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    More Than a Numbers Game: A Brief History of Accounting
    More Than a Numbers Game: A Brief History of Accounting
    More Than a Numbers Game: A Brief History of Accounting
    Ebook323 pages3 hours

    More Than a Numbers Game: A Brief History of Accounting

    By Thomas A. King

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    About this ebook

    The world certainly suffers no shortage of accounting texts. The many out there help readers prepare, audit, interpret and explain corporate financial statements. What has been missing is a book offering context and discussion for divisive issues such as taxes, debt, options, and earnings volatility. King addresses the why of accounting instead of the how, providing practitioners and students with a highly readable history of U.S. corporate accounting. More Than a Numbers Game: A Brief History of Accounting was inspired by Arthur Levitt's landmark 1998 speech delivered at New York University. The Securities and Exchange Commission chairman described the too-little challenged custom of earnings management and presaged the breakdown in the US corporate accounting three years later.

    Somehow, over a one-hundred year period, accounting morphed from a tool used by American railroad managers to communicate with absent British investors into an enabler of corporate fraud. How this happened makes for a good business story. This book is not another description of accounting scandals. Instead it offers a history of ideas.

    Each chapter covers a controversial topic that emerged over the past century. Historical background and discussion of people involved give relevance to concepts discussed. The author shows how economics, finance, law and business customs contributed to accounting's development. Ideas presented come from a career spent working with accounting information.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWiley
    Release dateFeb 17, 2011
    ISBN9781118044612
    More Than a Numbers Game: A Brief History of Accounting

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    • 2/5
      You would be hard pressed to come up with a more soporific subject than that of accounting. Through no real fault of their own accountants are seen as the mousy, super-introverts of the world, subject to all kinds of negative portrayals in books and film. The truth is, nowadays, accountants keep the world afloat. World markets are propped up or deflated through the work of accounting. Investors, both big and small, need the work of accountants to decide where their money will go. Accounting in the U.S. specifically has had quite a storied past and Thomas King’s More Than a Numbers Game seeks to warm more people up to the field.Instead of a perfect linear history of American accounting practices, King divides the field into areas of work. So, there’s a chapter on standards, on debts, on taxes, on options, and so forth. Each one of these gets a mini-history to show landmark changes, court decisions, and laws passed in each area. King tries desperately to make this interesting and, for small pockets it is, but on the whole, it’s a little dry. You have to have a bit of lingo under your belt already before going into this one or you’ll be lost when he starts in on capital depreciation, equity markets, and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. There’s a good deal of history here and folks going into the field will find this one a welcome addition to their shelves, but I’m glad that it ended when it did. Anything more than a brief history of accounting would have left me reeling.

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    More Than a Numbers Game - Thomas A. King

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