preview

Financial Statements Of Foreign Companies Essay

Decent Essays

Unlike here in the United States., financial statements of foreign companies are not always readily accessible. Most importantly, it is often not in English. However, an analyst or any interested party can always obtain a convenience translation of financial statements either through pay-database-services or by requesting it directly from the companies. Of course, different currency is also a concern. Yet, it can easily overcome by converting and translating previous years’ balances as well as current year’s balances (and line items) at current year currency exchange rate; this helps eliminating distortion and translation adjustments. Nevertheless, some other serious concerns such as terminologies discrepancies, general accepted accounting principles (GAAP) differences, and financial ratio analysis may still arise when analyzing “translated” foreign financial statements (Doupnik & Perera, 2012) .
Terminologies Discrepancies Though foreign financial statements may be in English, the terminologies may not carry the same meanings. For instance, the financial terms differences between British English and American English. Thus, it is important to have familiarity of financial terms interpretation and applications in the countries of foreign companies.
Table 1
Differences between British and American Reporting Terms
British
• Creditors
• Debtors
• Ordinary share
• Profit and loss account
• Share
• Stock
• Share premium
• Gilt-edged stock (gilts)
• Turnover American
• Accounts

Get Access