You are an accountant needing golden handcuffs, you are faced with a jargon-laden business exam, you are the proud owner of an incomprehensible tax form. Where do you turn? The Penguin Dictionary of Accounting is your answer. Demystifying the most complex terms in simple, easy-to-understand language, this is the ideal reference book for anyone who reads, speaks or writes accountancy - whether student, businessperson, investor, preparer of financial statements, auditor or accounts manager. Compiled by Christopher Nobes, PricewaterhouseCoopers Professor of Accounting at Reading University, this...

If you read the 'business pages' of a newspaper or if you listen to the financial news on television or radio, you will often hear terms such as 'liability', 'balance sheet' or 'earnings'. These terms turn up in non-financial contexts as well: 'he was more of a liability than an asset'. If you invest in shares, manage your family's personal finances, or sit on a committee of the property company which owns your apartment, you will receive financial statements. If you are a manager in a company, a hospital or a school, you will see accounting information often.
This Very Short Introduction...

Financial reporting practices differ widely between countries and this has far-reaching implications for multinational businesses. Over more than a century, there have been attempts to classify countries into groups by similarities of practices. With the recent spread of International Financial Reporting Standards, it might appear that classification is largely of historical interest, but this is not the case, for several reasons explained in this book. Christopher Nobes offers a critical analysis of the many previous accounting classifications, having drawn lessons from other fields of...