I like to keep the articles that I use in teaching updated and Business Week has put out a fresh article on .... fuzzy accounting. I'm only part of the way through the article but the following quote doesn't seem right...

The upshot: The three major financial statements -- income, balance sheet, and cash flow -- that investors and analysts need to detect aggressive accounting and get a full picture of a company's value are out of sync with one another. Often, the income and cash-flow statements don't even cover the same time periods.

"don't even cover the same time periods"?? What is the author referring to?