Understanding Business Accounting For Dummies

For anyone who breaks out in a cold sweat at the thought of financial jargon. Not everyone is cut out to be a professional accountant but those who want to move up the corporate ladder know that they need to master the essentials of accounting. Business Accounting For Dummies is the only book available to make truly light work of the financial fundamentals that many businesspeople try to bluff their way through every day. The book will show you how to: read financial reports, evaluate profit margins -and identify ways to increase them, establish budgets, control profit and cash flow, stem losses, and manage inventory, make wise financial decisions, survive an audit and use the results to improve your accounting system, put the latest computer technology to work to help you manage the bottom line.

Table of Contents:
Introduction.Part I: Accounting Basics.Chapter 1: Introducing Accounting to Non-Accountants.Chapter 2: Bookkeeping 101: From Shoe Boxes to Computers.Chapter 3: Taxes, Taxes, and More Taxes.Chapter 4: Accounting and Your Personal Finances.Part II: Getting a Grip on Financial Statements.Chapter 5: Profit Mechanics.Chapter 6: The Balance Sheet from the Profit and Loss Account Viewpoint.Chapter 7: Cash Flows and the Cash Flow Statement.Chapter 8: Getting a Financial Report Ready for Prime Time.Part III: Accounting in Managing a Business.Chapter 9: Managing Profit Performance.Chapter 10: Business Budgeting.Chapter 11: Choosing the Right Ownership Structure.Chapter 12: Cost Conundrums.Chapter 13: Choosing Accounting Methods.Part IV: Financial Reports in the Outside World.Chapter 14: How Investors Read a Financial Report.Chapter 15: Professional Auditors and Advisers.Part V: The Part of Tens.Chapter 16: Ten Ways Savvy Business Managers Use Accounting.Chapter 17: Ten (Plus One) Questions Investors Should Ask When Reading a Financial Report.Appendix A: Glossary: Slashing through the Accounting Jargon Jungle.Appendix B: Accounting Software.Index.

About the Author :
John A. Tracy is Professor of Accounting, Emeritus, in the College of Business and Administration at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Before his 35-year tenure at Boulder he was on the business faculty for 4 years at the University of California in Berkeley. He has served as staff accountant at Ernst & Young and is the author of several books on accounting, including The Fast Forward MBA in Finance and How To Read a Financial Report. Dr Tracy received his MBA and PhD degrees from the University of Wisconsin and is a CPA in Colorado. Colin Barrow is Head of the Enterprise Group at Cranfield School of Management, where he teaches entrepreneurship on the MBA and other programmes. He is also a visiting professor at business schools in the US, Asia, France, and Austria. His books on entrepreneurship and small business have been translated into 15 languages including Russian and Chinese. He worked with Microsoft to incorporate the business planning model used in his teaching programmes into the software program, Microsoft Business Planner, now bundled with Office. He is a regular contributor to newspapers, periodicals, and academic journals such as The Financial Times, The Guardian, Management Today, and the International Small Business Journal. Thousands of students have passed through Colin's start-up and business growth programmes, raising millions in new capital and going on to run successful and thriving enterprises. He is a non-executive director of two venture capital funds, on the board of several small businesses, and serves on a number of Government Task Forces.