 | Financial Accounting For Dummies By Loughran
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Product Description
Your plain-English guide to navigating a financial accounting course
Despite the economic landscape and job market, demand for accountants remains strong, and accountants will continue to see high demand for their services as the economy rebounds and businesses grow. Additionally, one of the effects of the economic downturn is a greater emphasis on accountability, transparency, and controls in financial reporting.
With easy-to-understand explanations and real-life examples, Financial Accounting For Dummies provides students who are studying business, finance, and accounting with the basic concepts, terminology, and methods to interpret, analyze, and evaluate actual corporate financial statements.
- Covers traditional introductory financial accounting course material
- Explores concepts accountants and other business professionals use to prepare reports
- Details mergers and acquisitions purchase and pooling, free cash flow, and financial statement analysis
Whether you're a student on your way to earning a bachelor's degree, MBA, or MAcc, Financial Accounting For Dummies gives you a wealth of information to grasp the subject and ace the course.
- Amazon Sales Rank: #8103 in Books
- Published on: 2011-04-12
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: .81" h x 7.36" w x 9.16" l, 1.16 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 360 pages
From the Back Cover
Your plain-English guide to navigating a financial accounting course
With easy-to-understand explanations and real-life examples, Financial Accounting For Dummies provides you with the basic concepts, terminology, and methods to interpret, analyze, and evaluate business financial statements. Whether you're a student taking an introductory course or a business owner who needs a financial accounting initiation, this hands-on, friendly guide can help.
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Financial Accounting 101 — get acquainted with the world of financial accounting, from the responsibilities of financial accountants to the coursework, certifications, and career options available
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Book it — discover the process behind financial accounting, which starts with booking a company's accounting transactions using journal entries and ledgers
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It's a balancing act — get the lowdown on the different parts of a balance sheet (assets, liabilities, and equity) and how together they illustrate a company's financial position
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Search for profit (or loss) — navigate an income statement to study a company's revenue, expenses, gains, and losses
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Follow the cash — find out what the statement of cash flows tells you about how a business uses its money
Open the book and find:
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The purpose of financial accounting
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Ethical responsibilities of financial accountants
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What financial statements tell you about a company
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Regulatory issues and agencies you need to know
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Accounting methods and concepts
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How to investigate income and cash flow
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Different ways to analyze financial statements
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The job (and income) outlook for financial accountants
Learn to:
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Determine what each line of a financial statement tells you
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Identify the various accounting concepts and methods that companies can employ
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Recognize how investors and creditors use financial reports to make decisions
About the Author
Maire Loughran, CPA, is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. An adjunct professor of auditing, accounting, and taxation courses, she is also the author of Auditing For Dummies.
Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Recommended to those entering - or considering - the field of accounting. A bit too technical for the novice though.
By Steven I. Ramm
Recommended to those entering - or considering - the field of accounting. It gets a bit too technical for the novice who wants to understand financial statements.
While I usually review CDs and DVDs as well as entertainment related books here on Amazon, in my major occupation, I am a CPA with over 35 years of work in the nonprofit field. I also sit as Treasurer on a Nonprofit so I feel qualified to provide an accurate review of this book.
This is one in the series of "For Dummies" books now published by Wiley. The "Dummies" series goes back to 1991 when Dan Gookin wrote "DOS for Dummies". To date over 1600 (!) "Dummies" titles have been published. The topics range from the sublime to the ridiculous. All the titles share the format in common. Chapters begin with a related cartoon; There are "remember" and "tip" icons and all see to run about 300 pages. In a series this large, some are too simple and some too complicated.
In reading through this volume - a first edition, published in 2011 - I can only think that the target of this book is the high school student who is thinking about entering the field of accounting and pursuing it in college. Years ago I was one of those high school students and a book like this may have been helpful to me in deciding if that was a career I wanted. It also tries to explain - in plain English - the various governing boars and rules such as: Sarbanes-Oxley and ACBOA. The author explains each of this in just two sentences. Later chapters discuss journal entries and financial statements.
The book may be of some interest to owners of businesses who want to understand the financial statements prepared by their accountants as well as investors trying to understand an Annual Report from one of their investments, but - honestly - I think this is not the book for them. The later chapters read more like an Accounting 101 text book.
The author does have good overall credentials. She was worked in industry, government and nonprofits as well as public accounting. The specialized industries such as nonprofits, healthcare, real estate and governmental accounting are only briefly mentioned in the back with only a few sentences devoted to each.
So if you are starting a general or corporate accounting course or preparing to enter college as a business major, you might gain something from this book. Otherwise I can't really recommend it.
Steven Ramm CPA
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
MBA's learn it the hard way, not you if you read this book
By Mark P. McDonald
It is hard to understand business and executive decisions if you do not speak the language of finance accounting. Without an understanding of finance, good people are left in the dark as unfortunately companies keep score via the balance sheet and income statement more than customer satisfaction and personal innovation.
MBAs and other have to wade through financial accounting texts as they have the time and focus to work through the blur of terms and assumptions. Pick up this book and you will not only understand how financial accounting works, but also how it influences business decisions.
The `dummies' genre is always a misnomer as people who seek out these books are not dummies - it takes a smart person to know that they need to learn. I learned the hard way with a four and a half inch book on Financial Accounting. I could have learned more, faster and understood it if this book was around 20 years ago.
Recommended for anyone who wants to understand what accounting is, the language it uses, the rules behind it and finally how it shapes and influences business decisions. Every person needs this basic knowledge to understand what is really going on and why companies do some things that do not seem to make sense.
Strengths
The book is written from the perspective of someone who needs to understand financial accounting rather than someone who needs to create/maintain financial accounts.
The writing is clear, understandable and builds on itself, starting with a few accounting terms and incorporating new ones as the reader builds familiarity with the subject area.
The chapters are short and focused, explaining the concept first and then illustrating it via a financial statement, so you know what you are reading.
The book asks provocative questions and then answers them, rather than being a dry recitation of financial accounting rules and processes. An example is the question "Do service companies have inventory?" something someone would ask but that would not be readily answered in a discussion of inventory accounting practices.
Challenges
Like any large and complex subject there are some things that are simplified or omitted. Breaking things down into small chapters helps make the concepts more readable but they will not make you a financial accounting expert. That is ok, as understanding what financial accounting is will put you ahead of about 95%+ of the people you will meet.
You cannot understand business without understanding the fundamentals of marketing, production, finance and financial accounting. This book is a great accelerator for building that last part of knowledge.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.Good book intended for students
By Pop S
I was interested in this book because of a job change. I now have more direct interface with the accounting and finance folks in our organization than I have in the past. I thought that something with a title like "for Dummies" would be a good way to learn a bit of the lingo and some of the concepts.
Well, first of all, I wasn't the intended audience. This book is for students who are looking for extra help while muddling though accounting courses at college. In fact, it continually references, "in your class" or "your professor may..." I found this a bit irritating. I don't have time to go back to college for this stuff.
Now, it does a pretty good job of explaining the different types of financial documents, what they are for and what to look for. The examples are simple- which is good to a point- but don't really relate well to people in my position that are looking at very complex documents and not simple examples. I was also hoping for more "rules of thumb" than are in the book.
Another strong point is the ability to enter the book at any point to reference a particular topic. For example if you want to ready chapter 4 it is not NECESSARY to read chapters 1 to 3. That said, I did read it in order.
The explanations are good, the examples easy to follow. For a student, its is probably a great book. That said, any student who buys a second book (Text book plus one) in order to master a subject is probably the kind of student who is going to succeed anyway.
http://astore.amazon.com/amazon-book-books-20/detail/0470930659
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