NEW! Updates of new financial reporting requirements are included, as well as changes required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

NEW! Examples are provided throughout the chapters to illustrate accounting concepts and the current accounting environment.

MORE Extensive discussion of analysis of accounts receivable and the allowance account has been added to Chapter 2.

NEW! Calculating and analyzing gross profit margin for companies with multiple revenue sources is now covered in Chapter 3.

NEW CHAPTER! Chapter 5 has been added to cover the quality of earnings and financial reporting.  This chapter has been placed before the final chapter that covers a comprehensive financial statement analysis.

NEW! The appendix covering segmental analysis has been placed as an appendix to Chapter 6, which covers financial statement analysis.

NEW! The two end-of-chapter cases have been completely revised with new and more recent company information.

NEW! A new research problem has been added to each chapter.

The comprehensive problem using Intel has been updated to the most recent annual report available, 2004.

A second comprehensive problem has been added to the textbook using the Eastman Kodak Annual Report, 2004.  This problem illustrates the use of the financial statement analysis template available to users of the book at www.prenhall.com/fraser.