Overview

To hide falling profits, some managers ply the flexibility found in accounting principles to alter their financial reports. Others go further and use fraud in their deception. It is vitally important that investors, analysts, and other users of financial statements detect these creative accounting practices as early as possible in order to avoid negative earnings surprises and potential share-price decline.

This course identifies the steps businesses may take to misstate financial performance and identifies those situations where reported results may not be what they seem.

Learning objectives

• To identify the steps businesses may take to misstate financial performance and

• Help financial statement users identify those situations where reported results may not be what they seem.