Accounting Books

I read this book on the recommendation of a friend, Paul Dunn. Paul had already set me up to become a value pricing (VP) fan as that what he lives and breathes, and so I was already in a positive frame of mind to read the book. Well, the book blew my mind! It delivered on all of my expectations and then some. If you are serious about making a difference in your business, then you absolutely have to read this book.

This book is not just for accountants and lawyers. It is for any service organisation that has a pricing policy. The science behind VP and how to value your services is incredible. And when you've read it, you'll see just how much common sense there is in VP.

We are now working on introducing VP into our firm and while it's not going to be all beer and skittles as we go through the process, what we can see as possible on the other side of VP, we know will make it all worthwhile.

Read and enjoy!

The author Ron Baker get the point across well, that pricing by the hour is old fashioned to say the least and creates harm between you and the customer. He also shows clearly why value pricing is ethical and how to make the most of your marketing preactices. I would highly suggest this book. It is worth way more than the price!

Having read the previous edition of this book for just 20 minutes I e-mailed the author to tell him that "I have seen this book described as the most important book in the profession. Without a shadow of a doubt, it will change my life."

The new chapters make this latest edition even better. Read the chapter on Total Quality Service to understand how to compete in the future. Ron Baker will completely change your views on pricing professional services. You will start to charge what you are worth with a consequent improvement in both income and self esteem.

Recently I was in a group of 70 accountants who listened to the author speak on Value Pricing for just ten minutes. At the end he received a standing ovation. In my 30 years in the profession I have never seen accountants show such enthusiasm for a speaker and his subject.

If you want to change your professional (and personal) life for the better buy this book.

I bought this book on a trial basis, due to its cost. It came on a Friday, and I scanned it that night. I wrote the check next morning.
This book changed my attitude about my profession. I was ready to quit. Burned out, tired, frustrated, and angry.
Within one month, I had identified 5 major clients and had more than doubled the revenue from those clients. My staff is happier because they feel they are being treated as professionals and generating fees more in line with their abilities. We have "dismissed" several non-productive clients, and haven't missed the revenue. We work fewer hours at more enjoyable work and actually make more profits. It has positively affected my home life as well.

Run, don't walk, to order your copy of this book. Ron Baker does for pricing our services what Montgomery did for Auditing.
What a novel idea, to get paid for the value of the services that we provide to our clients.
Ron Baker's goal, as he so aptly describes it, is "to trash time sheets forever". Keeping track of time is the biggest waste of time ever perpetrated on professionals. Accountants have become slaves to the concept of "the almighty hour". We are not selling hours but intellectual capital.
Ron takes you through every step necessary to start your trip to successful value pricing. You will learn exactly how to present this to your existing clients. You will also learn how to use a change order when there turns out to be hidden surprises that no one anticipated. He will explain the concept of service guarantees as an excellent way of gaining new clients and show you in detail how to draft service agreements to use. The book comes with a CD-Rom that has many forms and agreements referred to in the book.
I don't know too many people who are thrilled about the idea of having any work done for them without knowing exactly what the cost will be. It's like boarding an airplane in Los Angeles, flying to New York, and being told your fare will depend on how many minutes you're in the air.
Ron Baker is truly one of the very few original thinkers in the accounting profession. Listen to him; learn from him, and I promise you that you will improve your professional life and most important, your bottom line as well.

I'm hard to please. So when I say this book is superb, that's really saying something. It is a well organized reference of twenty cognitive and emotional biases, and I refer to it frequently. Yet it's engaging enough to read cover to cover. You will probably recognize yourself being described a bit more often than you might expect. But with an open mind you will learn how to mitigate the tempting errors of thought that have in the past steered you wrong. And most fun of all, you can use your new knowledge of these biases to take advantage in the marketplace, and all the way to the bank. Game on.

I am a graduate student of finance and I am now writing my degree thesis about implications of behavioral finance for individual investors. Pompian's book is a great inspiration for me. It is just a guide how to use results of behavioral finance research to be a better investor.

What I mostly appreciate is a very deep description of 20 behavioral biases. Each of these chapter starts with General Description of the bias, Technical Description. Then there is a Practical Application, Implications for Investors, Research Review, Diagnostic Testing and a Final Advice. I have alredy read Shefrin's Beyon Greed and Fear and I must say that this book was kind of research review and survey. Pompian's book is very practical. Novice investors and also professional traders and portfolio managers will greatly appreciate this book.

There are really a great bunch of practical advice. Pompian is just a great teacher. Every serious student of finance and every investor must read this book!!!

A very good book that summarises the key theories very clearly and in a very easily readable manner. It has been written for private investors and their wealth mangers although I'm not sure how many would actually delve so deep. As a professional investor dealing with currencies I also nevertheless found the book very useful. Clearly the same behavioral mistakes bedevil the professional market and the concepts cane easily be applied top a broader setting.

I first read this book, and then a few weeks later read Jason Zweig's Your Money and Your Brain.

Pompian's book wins hands down from a practical viewpoint......how you can use behavioral finance findings as an investor or investment advisor. Pompian lists all 20 common biases, and then gives examples of how to deal with them. I also enjoyed his section on using Briggs Myers test results coupled with behavioral finance principles.....to develop better financial plans which fit people better.

Zweig's book is a fascinating read.......but when I got done......my question was.....How to I apply these behavioral finance findings to my investments or my client's financial plans? I would have to re-read Zweig's book......and develop the practical uses myself from his book.

It is interesting that Zweig's book at $17 has an Amazon sales rank of 2,075......and Pompian's book at $38 is only ranked 38,940. I have always enjoyed reading Zweig's columns in Money magazine. It is interesting to see where future research is headed in Zweig's book.......but in my opinion; you get more practical advice (or value) for the dollar from Pompian's book than Zweig's book.

To compliment this book.....I would suggest a couple good books on index fund investing and asset allocation.


Index Mutual Funds: How to Simplify Your Financial Life and Beat the Pro's
The Richest Man in Babylon
Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor
The Millionaire Next Door
The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio
A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition
The Coffeehouse Investor: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get On With Your Life
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing

This book covers most of the important cognitive biases that affect investment decision. It makes a great read. The only thing that can be improved is on the aspect of "objective truth". When talking about bias, the author has to assume there is an objective truth out there that is ex ante and easily oberservable to everyone. While this may make it handy for his discussion, it could be misleading if one digs deeper into the market nature of uncertainty.

Christoffersen managed to organize such a concise and intelligent risk book in 200 plus pages is incredible. This book will help you piece up complicated market risk elements and enhance your time-series econometrics knowledge. The exercises are excellent. I enjoyed reading many parts of the book e.g. Dynamic Conditional Correlation.

This book is nicely written and gives a good introduction to topics of risk management. The exercices at the end of each chapter are such that you actually understand the subtility behind some of the concepts introduced.

This is *the* book on financial risk management that puts it all together. In a volume that is less than half the size of comparable titles in an overcrowded field, Christoffersen packs the most amount of insight and practical knowledge possible. The best part of the book is how he quickly and directly dives into the empirical part of risk measurement - after all, a spreadsheet with real-world data is worth a thousand formulas, and any risk manager typically deals with the real world. To me the fact that the book is not hung up on a single risk metric (VaR for example) is doubly commendable. The book is superb in its coherence and flow, and choice of topics, not to mention the lucidity of presentation. Work through each chapter and the empirical exercises, and you will probably know far more about the nature of financial risk than most practitioners. Five unreserved stars.

Well structured and well thought out, this book is loaded with material yet presented in a light manner. Highly recommended.

I'm very satisfied with this book. It covers many aspects of finance that should be applied in order to be fully understood.

Debra knows and applies TOC as well as anyone including Goldratt. This book is still a key part to understanding TOC.

Debra has done a nice job with this book. I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about Theory of Constraints.

This is a grate book that explains how measurment indicators might confuse management, and make mistakes that really happen in buissness. In states several measurment indicators based on TOC that help in understanding what should be done in the company.

Very good book, but if you want to learn about TOC, you should stack it with other TOC books.

The book focusses on the root problem behind all those dysfunctional metrics around us. It explains very clearly (also for people not trained in financial jargon) how the wrong focus on the wrong metrics in the top of the organization can have impact on the complete organization and may impact negatively the quality of decisions throughout the company.

Very much recommended!

This is an excellent book if you are serious about TOC. It covers the basic how-to subjects currently in the liturature, and goes into new territory showing how to reconcile Management/Throughput Accounting with GAAP Acounting. Despite the great material I have two complaints: 1) The book is difficult to read due to the small font and wordy style 2) The book fails to recognize the existance of Lean Manufacturing and Six-Sigma tools that could break the dilemia presented about sprint capacity and buffer size. The second issue is one that any experience practitioner of Lean/6-sigma will easily recognise and correct.

This is an excellent book. The author thoroughly describes the process and analysis of mergers and acquisitions. He also outlines LBO's, shared growth, and alternative exit and restructuring strategies.

This book is very well written...packed full of helpful information on M&A. The author's use of short cases to illustrate key points was most helpful. I found the down to earth discussion of how to put deals together very clear. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the scope of the book included an extensive discussion of alternative strategies such as JVs to mergers and acquisitions. The author also managed to include an exceedingly large number of case studies in the book, many of which were international transactions. Good book, good read. I highly recommend it.

While this book covers all aspects of how to do a deal, the chapters on valuation, deal structuring, and financial modeling are by far the most lucid I have seen. The Excell spread sheet model on the CDROM accompanying the book provides incredibly helpful insight into how purchase price strategies are developed. The reader can review all of the underlying formulas enabling them to modify the model or to develop their own. Moreover, the model provides the reader with unusal insight in how all valuation, tax, accounting, and synergy considerations converge and interact to affect price. Overall, the book is very well written, clear, and supported.

Unlike many other treatments of this subject, this text discusses M&A in the context of a process or framework. The author takes great pains to show how all M&A related activities interact. The text discusses both technical (e.g., valuation, accounting, and tax issues) and non-technical (e.g., strategy development, identifying potential targets, initial contact, negotiation, and integration) issues. The book does an excellent job of talking about alternatives to M&A for executing strategies, including alliances, joint ventures, partnerships, etc.

Numerous recent case studies illustrate various concepts and situations. The coverage of laws affecting different types of business combinations, of accounting standards applicable to M&A, and of relevant tax considerations is both current and excellent. The book also contains useful checklists to facilitate implementing transactions. The book is also chock full of helpful insights and hints of what to look for and how to avoid the traps that often accompany different types of transactions.

The book also contains an excellent discussion of other ways to enhance shareholder value. These include spin-offs, divestitures, carve-outs, bust-ups, and bankruptcy.

The book is highly practical and well-documented and could be viewed as a handbook on how to use M&A (or alternatives to M&A) to execute business stratgies. I think the book is an indispensable reference for accountants, lawyers, investment bankers, CFOs, and others involved in making transactions happen.

This book takes the mystery out of M&A financial modeling and structuring deals. Many books on the subject seem to take a "black box" approach to how to do deal structuring and valuation. The author discusses in plain language how to do valuation, simulation, and deal structuring using financial models and how to use such models to select the best offer price for a target firm. The book includes detailed discussions of tax, accounting, and alternative deal structures.

The CD accompanying the book contains an Excel spread sheet model that can be modified to fit the unique circumstances of any transaction. This alone justifies buying the book, in my opinion.

The book also provides keen insights into how M&A can be used to implement business plans, how to identify potential target firms, strategies for contacting potential targets, and how to draw up initial documents such as confidentiality agreements and letters of intent. The book is highly comprehensive covering virtually all topics necessary to understanding the M&A process.

For the money, it is the best book on the subject, up-to-date, complete, and highly readable. If you have a serious interest in the subject, this is an important book to add to your library.

For any person interested in that elusive element of economic policymaking, the personality of the one at the helm, this book will undoubtedly be worth to read. In his "Changing Fortunes" (co-authored with Toyoo Gyohten), Volcker maintained his private life indeed quite private. This book lifts the veil significantly. Even in personality, notably for an amazing austerity and commitment to public service, Volcker emerges as a central banker to emulate. The details on his family, particularly the sufferings of his wife and son, are indeed touching.

The book is relatively short, something to be grateful about. But succinctness meant clear sacrifices. Any person really interested in Volcker's career would need also to read "Changing Fortunes", particularly to know about the fascinating times that Volcker lived in the Treasury Department, and crucially in the process of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates. Even the period of Volcker at the Fed's chief is sparsely covered in some important aspects.

Paul Volcker clearly deserves the many positive things that Treaster says about him. But sometimes one gets the impression that the author became too close to his subject, without even the benefit of getting in return information to clarify some aspects of Volcker's career. Moreover, it is a little tiring to be reminded time and again that Volcker has to be revered because he slay the inflation dragon. Indeed he has to be, but perhaps the author emphasizes the point a little too much.

Even in a text clearly intended for people without any knowledge in economics, some extra details would have added more light to the inflation drama that Treaster tries to build, particularly on why and how it was allowed to increase. The Latin American debt crisis put many big American banks on the verge of an abyss, and Volcker was crucial in the (successful) efforts to avert a disaster, but that international crisis is barely mentioned in one paragraph.

Capitalism is sabotaged by Inflation. High inflation rates threaten real money. When inflation rates exceed interest rates creditors lose money, if they lend money; debtors profit by borrowing money and repaying it with cheap money; and savers are repulsed from the US bonds yielding 5 percent by realizing a negative ½ percent loss in real money. Transmutation of monetary dross took the form of economic growth and production increases then moved back into liquid or money form and again into greater production. This unending circuit is the essence of capitalism.

In the 1980s, Less Developed Countries were in a buying spree betting tangible assets would outstrip the value of money. Speculation increased in the stock market as more capital went to speculation and productivity investment dropped and the real economic growth became anemic. The chronic dilemma of the central bank was no one knew if the motivating demands for money were the result of rising inflation expectations or desires to increase productivity investing. Arthur Burns blamed inflation sources on the Debts incurred from the Vietnam War, lax monetary policy instead of higher taxes and spending cuts which accelerated dollar devaluation. Between 1972-73 world wide economic boom surged and inflation rose from food and oil price spikes, large budget deficits, and Congress insistent that the Fed control inflation painlessly.

In the 1980s, Market and Inflation monetary policy designed by Volcker failed. Inflation hit 17%, Volcker steamed in anger, tight US money did not mean unavailable credit came from the $4 trillion Euromarket fueling the speculative boom and represented a credit leak across borders. As interest rates went up, depositors switched bank funds into higher yield government securities. Loan money dried up, housing and consumer durable sales felloff. The bank prime rates hit 21.5%, the dollar exchange rate soared 34%; a 10% increase in the dollar exchange represented a 1.5% reduction in inflation; the interest rate rise mean zero inflation.

A big abrazo for Joe Treaster for his wonderful biograph of Paul Volker. He very skillfully brought out the real character of a talented and consciencious individual who dedicated his life to serve the public's interest. Treaster carefully describes what it takes to run this country's financial institutions and, in laymen's language, explains how easily it is to slap our leaders on the wrist, if not the behind, when they don't adhere to good fiscal policies. The book is interesting and thought provoking. You become an admirer of Paul Volker.

Joseph Treaster's lucid, entertaining account of the life and legacy of Paul Volcker reminds you that some people still value-and embody-such virtues as integrity, modesty, steadiness, and public service. I lived through much of the economic history covered in this book but never understood why things happened as they did, or realized how much Volcker's actions in the early 1980's set our nation's financial course for the following fifteen years. Treaster brings an oversized, almost Victorian personality vividly to life, and in the process casts a startling light on our government's current fiscal policies.

No need to be a bellowing bond trader nor an obsessive and fetishistic day trader taking your market temperature by the minute to appreciate NY Times journalist Joseph B. Treaster's most readable biography, Paul Volcker: The Making of a Financial Legend.

In our age of cooked corporate books and perp-walking CEOs, Treaster shines an admiring and well-deserved light on the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, a man of towering financial and personal integrity. Words like honor, integrity, truth, steadfastness are thrown around like confetti these days in the political and financial world, but as Fed Chairman from 1979 to 1987, Paul Volcker's strong will and good sense were perhaps the major factors in the survival of the nation's economy through the inflationary tsunami of the Carter years and the financial wrecking ball of Reagonomics.

Standing 6'7", physically ungainly and socially reserved and stand-offish, Volcker had a commanding intellect when it came to bigtime economic and financial matters. Born to public service (his father was longtime town manager of Teaneck, NJ), Volcker attended Princeton, Harvard's Littauer School of Public Administration (it eventually became the JFK School of Government) and the London School of Economics. He was a special assistant to David Rockefeller at Chase Bank, served as an undersecretary in Nixon's Treasury Department, ran the New York Bank of the Federal Reserve and became fed chairman in July 1979 while inflation was rocketing and Pres. Carter was bemoaning the national "malaise".

Chairman Volcker was the man with the plan. He turned old economic theory upside down with his idea to drastically cut the money supply as the country's economy sweated and shuddered through the debilitating national fits of inflation and recession. Politicians and businessmen, fearful and shortsighted as usual, whined and squealed that Volcker was Dr Kevorkian or Dr. Demento, putting a noose around the national economic neck. In fact, as history has shown and Treaster explains so even the ordinary Joe can understand, Volcker had applied the ideal tourniquet to stop the bleeding and the poison. The patient lived and by the mid-90s, the country was economically healthy and prospering as never before.

Of course, like the Lone Ranger, Volcker had ridden off into the sunset by that time. Waved good-bye (and good riddance) by Reagan's Treasury Secretary and the GOP's most artful backroom Machievelli, James A. Baker III in 1987, Volcker turned his enormous economic and monetary talents to the private sector. But this principled and unpretentious public servant with his "unshakeable integrity" was not happy in this work.
These days, as the political swamp gases are once again rising and spreading their bad odor, Volcker, even at the age of 76, is being called on once again to perform his public duty.

In recent years, Volcker has admirably and successfully refereed the "battle royal" between the Holocaust survivors and the Swiss banks with their appalling Nazi connections. When Enron, the King Kong of corporate fraud sunk in its own muck, "Mr Incorruptible" Volcker took the job of chairman of an independent oversight board to try to salvage some shred of integrity for the accounting community, which had been badly tainted by Arthur Anderson, the giant accounting firm that was the handmaiden to Enron's tangled scams and schemes. And at this moment, Volcker is heading up the international investigation of the massive corruption between Saddam Hussein, various corporate greedheads and UN officials in the administration of the decade-long Oil For Food program in Iraq.

After reading this worthy biography of Paul Volcker, one can only hope they did not break the mold when they made this honorable man.

The Payroll Source is the best payroll book available in the market today. I use it for reference material almost every day. Practically every payroll issue is covered and if you need to see the IRS regs involved, just look at the bottom of the page. What could be more efficient? Try it. You will be thrilled. How did you ever live without it?

I wouldn't have it out of arms reach at my desk! I use it every day and would be lost without it.

This is THE book to have if you are at all involved with payroll. It is a comprehensive resource and provides information in an easy to read and understand format. It goes well beyond the basics of paying employees and handling taxes by including information on recordkeeping, accounting, technology and management. A truly complete reference that I reach for again and again!

I wouldn't have it out of arms reach at my desk! I use it every day and would be lost without it.

This book has been my life blood as a payroll professional. It explains complicated regulations which are often incomprehensible when viewed as code and states them in a concise and useful manner.

Michael O'Toole's book has saved my day on many days!!!

If you are a parent with a child about to enter college, you would be a fool not to purchase this indispensible tool to financial literacy. Take it from me. I've already got three kids at universities across America. The one thing you want to avoid is a desperate call from your son or daughter seeking thousands of dollars to cover an outrageous credit card bill. "Please Send Money" is an easy-to-read book with many (often entertaining) stories illustrating every key point. You don't even realize you're learning!!!!

I checked this book out at the library and found it very interesting. Some of the youth don't know about money management because no one is showing them. Our eductaion system tells us how to work hard for money; it doesn't teach us how to make money work for us. So many of us, even when we become older are grappling with debt and Congress recently passed a bill that that doesn't help make the financial situation any better.
This is a good reference book for both young and mature adults. It helps the young how to manage money and it is also helpful for parents as a guide to teach underage children.
We need to be aware of credit card companies that market to the young preying on their financial illiteracy. It is up to us, parents and teachers to take action and let them know about money management before they come out of college with additional debt they don't need.

Moving out on your own for the first time is stressful enough, without having to constantly worry about money. However, as Dara Duguay says in her book, Please Send Money: A Financial Survival Guide for Young Adults on Their Own, money is a huge problem amoung young people. I was surprised to learn how many college students accumulate thousands of dollars in debt, often getting in over their head by using credit cards irresponibly. Although personal finance can be confusing and full of dangers for young people, this book shows readers how to avoid common problems and set up and manage a budget. Duguay teaches about the dangers of credit cards, loans, and how to deal with bankruptcy. Through many real-life stories, she illustrates that financial problems can effect anyone. However, by creating a budget for yourself, learning about loans and credit cards, and overcoming the temptation to spend too much, young people can learn to handle their money responsibly. I would definitely recommend this helpful, easy-to-read book to anyone, especially young people, who want to learn more about personal finance.

This book was good to read. It is very informative for young adults. I know that this will be very helpful to me next year at college. I liked this book because it was very helpful in demonstrating what should not be done when creating personal financing. The only reason I did not give this book five stars was because while it did say what not to do, I only noticed four instances of when the book mentioned a person doing something correct from the start. Throughout the book the author, Dara Duguay, would tell a person's tale of how they screwed up their financing. Then she would explain how that particular situation could have been better handled. In each of the four instances of someone handling their finances well, it was merely to compare that person to another that didn't do so well.
Overall I liked the book. It gives good advice and is rather easy to read. The lessons the book tries to convey are understood quite well by its target audience (teens). I am glad that I read this book, I will take to heart most of the lessons it teaches.

"Please Send Money!" is a great book for high school seniors to read before they go off to college and are confronted with financial situations of their own.

This book does a great job of relating that material to the age group for which it was written. The book also includes many personal stories and accounts which help the material come together. I feel it would be worthwile for anyone, especially college students, because it explains how to best maintain a positive financial status. The best thing about this book that is it's easy to read and doesn't drag on.

Even though this book is about a boring topic, money, it actually kept me entertained. The facts in this book are very necessary to know, and it taught me a lot. It made me very fearful of credit cards and bankruptcy. This book gives useful advice about maintaining a balanced budget, while still leaving room for fun. It also talks about investing early in the stock market.

The most useful section of this book is the chapter on saving. No savings is a common problem for students and this book deals a lot with how much and when to start saving. I liked how this book gave solutions for any teenager on any budget. It gave options such as investing only $2 per day and still becoming a millionaire by age 65. It seemed like there was someone for everyone.

Another very important chapter is that about investing in the stock market. The book discussed "not putting all your eggs in one basket" and diversifying your money. The best part about this section was the book did not use only "Wall Street Lingo" but also common place words. It was easy to understand, and that is a huge plus for a financial book for college students.

This book was definately worth the [money] because in the end it could help you to make millions. The only bad this about this book was that it made me very fearful of credit cards and debt. :)

Well structured and very clear concepts, It help me to have a deep understanding of how to develop a value stream mapping. I really recommend it.

I've seen it (and lived it) multiple times. An Exec kicks off a Lean Initiative and the company creates a Lean Enterprise. At first, its all about training, Kaizen Blitz, 5S, prototype cells and Kanbans. The focus is about 95% shop floor processes. But after a while, the program starts to stall. Folks start seeing two sets of rules (traditional MRP and Lean), but none of the traditional goes away. So Lean start sounding and feeling like just a bunch of extra paperwork and steps without any obvious benefit to those who "live it" every day. In the end, the program fails or the Lean Enterprise is reorganized to try again, usually with similar results. This book clearly explains what is happening. It also provides a different perspective to the initial Lean implementation strategies that will help pull the organization through that first big stalling out and propel the initiative into true effectiveness. A "must read" book for anyone that is or is going to be dealing with a fledgling Lean initiative.

Best book on how to get your accoutning function to look at, use and make use of lean costing which really makes your lean projects work.

"Who's Counting" and "Practical Lean Accounting" are two great books on lean accounting. I wondered some time ago, which one to read and I am glad that I could not decide, so I bought and read them both. They complement each other extremely well and each one conveys the lessons of lean accounting from a different angle.

"Practical Lean Accounting" is a well structured textbook, approaching lean accounting in a systemized way. Starting from straight-forward shop-floor measurements, like the day-by-the-hour report, it gradually immerses the reader into more demanding topics, like value stream costing or lean performance measurement, culminating in the thorough description of the Sales, Operations and Financial Planning (SOFP) process, which is the way, how an entire lean enterprise is planned, controlled and measured. Lean practitioners looking for specific answers to particular questions will find it easy to navigate through the book. People with the luxury of time for reading it cover to cover will also like it, due to the gradual increase in the complexity of the topics and the many references to other chapters.

"Who's Counting" focuses more on the human side of turning the vision of lean accounting into reality. The novel format is the best way to illustrate, how strong the resistance against change will be and from how many corners of the organization it will attack back. Knowing what to do and knowing why is not enough, the issue is not capturing people's brains. The real challenge is conquering their hearts, while tearing down decades worth of wrong beliefs, bad trade-offs and political game-playing. Mike, the hero of the book teaches us through his own mistakes, that patience, tactfulness and respect for people is more helpful, then acting like a bull in a china shop. The reward is the enthusiastic desire of fellows to go his way and take ownership of the new processes. He even manages to turn Fred, a CFO who has to recognize, that most of what he built during his career was wrong, to use the 3 years until his retirement for becoming the most enthusiastic advocate of change!

Both books provide the reader with insight and incite self-reflection about "the way, we do things". There is hardly any chapter without a sacred cow being slaughtered, however this will strike the reader as plain common sense, due to the thorough description of the reasons. Deeply engrained management practices, such as approval routings, full absorption overhead allocation, standard costing or departmental budgeting will seem ridiculous, once the reader starts to open the eyes to see their fundamentally wrong assumptions.

These books will make You hate many of Your current processes!

"Practical Lean Accounting" is the best management accounting book I've read in 20 years - maybe more. Well written and illustrated with plenty of examples and diagrams, it adds new tools to management accounting and restores the relevance of some older ones. As such I recommend it to all management accountants and students - whether or not you are involved in lean accounting itself.

The aim of the book is to "produce a roadmap for finance managers in companies seeking to transition their organisations into lean enterprises". Lean accounting is a new approach to managing a business and, as management accountants, we have a duty to be there. As the authors say "it's never too early to start dismantling the company's transaction driven control systems. They represent huge amounts of waste and cost to the organisation !".

Specifically, lean management seeks to radically restructure the organisation into Value Streams (rather than functional departments), and this requires new management accounting tools including Value Stream performance measures, Box Scores, new methods of planning and budgeting, target costing and a whole host of other tools. The book explores all these tools in detail. The introduction of "lean" tools also allows significant reduction in transactions in the company's accounting processes, including the elimination of full-absorption costing.

Lean accounting is, therefore, designed to replace "traditional" accounting techniques which encourage inefficient practices such as building inventory, and often lead to poor management decisions (using Standard costs). Traditional measures are also too complicated for operational employees to understand easily and are often too late to be useful in shopfloor decision making. Lean accounting, by contrast, is very much focused on simple visual shopfloor measures for instant decision making, coupled with management accounting tools for longer term planning.

"Practical Lean Accounting" provides a good overview of the lean management process, and excellent linkage to management accounting activities. Highly recommended.

So i'm just starting to get into the investing world and after reading books on the top guys like Warren Buffet and George Soros I wanted to read something that would help me grasp financial statements so I could learn if business are being profitable and make educated decisions instead of betting on the market. This helped me ALOT. I gives great examples of not just the information on a financial report but also gives you a behind the scene's look at how the numbers can be affected by different business reporting. If you're just getting into the field, buy this! Even if you know 50% of what's in here, there's things that you pick up along the way that are priceless.

Great book, makes it very EASY to understand formulas. Not like most textbooks where there is pages of useless information. Recomend to anyone taking corporate finance or financial analysis.

I've never taken the time to leave feedback about any books I buy, but this book I really got a lot out of, and highly recommend.

Although the description of the book seems to mostly focus on reading financial reports in order to evaluate companies you might want to invest in by buying stock, I bought the book because I wanted to be much more comfortable with reading - moreover analyzing and understanding - financial statements for business management purposes.

Boy, I was NOT disappointed! By reading the book and constantly referring to the financial statements of 2 companies (Mattel and Hasbro), and interpreting, analyzing and comparing the numbers, I have really learned quite a lot about how to manage by the numbers. Now, when I look at financial statements, I know what every line means, I know what I'm looking for, how to interpret the numbers and changes in the numbers and/or ratios over time - I'm truly just as pleased as punch! This book is worth every penny you pay for it.

And, because the author also tosses in a lot of revealing and useful information about analyzing financial statements to evaluate a company and the worth of its stock, I received quite an education there as well. Very eye opening.

Whether you're a business owner, manager, accountant or stock investor, if you're even considering getting this book to enhance your knowledge, get it. It's a very, very good book. I kept a highlighter and some post it notes at my side, you may want to do the same. In any event, after reading this book (which, by the way is NOT a 'dry' read) you will have deep knowledge of financial statements - balance sheet, profit and loss (income statement) and cash flow statement.

I highly recommend this book.

This book is an easy read. I thought I knew alot about business and the reports that reveal the status of business, but I found that I have alot more to learn. This book will help.

Alex Prokop

This is the single best book for beginner and intermediate-skilled investors. I believe most non-professional investors will find this an absolute gem. The writing is clear and actually fun to read. You will learn the basics of how to evaluate companies, but Epstein includes nuances that even more advanced investors will find useful.

The book is valuable because of its appropriate coverage of 4 separate areas:
1) Teaches the reader basic accounting. For example, what do different items on a cash flow statement really mean and how are they related to the balance sheet or the income statement?
2) Once you understand basic accounting, it teaches you how to manipulate some of these numbers to get a better understanding of how well the company is doing. For example, what is the significance of inventory turnover?
3) Points you to other sources for more information and greater understanding ie: different websites and how to get bond ratings on particular companies.
4) Discusses pitfalls of analyzing financial reports. She discusses how companies manipulate numbers and how you can improve your chances of catching the culprits. She discusses 10 guilty companies.

There are many great books investors should read, but if you were only allowed one then this should be the one. Bravo Lita!
P.S. I am not a generous Amazon reviewer as you can see for yourself by reading my other reviews.