This text sets out to guide the non-specialist 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, how to look for clues on quality of management and to see how poor results are disguised. The book is revised and updated to take account of the latest Financial Reporting Standards (FRS) including 3 and 4; provides coverage of "Task Force" abstracts which show the way things are moving; and includes one chapter devoted to the techniques and practice of creative accounting.