[blindLaw] Reviewing a financial statement and other accounting documents

Tue May 31 10:51:55 UTC 2022

Hello Rahul and everyone,

Justin may have more specific points to add, but my understanding with ABBYY is that it will let you save a PDF in one of many different formats, including HTML. It has been a while since I used ABBYY, but this would be standard. HTML is capable of producing tables that are easy to navigate and use with JAWS (and presumably other screen readers). I sometimes have to work with Word documents that contain several tables where a number of the table entries have check-boxes. I find that JAWS does not always seem to be responsive with these kinds of documents. Sometimes, I save them as HTML files to retain the tabular format. This is better for situations where I have to review but not edit the document.

Best,

Angie

Angela Matney,  CIPP/US (she/her)
Counsel
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From: BlindLaw <blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Rahul Bajaj via BlindLaw
Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2022 3:29 AM
To: Blind Law Mailing List <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Rahul Bajaj <rahul.bajaj1038 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [blindLaw] Reviewing a financial statement and other accounting documents

EXTERNAL E-MAIL - From blindlaw at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Justin, one question. How can one convert a file into HTML form using ABB why why? I thought ABBYY was only for converting PDF document into word.

Also, in my experience, HTML documents do not retain rows and columns in tables. They present the information contained in tables in textual form. Am I wrong on that score?

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External Signed
From: BlindLaw <blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org>> on behalf of Justin Harford via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindlaw at nfbnet.org>>
Sent: Monday, May 30, 2022 11:33:07 PM
To: Blind Law Mailing List <blindlaw at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindlaw at nfbnet.org>>
Cc: Justin Harford <blindstein at gmail.com<mailto:blindstein at gmail.com>>
Subject: Re: [blindLaw] Reviewing a financial statement and other accounting documents

Hello

Since you didn't get any responses from blind accountants, maybe my response might be at least partially useful, though  I'm not an accountant.

I read a lot of securities and exchange filings including statements of income, cash flow and assets/liabilities. I have found that I get decent results when I pass a PDF of one of these documents through. ABBYY, and export as HTML. I find that around 90% of the time it gets the tables correctly tagged, and it even tags headings for key sections which makes it a bit easier to navigate. Many corporate entities will have spreadsheets of their financial statements. You can usually download these if it is a public company in the USA. I have successfully requested XLS versions of financial statements from foreign companies.

Of course this would break down if the financial statements were hand written, or if you were dealing with a tax return from the IRS. It seems to me like if you are working with a high networth individual, they would be able to supply you with proper spreadsheets.

Sorry you didn't get a reply from a Real accountant. Hopefully somebody with the proper credentials will be sufficiently infuriated with my response to enlighten both of us as I personally would like to know as well.

Regards

Justin Harford
Oregon Bell Academy Coordinator

> On May 30, 2022, at 3:09 PM, Singh, Nandini via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindlaw at nfbnet.org>> wrote:
>
> No. I may ask again at a later time though.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindLaw <blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org>> On Behalf Of Caleb E. Smith via BlindLaw
> Sent: Monday, May 30, 2022 3:58 PM
> To: Blind Law Mailing List <blindlaw at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindlaw at nfbnet.org>>
> Cc: Caleb E. Smith <ces2266 at columbia.edu<mailto:ces2266 at columbia.edu>>
> Subject: Re: [blindLaw] Reviewing a financial statement and other accounting documents
>
> [EXTERNAL]
>
> Did you get any responses? I would be curious as well.
>
>> On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 11:28 AM Singh, Nandini via BlindLaw <
>> blindlaw at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindlaw at nfbnet.org>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I have a more corporate-type of assignment that involves reviewing and
>> analyzing such classic accounting  documents like a personal financial
>> statement (for a high net individual) and cash flow. For any corporate
>> attorneys or those who know blind accountants, I would appreciate hearing
>> from you.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Nikki
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