The Portable MBA in Finance and Accounting, 3rd Edition

Using Financial Statements 33

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Financial statements contain critical business information and are used for
many different purposes by many different parties inside and outside the busi-
ness. Clearly all successful businesspeople should have a good basic under-
standing of financial statements and of the main financial ratios. For further
information and explanations about financial statements, see the following
chapters in this book:

Chapter 2: Analyzing Business Earnings

Chapter 6: Forecasts and Budgets

Chapter 15: The Board of Directors

Chapter 18: Business Valuation

INTERNET LINKS

Some useful Internet links on financial statements and financial ratios are:

http://www.aicpa.org Web site for the American Institute of Certified
Public Accountants.

http://www.freedgar.com This site lets users download financial statements
and other key financial information filed with the
SEC and maintained in Edgar (the name of its
database) for all corporations with securities that
are publicly traded in the United States. This
service is free of charge. Another Web site,
Spredgar.com, displays financial ratios calculated
from freedgar.com.

http://www.10k.com Provides free downloads of annual reports (which
include financial statements) filed with the SEC
for all corporations with securities that are
publicly traded in the United States.

http://www.rmahq.org Web site of the Risk Management Association
(RMA) that contains financial ratios classified by
size of firm for more than 600 industries.

http://www.cpaclass.com Information and instruction on many finance and
accounting topics.

http://www.financeprofessor.com Information and instruction on many finance and
accounting topics.

http://www.smallbusiness.org Information and instruction from public television
on many finance and accounting topics.