Chapter 21

Ten Common Notes to the Financial Statements

In This Chapter

arrow Brushing up on accounting policies and subsequent events

arrow Measuring inventory and assets

arrow Gauging intangibles and consolidations

arrow Finding out about employee benefits and contingencies

arrow Educating creditors

This chapter walks you through the explanatory notes to the financial statements. Explanatory notes are discussions of items that accompany the financial statements, which are the income statement (covered in Chapter 5), the balance sheet (see Chapter 6), and the statement of cash flows (discussed in Chapter 7). These notes are important disclosures that further explain numbers on the financial statements. The reason for these notes harkens back to fulfilling the needs of the external users of the financial statements.

“External users of the financial statements” is just a fancy way of saying people like you or me who may be interested in investing in the business. Users may also be banks thinking about loaning ...

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