For your introductory financial accounting, intermediate accounting, and financial statement analysis courses. It is also suitable for “extra projects” in honors and MBA classes or for independent study projects.

In this project the student obtains and analyzes an annual report from a publicly traded corporation. Activities include: identifying corporate operations, gaining familiarity with the financial data presentation, recognizing trends, calculating ratios, and performing industry and primary competitor comparisons.

The project takes approximately 8 to 20 hours to complete (average 10 hours).

Retained Features:

• Provides extensive instructions on how to obtain annual report data from a corporation.
• Instructs students on how to obtain industry and competitor data. 
• Emphasizes internet access to corporate web sites; includes search words to help locate internet data quickly.
• Guides students through topics as complex as comprehensive income, pensions and post-retirement benefits, LIFO reserves, and income tax deferrals.
• Includes an optional Excel spreadsheet that aids the student in performing ratio analysis, competitor analysis, trend analysis, and analysis of seasonality.
• Introduces students to the SEC's EDGAR database.
• Contains extensive instructional and grading suggestions, and a 50-question follow-up examination. (Found in the Instructor's Manual.)

New Features:

• Includes improved graphing grids to help students identify trends in revenues, cash flows, outstanding shares, stock prices, and seasonal data.
• Updated to address changes in accounting standards for stock options, changes in accounting principle, and pension disclosures.
• Includes instructions on how to access FASB pronouncements as they appear on the internet.