Selected Resources
Accounting 318
Spring Semester, 2008
Table of Contents
Overview and Best Resources
This course includes a group project in which you perform a detailed analysis of the financial statements of two companies in an industry that interests you. You will need to learn about the companies, access their annual reports to shareholders and certain SEC filings, obtain comparative industry information, and financial market information useful in valuation exercises. This page contains an annotated list of the reference sources you are most likely to need in ACCT 318. A detailed list of other resources you may need to consult from time to time follows the Overview and Best Resources section.

Company Financial Information (Quantitative)

  1. Company Web Pages, e.g., Dell Inc.: Includes annual reports to shareholders (financial statements) and other company related information. Look for a link on the page called Investor Information or Investor Relations. For companies that sell their product directly to the public, you may need to look at the Site Map to locate investor information.
  2. Factiva:Selected financial statement information from the Reuters database. Click on the Company/Markets section financial reports.
  3. Standard & Poor's Net Advantage: Selected financial statement information from the Compustat database; click on Excel Analytics.
  4. Securities and Exchange Commission's Edgar: SEC Filings, e.g., 10K report

Journal Indexes (Qualitative)

  1. ABI-Inform Global: This indexes journal articles with some articles that are full text
  2. Accounting and Tax Index (Print Only),016.657/A512ab: Principal index for accounting and tax articles. Available in PRINT ONLY.

Industry Ratios( These important resources are available ONLY in print)

  1. Industry Norms and Key Business Ratios: 338.5/I42/FM-1-Ref. Latest on Reserve with earlier editions in the stacks.
  2. RMA Annual Statement Studies: 338/R642/FM-1-Ref. Latest on Reserve with earlier editions in the stacks
Books
  1. ASA, The Library's Online Catalog. This lists all the items in the library and their location.

Remember: Use ASA to locate books, journals, A-V materials, CD-ROMs and authorative Web pages. Journal articles are NOT indexed in ASA.

Industry Information
These resources can be used to locate information on industries. They are:
  1. Associations Unlimited. Good for finding the industry's association and other related associations.
  2. Investext. It has analyst reports covering more than 11,000 U.S. and international companies and 53 industries. These reports come from top Wall Street and international brokerage firms.
  3. Standard and Poor's Net Advantage. This includes a variety of information. It includes industry, stock, country, and company. It has the Industry Surveys.
Industry Ratios
  1. Almanac of Business and Financial Ratios. 338.973/T864/FM-1-Ref. Latest on Reserve and earlier editions in the stacks.
  2. Factiva. This information is available through the Company/Market section.
  3. Industry Norms and Key Business Rations. 338.5/I42/FM-1-Ref. Latest on Reserve with earlier editions in the stacks. Produced by Dun and Bradstreet.
  4. RMA Annual Statement Studies. 338/R642/FM-1-Ref. Latest on Reserve and earlier editions in the stacks.
Company and Stock Information
These resources are good for finding information on companies. They are:
  1. Company Web sites provide good quantitative and qualitative information. REMEMBER:The companies that issue the information maintain these pages.
  2. Factiva. The Company/Markets search has the financial information including 5 years of annual financials and latest six quarters of financial information.
  3. SEC Edgar Database. (See World Wide Web for description.) Its URL is http://www.sec.gov/.
  4. Standard and Poor's Net Advantage. This resource provides quantitative and qualitative data on companies and industries. It includes access to the SEC's Edgar database and S&P's Industry Surveys.
Journal Indexes
Locating articles with quantitative and qualitative information on companies and industries may be found using these indexes. Some indexes have full text articles. They are:
  1. ABI-Inform Global. Indexes over 1400 journals in management and business. Coverage is from 1987 for most journals. About 45% of the articles are available in full text.
  2. ABI-Inform Trade & Industry. Indexes resources with a trade or industry focus
  3. Accounting and Tax Index. Available only in print and is shelved in Index Section, Reference, Fairchild Library. Its former name is the Accountant's Index, Supplement. This indexes the accounting literature and is available only in citation format.
  4. Econlit. A good index for the research journals that cover company information from a business and economic perspective.
  5. Factiva. It has over 10000+ publications (full text) with some back to the early 1980's.
World Wide Web
Be careful when searching the Internet for resources. Great information is available, but so is a lot of poor quality information. Using a search engine, e.g. Alta Vista, Google, etc., you will find information that may be useful. Results may include (but are not limited to) governments, associations, companies, and individuals that have home pages. These Web pages provide facts, figures, and reports thay may assist with your research. However, anyone can put up a Web page with information and it isn't always easy to determine the author of a Web page. Always ask yourself if the source of the information on the Web page is a reliable source.

Statistical Resources on the Web are:

  1. Company Web Pages. These are good sources of financial information but the companies that issue the information maintain these pages.
  2. SEC Edgar Database. This has the 10K reports from publicly traded companies.

These are additional sites for statistics on the economy. They are:

  1. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Its URL is http://www.bea.gov/.
  2. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Its URL is http://www.bls.gov/.
  3. Federal Statistics site. Its URL is http://www.fedstats.gov/.
  4. U.S. Census Bureau. Its URL is http://www.census.gov/.
There are additional resources including web sites that can assist you in locating information on an industry, legal information, marketing, statistics, etc. The first two are related to accounting. They are:
  1. American Accounting Association. Its URL is http://aaahq.org/index.cfm. Or for the RAW site, its URL is http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/.
  2. American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Its URL is http://www.aicpa.org.
These web sites are related to industries and may provide additional information. They are:
  1. Aerospace Industries Association of America (AIA). URL is http://www.aia-aerospace.org/.
  2. National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS). URL is http://www.nacds.org.
  3. National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC). URL is http://www.npcnow.org.
  4. National Restaurant Association. URL is http://www.restaurant.org.

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