Why not to the title "Financial accounting in a financial and legal context
932147
Overall, it is a good accounting book from the good point of views, not  pedagogical, but practical and insightful, I read it with the Ross' "fundamentals of corporate finance" . Yes, Financial accounting is the practical balance between the usefulness of financial theory and effectiveness of legal verification. This book tries to follow this clue/principle. but not express it very clearly/explicitly. The part 2 is distinguished,  abstract principle/assumptions are presented very well, but the following parties/chapters are not linked to part 2 very strongly/thoughtfully. if it would, the book would have been 5 stars.
2385392
Don't get me wrong, this is not at all a bad book. It has plenty of good information and is a very easy and simple walk through basic accounting fundamentals. You can possibly attribute it to individual sentiment, but i believe the book was a little too simple as well as a bit childish. I've read other accounting books that explained things just as well but in a more mature and pragmatic way. Maybe for a high school student who has an interest in accounting, this book can be proficiently useful. But above that there's better choices.
4459991
Relying solely on literature and books , with input by experienced traders to implement derivative pricing models.

My part of the world, quants that are involved in the development of pricing libraries from the ground up are very,very rare or non-existent. Usually the banks will just purchase black boxes and do a high level validation on it.

If the reader is interested in the latest techniques, then this book is not for you.

If it is to get simple, explicit examples on how trees are used to price Interest Rate Derivatives ie swaptions/variations on IRS, then it is extremely suitable. It serves as a base template and the knowledge base gained can easily be build upon to move forward towards callable range accruals/effect of skew  etc..

For those that do not have the benefit of past legacies, this is a great starter for tree pricing methods.

For example use this book after the tree is constructed as per Hull-White's "Super Calibration" paper.

Do note that tree pricing methods are quite limited in scope, there are other methods ie PDE, LMM etc.
4704815
April 27, 2016

I received the Kindle edition of Accounting: For Small Businesses QuickStart Guide - Understanding Accounting For Your Sole Proprietorship, Startup, & LLC (Small Business, Entrepreneurship, Starting a Business) for free, in exchange for a fair and honest review.

First, this isn't meant to be a textbook for budding accountants. Rather, this book was meant to help small businesses keep organized and accurate financial records--a very important key to keeping one's business healthy and profitable. For the most part, this book does a very good job in delivering clear and simple instructions that anyone new to accounting can understand, with the exception of two areas that I feel need improvement:

1) The Explanation of Credit And Debit.

There is a point in the book when the author tries to explain that for each credit recorded on one side of the Assets = Liabilities + Equity equation, there must be a corresponding debit recorded on the other side of the equation, and vice-versa. When the author attempts to explain that credit means a decrease in Assets, while debit means an increase, he writes the following: " For the purpose of this lesson, think of debit as always being on the left and credit as always being on the right." This one sentence kept me re-reading the two examples that follow this statement for about an hour, before I realized what he actually meant:

On the Assets side of the equation, credit means a decrease in Assets, while debit means an increase in Assets.

On the Liabilities + Equity side of the equation, credit means an increase, while debit means a decrease.

I would highly recommend that the author review this area of the book for a bit of revision to make this very, very clear, right from the beginning. This will help to avoid confusion. In addition, don't just TELL the reader this, SHOW the reader what is meant. Give the reader more visual aids to better understand the verbal explanations. This leads to the second problem I had with the book.

2) The Heavy Reliance On Telling Vs. Showing The Reader

The author gives many verbal examples of the concepts he is explaining, many step by step verbal instructions. While this is, indeed, helpful, I think the author needs to also have more visual aids to better illustrate what he is saying. I'm a very strong visual learner; hence, I do better when I'm shown what the instructor means, rather than told. I had to stop, often, to actually make my own notes to more clearly visualize what the author is saying. If I hadn't been under obligation to read this book so as to give a fair and honest review of it, I have to admit: I would have moved on to another book, in frustration. So, please, in future editions/revisions of the book, add more visual aids. Show the reader what is meant, along with telling the reader.

Other than these two issues, I found the book to be fairly helpful and thorough for small business owners. If asked, I would recommend this book for people looking to learn how to keep organized and accurate records, but with the provision that the reader should explore this book with a pencil and paper at hand, in order to map out the examples given.
3351949
The book came very quickly and was in very good shape.  Unfortunately, I was looking for information on how a lawyer should set up accounting software.  This book was more for a lawyer trying to understand accounting principles, terms etc for litigation purposes.  But this could come in handy at a later time.
422451
So what does a book about asset protection have to do with the average American business owner who may be wondering if they will be able to pay the weekly salary of their two, already underpaid employees? Plenty, I had to admit after reading "Asset Protection for Business Owners and High-Income Earners: How to Protect What You Own From Lawsuits and Creditors" by Alan Northcott.

With 290 pages to spare, Northcott uses this space wisely, by laying out the case for the necessity that is asset protection. "...[C]omplacency is not an option," he writes, because after all, there is a one in five-- or three-- chance that you may be sued next year.

Then, in simple, layman's terms and through the use of sporadic personal case studies, he makes an excellent argument for why it is a good idea to (figuratively, and as the book cover suggests) keep assets under lock and key plus why business assets should be separated from personal assets. Covering such useful topics as the how tos of business entity formation, prenuptual agreements, wills, and more, he gets to the bottom line: If you value it, protect it. The book is an excellent read for any ethical-non-Swiss-account-holding business owner.
3133754
This book is an excellent exordium for one that doesn't have an accounting/finance background and serves as an effective review for one who has taken college accounting.

As most of stated, the author does a great job of how the income, balance, & cash flow statements are all interrelated, with many figures in the book using arrows to point out how an increase/decrease in one line item on one statement affects a related line item on another statement.

This book is divided into 3 parts:
Part One:  Components and Connections in Financial Statements, covering Sales Revenue & Accounts Receivable, Costs of Good Sold Expense and Inventory, Inventory and Accounts Payable, Operating Expenses & Accounts Payable, Operating Expenses and Prepaid Expenses, Depreciation, Liability for Unpaid Expenses, Income Tax and its Liability, Net Income and Retained Earnings; Earnings Per Share (EPS), Cash Flow from Operating (Profit-Making) Activities, Cash Flows  from Investing and Financing Activities, Footnotes to Financial Statements.

At the end of each chapter, there is a section called Accounting Issues, which is designed to help the reader look for possible problems for the presented subject.

Part Two: Financial Statement Analysis, covering Impact of Growth and Decline on Cash Flow, Financial Statement Ratios, and Profit Analysis for Business Managers.

Part Three:  Reliability of Financial Reports, covering Accounting and Financial Reporting Standards, Accounting Methods and Massaging the Numbers, & Audits of Financial Reports in the Post-Enron Era.

p. 102 provides a brief summary of the Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and Statement of Cash Flows and "In short, the three financial statements report on the three financial imperatives facing every business--to make a profit,  to remain in healthy financial condition, and to make good use of cash flow."

p. 152 discusses the importance of financial reports for vital information that is needed by bankers, investors, suppliers, pension fund managers, and managers of the companies themselves in order to gauge the financial health of the company.

A quick and enjoyable read, I concur with the 5 star reviewers and the below readers give an excellent depiction:

5 star reviews by:
tim747 (December 13, 2000)
A customer (July 11, 1999)
A customer (October 1, 1998)
Maureen Gilligan (July 19, 2005)
A customer  (April 21, 2004)
Chidiebere Ajuzie (July 14, 2009)
Craig Mattes  (January 13, 2009)
Chris Weaver (May 18, 2007)--I completely agree with his summary
Rolf Dobelli (April 6, 2009)
Douglas Richardson (December 6, 2006)
Vasiliy Zhulin  (June 19, 2007)--an excellent summary, may be the best one to date.
Amir (March 20, 2012)
Ryan Bushek  (April 23, 2008)
RODOLFO NUNEZ (October 18, 2006)
Robert Laragh (February 16, 2010)
Diamond M. Dominguez "diamon2x" (January 13, 2010)

4 star reviews by:
Sandra D. Peters  (July 11, 2001)
Naeem "nhaq1" (June 15, 2001)
Amazon Customer (December 22, 2007)
L. Long (December 5, 2013)

3 star reviews by:
Ho Kheong Tan (August 19, 2012)
Da Wang  (June 11, 2011)

Here is one of the many quotes from this very useful guide.
On their use:  "Financial statement users are generally interested in four basic financial aspects of a business:
1.  Its sales revenue and profit (or loss) performance.
2.  Its financial condition consisting of assets and liabilities and in particular the solvency prospects, of the company, which refers to the ability of the business to pay its liabilities on time, and to stay out of financial trouble.
3.  Its capitalization (ownership) structure, which refers to the one or more classes of capital stock shares issued by the company, whether any debt of the company can be converted into capital stock, the number of stock options given to managers, and any other claims that directly or indirectly participate in the profit of the business.
4.  Its cash flow from profit-making (operating) activities for the period, its cash distributions from profit to shareowners during the period, and its other sources and uses of cash flow during the period."
4083424
Compared to the other CPA exam books I've tried (Bisk, Becker, MicroMash), this book is pretty good for the money.  Some of the topics they discussed in this book (i.e. the chapter on economics and cost management) definitely requires you to have some exposure to these areas.  If you graduated with only an accounting degree and were not exposed to these areas, you may have a difficult time understanding this.  Also, as I was going through the practice questions, I found a few errors in the answers.  My recommendation would be that for the money, I would go with the books published by Bisk.
230667
It's a great title. But no one should be this concerned with grammar. It is more important to write in a clear way and the title depends more on punctutaion that most other writing.
3287206
I wish I had found this book when I first transitioned from the private sector to running a non-profit organization! Coming from a media background, I was familiar with budgets, etc., but I always had a bookkeeper for the actual accounting, so I found myself having to learn fast on my feet; add to that the need to learn how non-profits differ from for profit business and I felt completely behind the eight ball at times. After the first year, I had a functional handle on it, but things were still not where they should be and the annual financial review proved that there was more to learn.

Enter *Running Quickbooks in Nonprofits*; this book taught me more in one reading than a year of muddling through it and bothering the accountant with "free" questions until he was blue in the face. Not only did I finally get a good handle on the basics of accounting for a non-profit, but I was able to finally utilize the full power of Quickbooks within its inherent non-profit limitations - even the version of Quickbooks for non-profits isn't well adapted for the purpose as it was not built from the ground up for the unique accounting needs of non-profits. With this book, you will learn how to adapt Quickbooks for you non-profit organization and make it work for you, not against you.

What makes *Running Quickbooks in Nonprofits* easy to read and understand and why it delivers is because the author is an accountant working with non-profit clients, so she can deliver real world advice that makes sense to those in the non-profit world.

>>>>>>><<<<<<<

A Guide to my Book Rating System:

1 star = The wood pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper.
2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead.
3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted.
4 stars = Good book, but not life altering.
5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.
32704
there are one or two good chapters. the best part about this book are the legal references concerning court cases involving credit. hardly a read for the average consumer. better suited for a lender who deals with consumer credit. in addition, i feel compelled to inform the average consumer that there are MANY statements and chapters that are MISLEADING and WRONG. so be careful. the author doesn't understand credit scoring as well as he thinks he does. but i certainly appreciate the court case references. for that i am grateful.
3738103
This textbook says it is written for Seniors and Grad level students. Well, it assumes you are already a massively skilled accountant, working with the principles daily. I struggled with the textbook and the class so much that I asked my sister to tutor me. She is a CPA. I thought I just was not getting it, but she says the textbook does not give enough information to solve the problems in each chapter, and that it was one of the worst textbooks she'd ever seen. If this is a required text for you class, good luck.
2196246
Vibrant Publishers is providing the average person with the background to understand those aspects of business that are usually passed down the line to a paid accountant.  Now, not that all businesses should do without accounting firms - far from that. This book is for the small business person who is working with a small staff and needs to keep as much of the business work in-house as possible.  That is where these concise, very well written books fill a tremendous void.  `The Self-Learning Management Series intends to give a jump start to working professionals whose job roles demand to have the knowledge imparted in B-school but haven't got the chance to visit one.'  So reads the package insert.

So where does this Book #1 start?  From the top! Author Kalpesh Ashar outlines the following: Understanding of Financial Accounting Terms;  Need, nature and purpose of Financial Statements; Audience of Financial Statements; Balance Sheet; Income Statement; Statement of Cash Flow.' Sound basic? Then the teacher has the right student!

Ashar opens with the definition - `an accounting system helps capture and organize information related to business transactions.'  From there her takes us through the basic fundamentals of accounting, testing us at every phase, offering problem - then their solutions - and by the end of the book even the most inexperienced beginner will understanding of individual items in Financial Statements, feel competent reading and understanding Balance Sheet, Income Statement and Statement of Cash Flows and how to preparing Balance Sheet, Income Statement and Statement of Cash Flows.  He accomplishes that and makes the case for self-learning a very strong one.  Grady Harp, November 12
1426287
A good overview of the bookkeeping process including journals, ledgers, the correct way to post debits and credits, and the preparation of income statements and balance sheets. This book is better for companies making a profit, and does not cover running a non-profit organization. Basic principles were of value though.
3056965
This book is a compilation of several early texts on the subject of double-entry bookkeeping, including the very first text written on the subject - that of Luca Pacioli. The texts themselves are obviously seriously out of date, so don't try to use these to understand how to do bookkeeping now.
The texts are in various languages, including Pacioli's Renaissance Italian, Dutch and French, all helpfully translated into English for the modern reader. What they do give you is a strong appreciation of how double-entry bookkeeping spread and developed over the first centuries of its use.
Don't buy this book if all you are looking for is an accounting text. There are others out there that will be of use to you. If you are interested in having a facsimile edition of many of the early accounting texts, including delighting in seeing the words "debitum" and "creditum" in print for the first time then this is for you - unless you are able to find an actual copy of Pacioli's "Tractatus". For the rest of us, this will do nicely.
3092960
Do not buy this text.  I'm a finance and accounting professional.  I was assisting a friend on some of the word problems in this book.  I've seen some bad accounting texts, but this is probably the worst I've ever seen.  The problems are poorly worded, with glaringly bad sentence constructed almost designed for obfuscation.  There are also logical inconsistencies in the problem sets - examples of transactions a company made in the problem set that are outright ignored in the answer key-- and these aren't examples of non-material events, but actual omissions.  If you ignore events that have accounting implications, why even put them into the word problem??  You're just confusing students.

The result of these terrible word problems is the student spends more time on semantics than on actual solving the problem, or worse, simply reverting to some formula they haven't actually internalized to find the answer, rather than using their underlying knowledge to figure out the answer.  If you are running to PV tables to get an answer to a problem rather than working out the mechanics of how a lease works, you're not learning accounting, you're learning SAT prep by memorizing formulas.  And in the worst case, the logical inconsistencies confuse the student into thinking accounting is whimsical voodoo instead of a rules-based system.

Would it hurt the authors to make sure their problems and answers make sense with respect to GAAP?  Would it hurt to break up some sentences or use commas from time to time?  If these problems were written by the PhD authors, they should be ashamed at their laziness.
2967701
This book could be better.

The title of this books sound interesting and appropriate, given the huge demand (both regulatory and business needs) for Solvency II and economic capital calculation and (risk) capital analysis in the insurance  sector. Despite its title, Handbook of Solvency for Actuaries and Risk Managers: Theory and Practice, the author missed out on providing real value on the Practice. That is, the implementation aspects, especially for managers. I feel the main focus on the book has been on the theory and little on practical applications: implementation and measurement. For example, on each of the areas of (or models for) Solvency II modeling (or economic capital modeling), the author could have provide sample data input, key parameters, key model assumptions, key model drivers and output. This approach would have been valuable for risk managers, executives, and analysts entering the field. Instead, the book provides lots of theory and regurgitates information on Solvency II regulation, formulae and history behind those, focusing almost exclusively on theory.

I would say that the section that regurgitates the Solvency II policy could be useful to those that want this information laid out in a book for them. I welcome this inclusion in the appendix but the heart of the book should have included implementation and measurement as mentioned above. That truly would have made this book a real Handbook on Solvency II.

A missed opportunity!