Published accounts are often not easy to understand and are sometimes downright misleading but, to those who know how to read them, they provide the most readily available source of information on a company's activities, its profitability and its prospects. This book guides the reader through the conventions and complexities of reports and accounts, explaining how to assess the financial and trading position of a company from year to year, how to spot undue risk-taking, where and how to look for clues on the quality of management and how to detect where window-dressing has been used to disguise poor results.In 1990 the authors wrote: 'Company accounting is currently in a state of flux, confusion and controversy'. It is now in much better shape. In ten years, 15 Financial Reporting Standards (FRSs), countless Financial Reporting Exposure Drafts (FREDs), a host of other documents, and, for the first time in the UK, an exposure draft Statement of Principles of Financial Reporting have been produced by the Accounting Standards Board (ASB). Many earlier abuses have been prevented, and much more information now has to be disclosed, the use and purpose of which the authors seek to explain