Accounting for the New Business: The Strategies and Practices You Need to Account for Your Success

Rating:
Summary: Good information for a quick review of accounting
Review: It's a good overview of accounting terms and procedures, I liked that it was about the new business. I mainly concetrated on the record keeping chapters, and I don't know why some books call expenses, cash disbursements, and other books call expenses, expenses? I keep a record of expenses, and another of petty cash expenses. To me cash disbursements are always paid when they have to so I don't have a due date and a paid date. Also I don't generate a sales invoice and then record the income because they happen at the same time, I collect immediately, so that part is unecessary or could be elaborated on for the business that uses this method.

It helped me with quickbooks and I have a better idea of how to prepare financial statements using software. This is a good review even if you have other accounting books, it's small and easy and to read and you can take it anywhere.

Usually accounting is too dry for me, but the chapters were straight to the point. A good buy for an inventory based or service based business, Most accounting books lack a common sense explanation, this one is a good deal.

Rating:
Summary: Didn't work that well for me...
Review: While I am a complete novice with no accounting experience, I do hold a college degree, and am facile with numbers and concepts (usually). Because accounting is such a terminology-laden undertaking, the fact that this book does not contain a glossary, and that terms used are not clearly defined, left me feeling lost. Given the recommendations I'd seen for this book, I'd expected a more basic treatment of the subject of bookkeeping as related to accounting, to make the mechanics of the process more transparent. I felt that this book rambled between accounting concepts and business accounting practices in its descriptions of procedures one might use. As for the use of this book for the "small business," it seemed to me that "small" was a relative term. I'd liken the scale of "small" to be along the lines of comparing Google to Microsoft -sure, Google is "small" in comparison, but for purposes of a small start-up service business, the scale seemed out of proportion.

Overall, for the rank beginner, I'd still suggest looking for something in a more graphically useful format, with a good glossary and more clear detail. For someone with accounting/bookkeeping experience, this book may provide more useable information, although I still feel that the way information is organized and presented is less than optimal.