These first-of-their-kind guides focus on the financial statements and are specifically designed to be nontechnical and broadly accessible to anyone from the government finance novice to the long-time public manager.

What You Should Know Guides

The first two guides in the series provide a comprehensive but easy-to-read introduction to the annual financial reports of local governments—counties, cities, towns—and public school districts. These guides are also useful as a resource for school district and government finance officers and auditors who need to explain financial statements to elected officials and citizens. In addition to many of the features of the guide to notes and supporting information, these guides include:

• An annotated set of illustrative financial statements (complete with management’s discussion and analysis) for a local government or a school district

• A running story that helps the reader understand the concepts by relating them to personal financial decisions

• An introduction to basic financial ratios that may be used to analyze financial statements.

The Quick Guides

The three Quick Guides provide a summarized overview of the What You Should Know guides. They describe in a brief and readable style the major features of the new financial statements and highlight the ways in which government financial statement information may be useful to decision makers such as legislators, taxpayers, citizen groups, parents, public employees, and financial analysts. The Quick Guides are ideally suited for school board members, legislators, and other elected officials who are looking for a short and understandable explanation of government financial statements.

An Analyst’s Guide

This publication is aimed at the more experienced and regular user of government financial statements. It explores how basic analytical techniques may be applied to the information in the financial statements to assess issues such as financial position, financial condition, liquidity, solvency, fiscal capacity, and exposure to risk.

Guide to Note Disclosures and Supporting Information

The latest volume in the GASB’s award-winning User Guide Series is now available. What Else You Should Know about a Government’s Finances: A Guide to Notes to the Financial Statements and Supporting Information comprehensively reviews the information that accompanies the financial statements in a state or local governmental entity’s annual financial report.

Like the rest of the GASB’s user guides, What Else You Should Know . . . is written for the layperson in an understandable, nontechnical style. The guide focuses on the value of the information found in note disclosures and required supplementary information, as well as the other information that can be found in a comprehensive annual financial report. From the transmittal letter to the statistical section and everything in between, the guide describes the content and purpose of the disclosures and presentations and explains how the information can be used to understand and assess the financial health of a government. The topics covered by the guide include:

• ntroductory and background information, such as management’s discussion and analysis and the summary of significant accounting policies

• Information about assets, such as investments, receivables, and infrastructure

• Information about liabilities, such as long-term debt, derivatives, pensions, and retiree health insurance

• Information about revenues, expenditures, and expenses, such as budgets and property tax collections

• Information about parts of a government, such as funds, component units, and interfund transfers.

What Else You Should Know . . . contains many useful features:

• More than 80 annotated illustrations of note disclosures and supporting information presentations, accompanied by an alphabetical index

• Boxes and sidebars that further explore the issues raised in the text, provide more detailed definitions and explanations, and offer tips on using financial statement information

• Easy identification of key terms that are defined in an exhaustive glossary that accompanies the text

• An overview of the basics of public-sector accounting and financial reporting.

The GASB’s newest user guide can be ordered individually or in a package with one of the original user guides at a special discount.

User Guide Series

What You Should Know about Your Local Government’s Finances: A Guide to Financial Statements (GUG01)—$9.95 each copy

What You Should Know about Your School District’s Finances: A Guide to Financial Statements (GUG02)—$9.95 each copy

An Analyst’s Guide to Government Financial Statements (GUG03)—$19.95 each copy

What Else You Should Know about a Government’s Finances: A Guide to Notes to the Financial Statements and Supporting Information (GUG04)—$19.95 each copy