Accounting for Non-Accountants, 3E: The Fast and Easy Way to Learn the Basics (Quick Start Your Business)

straightforward and sequential layout of accounting transactions

Accounting for Non-Accountants by Wayne A. Label is a marvelous little book for getting acquainted with basic financial statements such as, primarily, the Balance Sheet and the Income Statement, in addition to the Statement of Cash Flows and the Statement of Retained Earnings. The book is geared for people new to accounting principles, as it lays out, for instance, different sequential snapshots of the balance sheet to demonstrate how individual adjustments are treated. This is probably the highlight feature of the book for newcomers--its straightforward and sequential layout of accounting transactions. With that said, let it be clear that Label has personality, demonstrated by his occasional use of humor and his engaging writing style. Furthermore, Label covers a large scope of interesting material--not just information on financial statements-- to give beginners a broad overview of the industry. To explain, about half of the book is dedicated to the financial statements, journal, and ledger, while the other half is dedicated to concepts such as fraud prevention, audits, GAAP, and--perhaps most interestingly--ratios (including rate of return on investment, current ration, sales ratios, and many others) for reporting short-term or long-term analysis of financial data. As a specific example of what the book offers, Label expounds on Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), which apply to the United States (and Canada, too, so I am told). These principles outline the requirements for accounting, such as both the requirement that financial statements be relayed in monetary terms and the requirement that the depreciation estimates be sufficiently verifiable. As another example, the book provides a somewhat cursory albeit introductory discussion on both the journal and the ledger, while providing a clear definition of the double accounting system, including an accessible definition of the somewhat arbitrary meaning of both credits and debits. Perhaps unique to...