Previous Page | Back to Main Index | Next Page

PART III: TOOLS OF FINANCIAL ANALYSIS AND PLANNING

Link-set

Altman Z-Score

• Accountancy and Islam. Links to a series of lectures (PDF versions) on accountancy (and finance) and Islam.
  http://www.accountancy.com.pk/reference_islam_accounting.asp
• Accounting & Business. Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (UK) magazine that addresses critical issues in international accountancy and business and contains news analysis and features.
  http://www.accaglobal.com/members/publications/accounting_business/
• Accounting Coach. Excellent (FREE) online accounting resource. Learn accounting principles, debits and credits, financial ratios, breakeven point, improving profits, and more. Site's resources go a long way toward helping you become more financially literate.
  http://www.accountingcoach.com/
• AccountingSTUDY.com. Comprehensive source of study materials for accounting students.
  http://accountingstudy.com/
• Advanced Financial Statement Analysis. Very nice, multi-part tutorial provides a succinct -- yet advanced -- overview of financial statement analysis.
  http://www.investopedia.com/university/financialstatements/
• Altman Z-Score Web Sites
  1. Bankruptcy Prediction. Overview of bankruptcy prediction models including Altman's original Z-score model.
     http://www.solvency.com/bankpred.htm
  2. The Insolvency Predictor Z-Score Page. Altman Z-Score calculator uses statistical techniques to predict a company's probability of failure.
     http://www.creditguru.com/CalcAltZ.shtml
  3. JaxWorks: Z-Score Analysis Calculation. Online bankruptcy predictor calculator lets you calculate Altman Z-scores for publicly-held companies.
     http://www.jaxworks.com/calc2a.htm
• AnnualReports.Com. Instant access to annual reports in their actual format.
  http://www.annualreports.com/
• Atoms, Bits, and Cash. Excellent Credit Suisse/First Boston study that focuses on the "cash conversion cycle."
  http://capatcolumbia.com/Articles/Reports/Ni4127.pdf
• AuditNet: Free Resources for Auditors. Web portal for professional auditors with links, tools and resources. A number of items here should also be of interest to finance students/profesionals too.
  http://www.auditnet.org/
• The Basics of Fundamental Analysis. Nice multi-part tutorial on fundamental analysis courtesy of TheStreet.com.
  http://www.thestreet.com/basics/fundamental/19519.html
• Bean Counter. Accounting and bookkeeping tutorials plus learning sites.
  http://www.dwmbeancounter.com/acctg.html
• Bean Counting 101: A Course in Accounting for Non-Accountants. A free accounting course consisting of five tutorial movies.
  http://www.a-systems.net/accounting.htm
• BizStats.com. Instant access to useful financial ratios, business statistics & benchmarks, effective and understandable online analysis of businesses & industries.
  http://www.bizstats.com/
• Business Basics for the Workplace. An online workbook from the Conference Board of Canada -- includes a chapter on Understanding Financial Statements and one on Financial Statement Analysis. (Français).
  http://www.conferenceboard.ca/busbasics/en/wbcont.htm
  http://www.conferenceboard.ca/busbasics/fr/wbcont.htm
• Business Plan Center. Offers a number of useful free planning resources -- e.g., a library of real business plans, articles, and web resources.
  http://www.businessplans.org/
• Business Ratios. Information on financial analysis using business or financial ratios and norms courtesy of the Milner Library at Illinois State University.
  http://www.mlb.ilstu.edu/ressubj/subject/business/ratio.htm
• CAROL World. FREE Company Annual Reports On-Line (CAROL) for UK, Asia, and Europe.
  http://www.carol.co.uk/
• CCH Business Owner's Toolkit. Information on financing, taxes, regulations, laws, and marketing. Visit their Business Tools section where you can view and download business forms, checklists, and financial worksheets. Review Definitions of Accounting Terms, see what an Accounts Receivable Aging Schedule looks like, compare Cash vs. Accrual Accounting, and much more.
  http://www.toolkit.cch.com/
• ClearStation. Enter a stock ticker symbol and get Key Ratios (and stock beta), Profile & Fundamentals, Interactive Graphs, and more.
  http://clearstation.etrade.com/
• Company Information Guide: Company Research on the Web. Nicely done research guide provides eight steps for finding information about companies on the Web.
  http://www.virtualchase.com/Coinfo/index.htm
• Company Research. Comprehensive guide to print and electronic resources for company, industry, and general research.
  http://iws.ohiolink.edu/companies/
• Complimentary Software. Look on the left side of this page for links to free software designed to accompany Analysis for Financial Management text by Prof. Robert Higgins. For example, HISTORY produces a financial analysis of up to 5 years of user-supplied, historical financial data about a company. PROFORMA converts user-supplied information and assumptions about a company into proforma financial forecasts for as many as 5 years into the future. It also performs a ratio analysis and a sustainable growth analysis of the results.
  http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0073041807/student_view0/index.html
• Corporate Information. Links to other sites that offer information about companies -- organized by country.
  http://www.corporateinformation.com/
• The Credit Process: A Guide for Small Business Owners. Click on What the Lender Will Review for a nice discussion of credit analysis, financial analysis, and ratio analysis with examples.
  http://www.newyorkfed.org/education/addpub/credit.html
• The DuPont Model. Nice article from CFO Magazine discusses the DuPont approach to ratio analysis to evaluate a firm's overall effectiveness.
  http://www.cfo.com/Article?article=1495
• EBITDA: the Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Nice article, courtesy of Investopedia.com, that defines EBITDA and discusses how it can be useful but also misleading. And, for more on EBITDA visit another Investopedia.com page.
  http://www.investopedia.com/articles/analyst/020602.asp
• EdgarScan. PricewaterhouseCoopers Web interface transforms EDGAR data into HTML and Excel spreadsheet formats; also allows access to data in the regular EDGAR format.
  http://edgarscan.pwcglobal.com/servlets/edgarscan
• Edward Lowe Foundation: Entrepreneurs' Resource Center. Many business resources (e.g., links, articles, tutorials). Try "How to Analyze Your Business Using Financial Ratios", "How to Prepare a Cash Flow Statement" and "How to Prepare a Cash Budget".
  http://edwardlowe.org/index.elf?page=sserc
• "Even Without Fraud, Financial Statements Can Be Misleading." The Enron scandal may be viewed as "the neutron bomb of accounting," but even without fraud, financial statements can be misleading, says Professor James Van Horne. Pro forma earnings, abuses of revenue recognition, and even playing games with the calendar can make it difficult to get a true picture.
  http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/headlines/vanhorne.shtml
• Excite: Money & Investing. By submitting a stock's ticker symbol you can get financial statements, nonfinancial information, selected ratios and statistics, and more.
  http://money.excite.com/
• FASB: Accounting Standards Codification. The FASB Accounting Standards Codification will be the single source for all authoritative accounting standards (i.e., GAAP) in the United States when it is released (probably in early 2009). This is the place to learn all about it.
  http://asc.fasb.org/home
• Financial Accounting Standards Board.
  http://www.fasb.org
• The Financial Data Finder. Extensive set of data links courtesy of Ohio State University.
  http://www.cob.ohio-state.edu:80/~fin/osudata.htm
• Financial Shenanigans. Dr. Howard Schilit's excellent PowerPoint presentation of Seven Financial Shenanigans and how to detect them. Also, check out his testimony before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), September 20, 2000 -- well before the Enron scandal.
  http://shookrun.com/documents/shenanigans_schilit.ppt
• Financials.com. Comprehensive source of financial and investment information.
  http://www.financials.com/index.cfm
• Finding Financial Information. This Motley Fool article, by Matt Richey (my former student, by the way), takes you by the hand and leads you through the sections of the SEC reports that one needs to perform certain calculations.
  http://www.fool.com/portfolios/rulemaker/1999/RuleMaker990714.htm
• Fool.com: Calculating Cash Flow Ratios. Nice article, courtesy of "The Motley Fool," discusses two important ratios derived (in part) from the cash flow statement -- the operating cash flow ratio and the cash current debt coverage ratio.
  http://www.fool.com/research/2000/features000707.htm
• FoolWire: the Consolidated Balance Sheet. "The Motley Fool" and AOL's Personal Finance area combine to focus on the Consolidated Balance Sheet -- how to read it, what are its elements, etc.
  http://www.fool.com/Features/1996/sp0708a.htm
• Forecasting Principles. Professor J. Scott Armstrong of The Wharton School provides a comprehensive review of the state of knowledge about forecasting.
  http://www-marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/forecast/
• Free Corporate Finance Tutorials from FinanceScholar.com. Many corporate finance tutorials, including one on Accounting Ratios.
  http://www.financescholar.com/
• FullDisclosure.com. Gets you the latest corporate information, with access to live webcasts and online replays, free annual reports, earnings releases, conference calls, splits, dividends and a lot more.
  http://www.fulldisclosure.com/
• Globeinvestor.com. Stocks, investing and financial news from a Canadian perspective.
  http://www.globeinvestor.com/
• Hoover's Online. Company information, business news, company homepage links, and more. Also, visit Hoover's Online UK for UK and other European company information.
  http://www.hoovers.com/
• IAS Plus. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu web site provides comprehensive information about international accounting standards.
  http://www.iasplus.com/index.htm
• IASB -- International Accounting Standards Board . The IASB is an independent accounting standard setter committed to developing, in the public interest, a single set of high quality, understandable and enforceable global accounting standards.
  http://www.iasb.org.uk/
• IBM's Investment Guides. Introduction to reading the financial statements in a company's annual report.
  http://www.ibm.com/investor/tools/financials.phtml
• IFAC - International Federation of Accountants. Global organization for the accountancy profession.
  http://www.ifac.org
• IFACnet -- A KnowledgeNet for Accountants in Business. Search engine that yields results from more than a dozen Websites of accountancy organizations. Includes good practice guidance, explanatory articles, tools and techniques, and continuing professional development information.
  http://www.ifacnet.com/
• Industry Research Desk. Tools for researching specific companies and industries.
  http://www.virtualpet.com/industry/rdindex2.htm
• Introduction to Activity Based Costing (ABC). A nice online tutorial.
  http://www.pitt.edu/~roztocki/abc/abctutor/
• Investopedia.com: Footnotes. Nice article explaining how to pull out important nuggets of financial information from the footnotes to financial statements.
  http://www.investopedia.com/articles/02/050102.asp
• Investopedia.com: Fundamental Analysis Tutorial on Fundamental Analysis and Valuing a Company plus detailed explanations of key accounting terms. http://www.investopedia.com/university/fundamentalanalysis/
• Investodedia.com: Industry Handbook. Takes an in-depth look at different valuation techniques used in particular industries, various buzz words, does a 5-forces analysis on the state of the market, and points you in the direction of industry specific resources.
  http://www.investopedia.com/features/industryhandbook/
• Investopedia.com: Ratio Analysis. Tutorial on ratio analysis plus detailed descriptions of key ratios.
  http://www.investopedia.com/university/ratios/
• InvestQuest. Provides financial documents for thousands of public companies.
  http://www.investquest.com/
• JaxWorks: Small Business Spreadsheet Factory. Provides a number of FREE worksheets and downloads that should interest students and small business owners alike.
  http://www.jaxworks.com/index.htm
• Knowledge Guide to IAS/IFRS. Knowledge guide to International Accounting Standards (IAS) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
  http://www1.icaew.co.uk/library/index.cfm?AUB=TB2I_25594
• Lessons from Lucent. Great article from The Motley Fool underscores the usefulness of basic financial analysis principles. (One of the article's coauthors is Matt Richey, who also happens to be one of my best former students.)
  http://www.fool.com/specials/2000/sp000113lucent.htm
• MSN Money -- Key Ratios. Key financial ratios for public companies and a comparison of those ratios to industry and S&P 500 figurs.
  http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/invsub/results/compare.asp
• Northcote: the Link to UK Annual Reports.
  http://www.northcote.co.uk/
• NYSE Listed Companies. Site helps you to track down information on specific NYSE-listed firms.
  http://www.nyse.com/listed/
• Online Women's Business Center. A rich source of finance training, tutorials, and information.
  http://www.sba.gov/onlinewbc/index.html
• PCAOB Online: Public Company Accounting Oversight Information. Central resource to access CPA registration filings and research standards and regulations as mandated by Sarbanes-Oxley.
  http://www.pcaob.com/
• PlanWare -- The Business Planning Site. Free business plan software, cash flow plans, and business planner.
  http://www.planware.org/
• Preparing a Cash Flow Forecast. A nice "how-to" tutorial. Note: this is a Canadian site, so some financial terms and definitions may differ somewhat from U.S. usage.
  http://www.smallbusinessbc.ca/workshop/cashflow.php
• Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). Official web site of the PCAOB, which was created to establish and enforce auditing, independence, quality control and ethics standards for audits of public companies.
  http://www.pcaobus.org/
• Public Register's Annual Report Service (PRARS). PRARS will mail annual reports for participating companies Free to U.S. addresses (a nominal fee is required if mailed to a non-U.S. address). Also try the Online Annual Report Service.
  http://www.prars.com/
• Quote.com. FREE worldwide quotes, charts, and news covering all major financial markets.
  http://www.quote.com/
• Research Guide: Accounting. Excellent accounting research resource from the Rutgers University Libraries. Also, visit their Company Research Guide.
  http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/rr_gateway/research_guides/busi/account.shtml
• Researching Companies Online. Nice step-by-step, interactive tutorial on researching companies using a wide variety of FREE resources on the Internet.
  http://www.learnwebskills.com/company/index.html
• Reuters: Business & Finance News. A rich source of business news and financial information. Go to their "Stocks" section and enter a company ticker symbol and you will find an estimate of a company's beta. A host of other information is available.
  http://www.reuters.com/finance
• RMA's Annual Statement Studies. Learn about the RMA's Annual Statement Studies and the commonly used ratios that are featured.
  http://www.rmahq.org/RMA/RMAUniverse/KnowledgeandTrainingCenter/ KnowledgeCenter/Resources/Industry/StatementStudies/
• SEC EDGAR Database. Corporate SEC filings from the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval database.
  http://www.sec.gov/edgarhp.htm
• SEC: Interactive Data Viewers. These viewers allow you use financial information that companies have provided to the SEC as interactive data in eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL).
  http://www.sec.gov/xbrl
• SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin: No. 101 -- Revenue Recognition in Financial Statements. Since a very large number of recent financial reporting frauds in the U.S. (and elswhere) involve overstating revenue, this SEC Bulletin seems especially relevant.
  http://www.sec.gov/interps/account/sab101.htm
• SEDAR Home Page. System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) makes Canadian public securities filings (and other company information) easily accessible to all. (Français)
  http://www.sedar.com/homepage_en.htm
  http://www.sedar.com/homepage_fr.htm
• Sources and Uses of Funds -- An Article About Excel. A nice article about how to create a Sources and Uses Statement in Excel.
  http://www.exceluser.com/solutions/sourcesuses1a.htm
• Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 123R Resource. SFAS 123R deals with expensing stock options and this website provided by the AICPA provides a wealth of information on this important topic.
  http://thecaq.aicpa.org/Resources/Accounting/Statement+of+Financial+Accounting+Standards+No.+123R+Resource.htm
• StockWizard. Investment-related search engine form i-Soft, Inc. that allows users to locate free information on U.S. publicly traded companies.
  http://www.stockwizard.com
• studyfinance.com. Visit this site's Overviews (Tutorials) related to Tools of Financial Analysis and Planning: Basic Financial Statements, Funds Type Statements, Ratio Analysis, and Sustainable Growth Measures.
  http://www.studyfinance.com/
• USPages -- the best of US business. Site allows you to search for all the Fortune 500 corporations in a specific industry, read about them, view business and financial summaries, see how their stocks are doing and find contact details for each.
  http://www.uspages.com/
• Warren Buffett's Letters To Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders. The entire collection of Buffet's famously instructive letters to shareholders of his holding company.
  http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html
• Yahoo! Finance Research & Education. Links to company reports, analyst research, research tools, and more.
  http://biz.yahoo.com/r/
• Zacks Investment Research. Find company information using their pull-down menu with company ticker symbol. Requesting a "PDF Snapshot" will get you a company's beta too.
  http://www.zacks.com/

Previous Page | Back to Main Index | Next Page