[refurb]

I took a class specifically on this - how company manipulate their financial statements to make things look better.

It's really fascinating. If you're willing to dig into the financial statements (and ones from the past), you can learn a ton about how a company defines "performance" and whether or not it's reasonable.

Despite GAAP accounting rules, there is enough gray area for companies to hide a lot of bad information.

[realtalk_sp]

Any book you'd recommend to get a quick general grasp of accounting? Aside from the one referenced in the parent, which I'm probably going to buy.

[gpav]

The Accounting Game: Basic Accounting Fresh from the Lemonade Stand, by Darrell Mullis and Judith Orloff

[refurb]

Financial Shenanigans was mentioned by others. That one is pretty good!

[nickff]

Enron being the classic example of what you're describing.

[refurb]

Yup we covered Enron.

It's pretty interesting to study the mechanism of the fraud. Enron did a lot of things, but one of the big ones was how they booked revenue. Since they were a middleman, they should have booked their cut (i.e. fees) as revenue, but rather they booked the entire purchase as revenue, drastically inflating their growth.

[hippich]

If I remember correctly, at that time it was legal to book it this way. Perhaps that was "innovation" that allowed Enron to shoot to the moon?