Here is my second colleague’s book. The photo is not too good.
Details on the publisher’s website (in German).
This is a synoptic translation: the original German on the left, sometimes descriptive, sometimes parts of legislation, and the English version, by Fry & Bonthrone Partnership, on the right.
I must say I haven’t used this much. I used to use its predecessor quite a lot, but that was in the days when I actually translated German accounting texts. Since then I think the translation of accounts between German and English has become more specialized, and the subject has become more complex with the introduction of the IFRS – this book has a nice table comparising IFRSs, US GAAP and German Accepted Accounting Principles, but there’s lots more reading out there.
Anyway, this is the Bible on accounting translation from German to English. And I actually used it in December when I had a short urgent job containing a small balance sheet from Switzerland, but only to remind me of what I ought to know.
If you want to buy this, at 48 euros, note that it dates from 2005 and there may well be another edition in the pipeline – but of course, nobody knows how long a pipeline is, especially with publishers (my personal bugbear is the new edition of Volker Triebel et al. Englisches Handels- und Wirtschaftsrecht, which if we are very lucky, and rich, we may get before Christmas, but it has been promised for years – the publisher says ‘third quarter 2011’). In fact I heard that there may be a new synoptic work coming out covering German GAAP, the Bilanzrechtsmodernisierungsgesetz and IFRSs.
One thing I regret about this book is that it lacks an index. In fact, every time I open it I look for an index, but there never is one. At the same time, it’s extremely complex and long and indexing would be a nightmare.
Fey / Fladt: Deutsches Bilanzrecht / German Accounting Legislation
Die 4., vollständig überarbeitete und aktualisierte Auflage des “Brooks/Mertin” enthält drei Teile, die jeweils in deutsch und englisch verfasst sind.