Why do people call FSA accounting? statements, understand, accounting

karoliukas

I think the reason why people feel intimidated by it is because they somehow think FSA means accounting when in fact most accountants hardly know what ROE is.

FSA is a crucial part of analysing a company and its quite easy to master as long as you know what the 3 main types of financial statements are and how they are related to each other.

Once you understand the financials, the ratios, IFRS/GAAP crap, etc will all make sense

just my two cents.... now carry on whatever it was that you were doing

kasinkei

True that FRA is geared more toward analyzing and interpreting financial statements from the CFA perspective. However, as CPA, I can tell you that about 90% of the material in FRA is required knowledge for becoming a CPA.



investragy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here is my 2 cents:
>
> FSA is not accounting period! Accountants prepare
> financial statements.... FSA is about analyzing
> financial statements.
>
> Just my POV!

- Robert

ftwcfa

Here's my take:

Accounting is more done from the "front end" of the process - how do they record the transactions of the company and prepare statements according to GAAP.

The CFA body of knowledge requires that you be able to ANALYZE these statements to convert them into something that reflected the real, economic priospects of the company in question. So, in some sense you are translating them into "finance-exe".

Lease accounting and pension accounting are good examples - a finance person is concerned with the amount of debt and other fixed obligations carried by a firm. Because of the quirks of the accounting system, the financial statements don't always label what we'd consider debt (e.g. an operating lease) as "debt". So, we translate. But in order to translate, we need to know how the statements are constructed.

The best background is to have both accounting and finance. One constructs the statements, and one uses them.

dece2011

BeboThoughts Wrote:
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> 20% of my Intro to Financial Accounting class was
> all ratios. We had to know like 30 of them and we
> were just given a balance sheet, income statement,
> cash flows, oci and we had to rock em out.
>
> FRA is to accounting what reading is to writing.


Bebo said it all!

Zero, what you said about enron is true, but dont you think the exec management knows a thing or two about accounting which is why they tell the accountants what to do?

sgupta0827

I would never want to be an accountant myself, but I have no doubt that accountancy requires talent.

Beatnik

I think it's rude to undermine accountants. Not that I am one, but 'pill counters,'?! Seriously? How would it be possible to conduct ANY financial analysis without having the statements to start off with.

Seriously you gotta ask yourself who is responsible for learning all the various intricate standards & policies and preparing these statements in the first place.. That way you might not be so full of yourself

cyber21

Most companies CFOs have CPA not CFA

siavosh

Zero bonus:

Quite a bit of hate for the accountants, huh? Were you shat upon by some CPA recently?

A review or audit requires that the accountant perform analytical procedures as a way of "testing" the quality of the numbers. Those procedures include ratio analysis.

I am not sure where you get your abhorrence toward the accounting profession, but learn a bit about it before you rant.

Wasteoftime

20% of my Intro to Financial Accounting class was all ratios. We had to know like 30 of them and we were just given a balance sheet, income statement, cash flows, oci and we had to rock em out.

FRA is to accounting what reading is to writing.

lc26mizzou

And the Enron fraud was being done mostly by CFO Andy Fastow. The guy was an evil genius, really.