Customer Reviews

Accounting for Dummies 3rd Ed. CD

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

While the book does have an excellent layout and has been thoroughly and professionally edited, like almost all of the "for Dummies" books, it lacks content where it needs it most. There is surprisingly little about accounting. There are no examples of how to create any of the three basic accounting reports, the balance sheet, income statement, and the cash flow statement. Double-entry accounting, the foundation of modern accounting, is only given three short pages with, again, no examples. It is not written for those who want to know how to do accounting or how to assist their accountant with their own company's books, but for those who want to have a functional understanding of a small set of reports. This makes it wholly inadequate for someone who wants to learn about accounting. On the other hand, this could make it a good resource for the middle-level manager who needs to know a little about how to read a small group of reports.

This book is great (I mean great) if you need to understand what is profit, whats in a balance sheet, how to understand it, whats in an income statement. What are assets, etc, etc. This book will open your eyes. Like others have said its not about double entry bookkeeping, or how to prepare your balance sheet. Find that elsewhere. This book addresses what the numbers mean and how to follow them to come to conclusions and how to use that information.

Let me put it this way. If you have a small business, or are put into a position where you need to manage money for a business, or need to buy a business. This book will help you if your not accountant savy.

Its a great book, and is very well written. Another five star success for the dummies series.

The content is simple with material presented in the usual 'dummie' tradition. It works great as a quick way to understand hard concepts, without going into too much distracting detail. A good reference for people who interface with accountants or accounting departments, but accounting students will find that the material is not detailed enough for cases covered in a typical accounting course. Is it the 'feel good accounting book of the year?' I dunno...but like any other dummies book, buy it for the funny cartoons.

Accounting for Dummies is an excellent book for dummies to understand accounting practices, not necessarily perform accounting yourself. Whether this book will be helpful or not depends on your educational goal.

If you are a small business and want to learn how to "keep the books," this book isn't for you. I think Idiot's Guide to Accounting is more geared for that.

However, If you want to learn the termonology and ideas behind accounting practices this is good. I'm a graduate business student who never had accounting in undergraduate classes. This book was very helpful in "getting me caught up." It also helps you learn to read and understand a financial statement as well.

The book is also well read, easy to read and follow. Termonology is clearly explained and future mention of those ideas have references back to the original explanation. There is a good glossary in the back and the index is very complete.

This is the book. This book got me, a non-quantitative anti-numbers person, through MBA financial accounting. Particularly good are chapters 5-9, that help interpret and explain financial statements. By no means does this offer everything you need to know for accounting, but offers a great foundation (hence, Dummies). I have also used it in my personal life to review info on my stocks.

If you are looking for a book that actually gives you good examples that will teach you to crunch some numbers on your own and prepare accounting statements and such, then this is NOT the book for you. It has a lot of writing about the different areas of accounting, but it did little for me. I was looking for a book that gave me real life examples that could help me understand how to do minimal accounting for my smal business. Some of the other introduction to accounting books are much better in this regard.

This is a great book for a person to use to suplment what is learned and practiced in Both entry level college accounting classes. It really will help you get a better grade in the class by reinforcing and explainations that are different then your typical college textbook. I highly reccomend this book for any college student that will be taking accounting, it is well worth it's price and I believe if read during the semester along with the practice in your class you will get a better grade. I did.

I am an entry-level financial analyst straight out of college with little accounting experience (due to a broad liberal arts education) and who had never read the 3 financial statements prior to working. This book was my savior. It explains accounting on a conceptual level, which has been perfect for me. Great for an analyst, not the book for an auditor, obviously. It's great for someone who wants to learn to analyze and become proficient/literate at reading the statements, not for someone who wants to know exactly how to do bookkeeping (which is exactly how the author qualifies his book in the beginning). I'm a big fan of John Tracy's writing, which is easy to read and concise. This book led me to read his other accounting book, "How to read a Financial Report," also a great read.

Although billed as a reference on accounting, this book is very inadequate for that purpose.

There are numerous accounting basics that are not mentioned or only touched on in passing. Among those that are not addressed at all are the following: monetary measurement, separate entity, realization, materiality. There are also other essentials that are missing.

There are several other fundamentals that are not covered adequately. Items in this category include these: FIFO, LIFO, and double entry accounting. Even the three essential reports of accounting - the balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows - are inadequately covered.

This may be ok as a supplement to another book, but it is lacking a bit as a standalone on the subject it purports to cover.

This book is suitable for those who want to understand what accounting is about. It provides good explanation for the dual-entry system and various ratios. After going through half of this book, my wife has gained some appreciation for basic accounting concepts.
Personally I think the book would be better if it includes some more exercises in number crunching. That is why it only gets four stars.
This book is useful for a casual person who wants to learn accounting. If you are an accounting student, don't expect this book to do better than your professor.