Accounting Made Simple: Accounting Explained in 100 Pages or Less

Book Preface

Like the other books in the “…in 100 Pages or Less” series, this book is designed to give you a basic understanding of the topic (in this case, accounting), and do it as quickly as possible.

The only way to pack a topic such as accounting into just 100 pages is to be as brief as possible. In other words, the goal is not to turn you into an expert. With 100 pages, it’s simply not possible to provide a comprehensive discussion of every topic in the field of accounting. (So if that’s what you’re looking for, look for a different book.)

Now, having made that little disclaimer, I should state that I do think this book will help you achieve a decent understanding of the most important accounting concepts.

So What Exactly Is Accounting?

Some professors like to say that accounting is “the language of business.” That definition has always been somewhat too abstract for my tastes. That said, all those professors are right.

At its most fundamental level, accounting is the system of tracking the income, expenses, assets, and debts of a business. When looked at with a trained eye, a business’s accounting records truly tell the story of the business. Using nothing but a business’s “books” (accounting records), you can learn practically anything about a business. You can learn simple things such as whether it’s growing or declining, healthy or in trouble. Or, if you look closely, you can see things such as potential threats to the business’s health that might not be apparent even to people within the company