Financial Shenanigans, Fourth Edition: How to Detect Accounting Gimmicks & Fraud in Financial Reports

Written by Howard M. Schilit, Jeremy Perler and Yoni Engelhart

The bestselling classic from the “Sherlock Holmes of Accounting”-updated to reflect the key case studies and most important lessons from the past quarter century.

This fourth edition of the classic guide shines a light on the most shocking frauds and financial reporting offenders of the last twenty-five years, and gives investors the tools they need to detect:

*Corporate cultures that incentivize dishonest practices *The latest tricks companies use to exaggerate revenue and earnings *Techniques devised by management to manipulate cash flow as easily as earnings *Companies that use misleading metrics to fool investors about their financial performance *How companies use acquisitions to hide deterioration in their underlying business

This new edition focuses on the key case studies and most important lessons from the past quarter century, and brings you up to date on accounting chicanery in the global markets. Howard Schilit and his team of renowned forensic accounting experts expose financial reporting miscreants and unveil the latest methods companies use to mislead investors. You’ll learn everything you need to know to unearth deceptive reporting and avoid costly mistakes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: McGraw Hill-Ascent Audio
• Release date: Mar 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781639292011

Reviews for Financial Shenanigans, Fourth Edition

[shawnd_72 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a great summary of the most-used tricks to sliding around in the gray areas of GAAP accounting in the US. These specific techniques likely represent 80% or more of the different tricks used from 1990-2007 by large corporations to manipulate their earnings and other performance, one of the main benefits of which is increasing their stock price. If the book was used by rank and file investors to look in detail at annual reports of their portfolio companies, they'd have a good early warning signal for the typical practices. And it includes sometimes shocking but always interesting true case studies of these techniques. A drawback might be that it is dated or does not include some more sophisticated techniques.

[jcvogan1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Straight-forward introduction to various accounting techniques that can be used to manipulate earnings.