If You're So Brilliant... How Come You Don't Understand Your Accountant?: The Essential Guide to Financial Management

by Robert Cinnamon, Brian Helweg-Larsen

Unlike other 'finance for the non-financial manager' books, this is not written by an accountant. Nor is it looking at accounting in the abstract, but relates to running a business in a real market. Given the unpredictability of the market place, there is an even greater need for non-financial managers to understand the financial and management accounting process. This succinct guide gives them a quick and effective course, but from the perspective of the pursuit of business growth. The author uses the mechanism of a business proceeding from initial set up through its first year of trading. Apart from learning how to understand the balance sheet and profit and loss account, readers will also grasp the principles of: market dynamics; budgeting and forecasting; fixed and variable costs; break-even analysis; the difference between profit and cash; financial ratios for measuring business performance; investment appraisal; stock market ratios; shareholder value; financial measures for improving business performance, and much more.

160 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2002