This note provides an overview of the Canadian accounting standards for financial instruments. Classification, valuation and disclosure are discussed.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) reforms and their Canadian counterparts, which are intended to reduce unethical behaviour by forcing management to take more accountability for the information released to shareholders, are without question extremely time consuming and costly, and in spite of the massive spending, it is also likely that in the future there will be another Enron. Unethical people will always try to exploit the system. By taking the steps .....more

For many companies, the inventories constitute the major source of cash outflows, cash inflows and income. Inventories can represent one of the largest and most active assets on the balance sheet. As a result, the proper valuation of inventory plays a central role in the measurement of income as well as the determination of financial position. This note examines some of the theoretical and practical problems involved in accounting for inventory.