Customer Reviews

Financial Accounting: A Mercifully Brief Introduction

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For the person who has no knowledge of accounting and wants to understand the very basics this book is indeed a good brief introduction. The author makes a good point of the fact that most introductory accounting texts spend a great deal of time covering the basics of transaction entry. In today's marketplace the software packages take care of these details of ensuring double entry occurs and the entries balance. When that information is removed you end up with the very basics of accounting including the basic accounting equation, cash and accrual accounting, receivables and payables, fixed assets, inventory, and financial statements. Explained at a level that a reader with no previous knowledge of accounting can follow the author does provide a mercifully brief introduction that is only the basics needed for everyday work.

This is a great book for small businesses. I've started recommending it to my clients who are doing their own bookkeeping (and all you professionals know what a nightmare that is!) and to bookkeepers who find themselves doing balance sheet accounting without a good background in the real story of debits and credits. This book covers the basics in an accessible, jargon-less prose yet still covers the essential points. I'm suggesting that this be a reference book my clients keep in their offices. That way they have a quick reference guide for themselves or their employees. Hopefully, when they go through 3 bookkeepers in a year the learning curve will be less steep than usual for the new employees, and I'll get fewer "just a quick question" phone calls during tax season.

This book is an informative and well-written primer on a range of important concepts necessary to "get a handle on" the financial basics that small business owners and allied professionals frequently confront.

The author successfully employs humor in developing scenarios, examples and explanations which remain in the reader's mind and make these often times abstruse subjects understandable.

The Summaries, Exercises and Problems sections of the book are particularly effective teaching tools. I found the most interesting and useful chapters to be Chapter One (Introduction: Difficult Measurement Problems), Chapter 7 (Fixed Assets and Depreciation Methods) and particularly Chapter 10 (Financial Statement Reliability) for its treatment of embezzlement prevention and related issues.

I have practiced law for almost 33 years and have represented many small businesses during that time. I am pleased to have encountered this book, which I will highly recommend as a very helpful tool for business owners and others in understanding, approaching and evaluating accounting issues.

Sara Clarenbach
Attorney, Capitola CA

This book is an essential primer for small business owners who started their enterprise based upon their technical or creative skills - but now need to understand the basic terminology and 'physiology' of financial accounting in greater detail.

It is written in a very free flowing style and is as unthreatening an accounting text as I have encountered. The real life examples and Marxist humor (Groucho - not Karl) help make it that much more accessible. My favorite quote from the book, "Accounting can be accrual mistress." (These are the jokes folks.)

I read this book when I was starting my own business and trying to figure out how to use Quick Books. Accounting terminology and logic take a while to get comfortable with. But when you're setting up your business software, you don't have that kind of time. If you get it wrong, it's hard to untangle later on. This book really helped me get a solid footing. The author also understands that this probably isn't the most exciting topic in the world. So, he's brief, humorous and to the point.

It is refreshing to read an accounting text with a liberal arts background. This author challenges you to think about what is useful to accounting but also its abuses. Good introduction for the curious reader.

This is an excellent introduction to the intricate world of accounting for those who lack any substantial knowledge of the subject. New concepts are introduced gradually and thoroughly explained with simple examples and real-life scenarios. And the author is ever so careful not to overwhelm the reader with an excessive stream of new information. The 100+ pages cover just enough topics to be "in the know." I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn the basics of accounting after a week's worth of reading or so.

This book is a great crash course in beginning accounting. I recommend it to anyone that needs a head start in understanding accounting principles.

THIS BOOKS HELPS TO BRUSH UP YOUR BASIC ACCOUNTING 101. BUT NEEDS MORE EXAMPLES TO MAKE THE READER COMPREHEND. OVERALL NOT BAD.