandbook. 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 organizationsinvolved 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 instrumentsVolume Two: Special Industries and Special Topics includes:• Comprehensive single-source coverage of the specialized environmental and accounting considerationsfor key industries, including a chapter on the film industry• Coverage of accounting standards applying to pension plans, retirement plans, and employeestock compensation and other capital accumulation plans• Diverse topics, including reporting by partnerships, estates and trusts, and valuation, bankruptcy,and forensic accounting