Duncan Williamson: Financial Accounting Home Page finacc.htm

A page on the cash creation scandal at the Indian software company Satyam Computer Services Limited; and a page on impairment charges in banks.

A good quality, intermediate level, ratio analysis case study based on Tesco plc. Look in the analysis section of the menu on the left.

A great new page ... on British Petroleum ... taking ratio analysis a stage further: this page helpstoillustrate what can come out of an analysis of the results of a company when we use rate of growth or rate of change ratios. You might even be surprised!

It's here now, the third edition of my report on Marks and Spencer, includes a question on executive pay asked of the directors.

Take a look now at my page called Depreciation Graphs: helping you to understand the names straight line method and reducing balance method of providing for depreciation: this is under the Basic heading of the menu on the left.

Here's another one to add to my first four in this summer of bookkeeping and accounting: The Journal this time.

As you might imagine, after a career spanning several decades, I've got a lot of materials and resources that is just waiting for me to upload to this site! I have made a start but it's going to take a long time.

The next in the series of my summer bookkeeping extravaganza concerns accruals and prepayments ... and now the solutions to the questions on that page. See the menu!

I have started with five topics:

accounting glossary: also useful for management accounting
a checklist to use when classifying items in a trial balance
bookkeeping entries for revenue and expenditure
the bookkeeping entries for buying, selling and returning stock items
The Journal

These four topics are to be found under Bookkeeping in the menu on the left.

Click on the Financial Reporting, Marks and Spencer 2006 link in the menu to download and open the second edition of my latest report: elements of IFRS, FRS, Beaver and Altman analysis, Balanced Scorecard and more.

An excellent page on some of the woes facing General Motors, the huge American car manufacturer. I'm not sure whether I'd like to be in charge of that company or not. Must be very exciting though! See the article under Sundry in the menu on the left.

Please go to my PDF Files Section for

a new file on Barclays Bank's profits for 2005
an article on the Operating and Financial Review (OFR)
an update to my Royal Mail EBITDA article. It's getting worse and worse for the World's first mail service.

Prof David Myddelton of Cranfield University made a presentation to the EBEA in the summer of 2005 with the title Why do most companies make losses? and I couldn't help responding to some of his comments. A good but controversial presentation in my eyes! Look at the page under Financial Reporting in the menu on the left for my comments.

I Answered a question on whether balance sheets show the worth of a business. Lots of good ideas to think about but draw your own conclusion! Look under the Basic section of the menu on the left.

Two crossword puzzles that should help AS and A2 Level Accounting students with their revision for their examinations which are just a matter of days away now ... they are best completed on line to be honest.

Serious goings on at Manchester United: go to my PDF Files Section to see what I have to say about the takeover of the club by the Glazer family. Useful for accountants and financial manager alike.

Business Studies texts have to contain accounting examples and explanations and they often do so indifferently. This new page corrects a number of mistakes that you are likely to come across. Look at the Correcting Misunderstandings entry in the Sundry menu on the left.

More shocking news from the corporate world: read how US executives make mistakes that have cost $1 billion. Strategic management mistakes that is.

A page inspired by a student of mine entitled the The Golden Rules of Double Entry Bookkeeping: all of the basic rules of double entry bookkeeping spelled out in an easy to read format.

I have added a short page on variation on the ROCE formula ... you'll see why when you click on the ROCE link under Analysis in the menu on the left

I know that many of you have found the Equations for Accountants graphics pages really useful and they they just got better! Take a look at the Ratio Analysis Equations for Accountants page by following the Equations link from the menu on the left.

At last after a couple of years I have gathered together my work on Benford's Law. The four pages that are here now provide you with one of the Web's best collections ... he says modestly. I have done this following an article I have just put together on the Chi Squared test and Benford's Law: of which more eventually!

During a recent training course I was asked to prepare a Bookkeeping and Accounting Case Study that both teacher and student alike could use to practice their skills: using two year's worth of data and incorporating final accounts and a cash flow statement. I did it and now I am making it available for you to buy for just £5 (GBPounds 5). It's spreadsheet based using random numbers and really is a fantastic product for teacher and student alike: an infinite number of questions, all fully answered ... a dream come true! Click on the Case Study item in the menu on the left.

Back to the spreadsheet: here's a new page that shows how we can use a spreadsheet to take a list of accounting transactions and build a Trial Balance from it ... automatically ... using the magic of a spreadsheet!

Take a look at a few notes on: mergers & acquisitions; deferred tax; and credit management this time.

A major new Ratio Analysis resource: I wrote it for biz/ed and they host it. It really is among the best ratio analysis resources you will find on the Web. You can click the link on the left and go to the site map for this resource on the biz/ed site or you can click the biz/ed link to go to the biz/ed Home Page.

A selection of brief notes on three interesting topics make up the changes to this section for the last couple of weeks or so: FRS5: Reporting the Substance of Transactions; the Entity Concept; and pre incorporation expenses.

How to set about analysing a case study from the point of view of accounting: take a look at PhotoInd Ltd for some tips.

I responded to a few questions this week concerning Historical Cost Accounting, Conflicts of Interest in Financial Reporting, Accounting in Brazil and Environmental and Sustainable Reporting.

Take a look at how Sanj and I got to grips with valuing Bonds ... the Fair Value in this case: mathematical.

Greg wanted help with risk free and market rates of interest. I'm not an expert but I did find a few useful links for him.

I've updated my amazon.com report from a year or so ago. They're still surviving but it's a mystery how!

A page on Free Cash Flow this time: what cash flow is, how to calculate it and Warren Buffet's role in the use of it. Some practical examples to help you to understand it as fully as possible

I got invloved in a discussion on stewardship on AccountingWEB.co.uk ... here are my responses to a few questions that Blandina Gaudueso asked and that I was persuaded to respond to.

MyTravel, the owners of the Going Place chain of travel agencies in the UK changed one of their accounting policies this week ... here's what they did and what it means. There's also a very brief introduction to the Books of Prime Entry that I wrote following a request from a student in Canada.

I wrote a light hearted page on the distribution of initial letters in a couple of data sets a while ago but forgot to post it ... taraaaaa! Here it is! It gets more serious, though, when you click through to a paper I wrote on Benford's Law, which is the foundation of this page.

The latest file in the PDF section contains a brief review of Wal Mart, the giant US retailing company. I was pointed at the words of a pundit who said that Wal Mart is the king of productivity ... I had a look and couldn't agree.

A smart trick that might help you out when working on loans, investments, compound interest: the Rule of 72. The rule of 72 gives us a quick way to estimate when an investment or loan will double in size.

Enron a side swipe! A tongue in cheek look at Enron that begins with Feudalism and ends with Capitalism.

Following on from AccountingWEB.co.uk posting my Accounting Concepts and Conventions page on their own site, some of the feedback I received brought forward my updating of it: a major review of what's new in the UK!

I can now modestly stress that the pages I have done on the objectives of accounting, the the concepts of accounting and the various frameworks from various countries and sources, provide a major resource for anyone looking to see what underlies modern accounting.

I got a request from a student about the objectives of accounting: what are they? Clearly, this question can lead to an answer that's as long as a piece of string. I took just two aspects of this question, then and the page entitled Accounting Objectives tells you what I say.

I answered a question about environmental and social reporting. Take a look at the outline answer I gave: it's in the Feedback Section of the site and the link is on the left hand side of this page.

According to my site stats, my Power Point Presentation entitled Bloom's Taxonomy of Education Objectives in the Cognitive Domain is of enormous interest to the visitors to this page ... obviously worth a read!

Another heavily visited couple of pages: The accounting concepts page is really a discussion of the major introductory points surrounding accounting concepts: good for first year accounting undergraduates. If you've been here recently, you'll notice that I have redesigned this page to fit in with the new style of this site.

I have redesigned the page entitled Conflicts in Accounting Concepts and Conventions but the content is essentially the same as before.

The going concern page is a detailed review of just one accounting concept: the going concern concept!

You'll find a started page on depreciation on the page I've simply called "Depreciation Methods". It was one of the first pages I ever put together for my first serious web site so I'm nostalgic about it!.

Someone suggested that I put together a page of equations that accountants can simply cut and paste, to save them hunting around for them; or having to create them from scratch. So I did it and loads of people visit these pages.