Читать книгу Financial Accounting For Dummies - Maire Loughran - Страница 84

If you personally dabble in the stock market, you should be quite interested in the workings of the SEC. The SEC enforces the statutory requirement that public companies submit quarterly and annual reports, as well as other periodic reports that are crucial for making sound investment decisions. Additionally, company management is required to submit a narrative outlining their previous year of operations, which explains how well the company performed. Wondering where to find all this great info? The SEC maintains an online database called EDGAR (the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system) from which investors can access this and other information filed with the agency.

You can access EDGAR at the SEC website, www.sec.gov. From the home page, under Filings, click on the How to Search EDGAR link for the lowdown on how to use EDGAR.

The enforcement authority given by Congress allows the SEC to bring civil enforcement actions against individuals or companies alleged to have committed accounting fraud, provided false information, or engaged in insider trading or other violations of the securities law. The SEC also works with criminal law enforcement agencies to prosecute individuals and companies alike for offenses that include criminal violations.

As a financial accountant, your exposure to the regulatory authority of the SEC will be limited unless you work for a company whose shares of stock are publicly traded or you work for a CPA firm conducting financial statement audits for publicly traded companies.