PPC’s Guide to Preparing Financial Statements is a financial statement preparers’ manual tailored especially for preparers of financial statements for nonpublic companies. The Guide takes you from the trial balance to the completed financial statements (including notes) in statement-by-statement, account-by-account sequence, regardless of whether the statements are audited, reviewed, compiled, or prepared by accountants in industry. The Guide provides the resources you need to efficiently and effectively prepare financial statements and disclosures in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles or an other comprehensive basis of accounting.

The Guide also guides you through complex accounting and disclosure issues such as business combinations, consolidations, tax transactions, fair value, and derivative instruments. Additionally, it covers financial statement and measurements, disclosure issues unique to retail, real estate, automobile dealerships, and other industries.

The 2012 edition of PPC’s Guide to Preparing Financial Statements includes the following important new features:

• Applying GAAP to Small Businesses Efficiently and Effectively. Each year preparing financial statements becomes more difficult because of the rapid pace of the issuance of new accounting standards with additional, and often more complex, reporting and disclosure requirements. Many preparers of the financial statements of nonpublic companies believe certain recently-issued accounting standards are too difficult to apply and often produce financial statement presentations and disclosures that are not relevant to the primary users of the financial statements. In response, we’ve added a detailed discussion of practical ways to apply GAAP to common transactions of small businesses. Additionally, we have included a discussion of how GAAP has become so complex and why its requirements remain relevant to small businesses and the users of their financial statements. Those discussions can help you prepare financial statements efficiently and effectively.
• New Standard on Impairment Testing of Intangible Assets. The FASB recently issued an Accounting Standards Update (ASU) to simplify impairment tests for indefinite-lived intangible assets other than goodwill. The provisions in the new ASU may be applied early. We’ve added a discussion of the new requirements and a “roadmap” to walk you through the new process. If the financial statements you prepare include indefinite-lived intangible assets, this new guidance could save you valuable time.
• Comprehensive, Up-to-date Disclosure Checklists. The most effective way to ensure you have properly disclosed all of the required information in the financial statements you prepare is to use our comprehensive disclosure checklists. The disclosure checklist for nonpublic companies and the separate disclosure checklist for nonprofit organizations have been completely updated.
• Illustrative Financial Statements. When you encounter a new reporting issue, we know it can be beneficial to see how other financial statement preparers may have reported the same or a similar issue. The Trends volume includes an entirely new set of illustrative financial statements and notes encompassing 40 entities from a variety of industries using various reporting bases. Our easy-to-use Finding List and Index help you quickly find the information you need.
• New Developments in Standard Setting for Private Companies. The past year has seen unprecedented activity in the ongoing debate about the need for separate GAAP for public and private reporting entities. The Financial Accounting Foundation recently announced the formation of a new group to improve the process of establishing accounting standards for private companies, the Private Company Council (PCC). At the same time, the AICPA announced its intention to develop an other comprehensive basis of accounting financial reporting framework to meet the needs of certain private small and medium-sized entities and the users of their financial statements. We have included a discussion of both initiatives.