Annual Report Project

Red Company includes software driven Annual Report Projects (ARPs) for four public companies. Each student is assigned one of the four companies. The ARP allows the student to apply the 32 financial statement analysis tools learned through the Red Company book to the annual report of an actual public company. The ARP requires that the student understands how to calculate, interpret, and use the tools to provide insight into the financial health of the company being analyzed.

The four ARPs Included in the Red Company software are for:

Lowes
Home Depot
Southwest Airlines
Johnson & Johnson

These companies have been carefully chosen for their relatively clean financial statements.

It typically takes 3 to 4 hours for the student to complete their ARP. After completing the project, the student electronically submits their ARP file to the instructor for grading.

The instructor receives automatic grading software for the Annual Report Project. This grading software determines which of the four ARPs was completed by the student and grades the project accordingly. The instructor is given the option of printing an ARP grade page or outputting a grade page file electronically. The grading software also prepares a Grade Summary Report for all graded ARPs. The instructor is able to grade approximately 100 projects in 15 minutes or less.

The ARPs and grading software are updated each year to reflect the most recent financial statements available for the four companies.