Not comrehensive and at times confusing, 07 Aug 2007
I bought his book as a way to get a basic understanding of book-keeping. The first two chapters are useful if you want to set up a very simple system. Chapter three gives a good overview of VAT but doesn't give enough details about how to create a VAT return, which is not very helpful.

As your business grows, you will want to increase the sophistication of your book-keeping. Unfortunately this is a particularly weak aspect of the book. The chapter on double-entry book-keeping is very poor and I certainly couldn't follow it. You need a good understanding of debits and credits to be able to do double-entries, which if well-explained is easy. But the author doesn't explain it well and the examples confuse things further. By comparison, accountingforeveryone dot com provides a much better explanation and it may be worth buying the online book (though I haven't yet).

Not realllly what I was looking for....., 20 Mar 2007
I'm starting a small business. I figured I'd best brush up on my book-keeping skills so I went to my local Boarders and ended up buying this.

Bit of a dissapointment. Admitedly I've only read the first two chapters in depth, but that's enough for me, and it obviously was for the author, because the first two chapters (well, just the second chapter really) are the only ones that brush upon pure book-keeping. And it doesn't even do that very well. The examples are vaugely supported, but have little to no explanation as to where some of the figures come from. I actually had to get a calculator out to understand exactly what they were trying to illustrate and still came up short.

Don't be fooled by the "Revised and Updated" seal of approval either. Supposedly having been revised in 2003, it only deals with cash or cheque payments, with no consideration of electronic or debit payments. Also in the tiny section on computerised book-keeping it recommends that your computer will most likely have a Windows based operating system which is (and I quote) "a graphical interface which provides an intuitive and efficient work enviroment for your personal computer", ha! Unbelieveable! I bought the book to learn about recording cash flow, not to learn the basics of Personal Computing! It gets better.... it recommends that this intuitive operating system will most likely be Windows ME! Laughable!

But I digress. This book was updated in the sense of a few extra paragraphs to include Limited Liability Partnerships and suchlike, and the rest of the book was obviously left without tweaking.

If your parents want to understand how to balance their cheques and maybe keep financial records of the logers rent then this is the book for them. If thats not what you're looking for (which let's be honest...it's not) then steer well clear!

I'm off to Boarders tomorrow to ask the nice manager guy if he would give me a refund.

Unevenly written and out of date., 03 Jan 2007
The basic accounting principles and methods outlined in the book are still valid.

However, they are sometimes poorly illustrated. For instance, when explaining the example accounts of a company called E Foster, simplified random numbers brought in, instead of using the E Foster account figures. I found this confusing and pointless. I presume that the accounts were explained in this way because the book was written before the invention of electronic calculators. Using a calculator, the more complex numbers of the E Foster accounts are very easy to follow.

Although updated since originally written (in the 1960's?), the updated sections are very uneven. The computerised record keeping section is obviously a complete afterthought that does not stitch itself into the rest of a "paper" centric book.

This may be a positive or negative point depending on how you plan to do your accounting. If you are planning to computerise your accounts, this is most definitely not the book for you. Even if you are planning to set up simple paper accounts, you will probably be better off with another book.

A document from the dark ages, 22 Jan 2006
Oh dear. There are three pages in the appendix that include "useful website addresses", "2005/6 tax rates" and "Computer bookkeeping software".
This is the almost the only evidence I could find that this book has in any way been updated in the last fifty years, although it was allegedly revised as recently as 2003.
All records are supposed to be kept in hand-written books of account, with the occasional reference to carbon copies. Spreadsheets? They don't even rate a mention.
As an accountant trying to help small businesses, I feel that HowTo Books should withdraw this completely irrelevant volume from sale, as anyone starting up a business who reads this will at best get a headache and at worst follow the instructions and waste a lot of time that should be spent in the 21st century.

Typical archaic methods of accountants, 05 Jan 2006
Example: He advocates using exercise books to keep accounts.

In 2006 this is unacceptable and possibly negligent advice.
Use a spreadsheet at a minimum, at least then you can create backups.

The book would be fine if you wish to have the pain of record keeping and accounts by hand, or it were still the 1950s, but it isn't and there is no need to perpetuate the out-dated and laborious methods cited in this book.

I'm going to look instead for a book about computerized accountancy.

Not comrehensive and at times confusing, 07 Aug 2007
I bought his book as a way to get a basic understanding of book-keeping. The first two chapters are useful if you want to set up a very simple system. Chapter three gives a good overview of VAT but doesn't give enough details about how to create a VAT return, which is not very helpful.

As your business grows, you will want to increase the sophistication of your book-keeping. Unfortunately this is a particularly weak aspect of the book. The chapter on double-entry book-keeping is very poor and I certainly couldn't follow it. You need a good understanding of debits and credits to be able to do double-entries, which if well-explained is easy. But the author doesn't explain it well and the examples confuse things further. By comparison, accountingforeveryone dot com provides a much better explanation and it may be worth buying the online book (though I haven't yet).

Not realllly what I was looking for....., 20 Mar 2007
I'm starting a small business. I figured I'd best brush up on my book-keeping skills so I went to my local Boarders and ended up buying this.

Bit of a dissapointment. Admitedly I've only read the first two chapters in depth, but that's enough for me, and it obviously was for the author, because the first two chapters (well, just the second chapter really) are the only ones that brush upon pure book-keeping. And it doesn't even do that very well. The examples are vaugely supported, but have little to no explanation as to where some of the figures come from. I actually had to get a calculator out to understand exactly what they were trying to illustrate and still came up short.

Don't be fooled by the "Revised and Updated" seal of approval either. Supposedly having been revised in 2003, it only deals with cash or cheque payments, with no consideration of electronic or debit payments. Also in the tiny section on computerised book-keeping it recommends that your computer will most likely have a Windows based operating system which is (and I quote) "a graphical interface which provides an intuitive and efficient work enviroment for your personal computer", ha! Unbelieveable! I bought the book to learn about recording cash flow, not to learn the basics of Personal Computing! It gets better.... it recommends that this intuitive operating system will most likely be Windows ME! Laughable!

But I digress. This book was updated in the sense of a few extra paragraphs to include Limited Liability Partnerships and suchlike, and the rest of the book was obviously left without tweaking.

If your parents want to understand how to balance their cheques and maybe keep financial records of the logers rent then this is the book for them. If thats not what you're looking for (which let's be honest...it's not) then steer well clear!

I'm off to Boarders tomorrow to ask the nice manager guy if he would give me a refund.

Unevenly written and out of date., 03 Jan 2007
The basic accounting principles and methods outlined in the book are still valid.

However, they are sometimes poorly illustrated. For instance, when explaining the example accounts of a company called E Foster, simplified random numbers brought in, instead of using the E Foster account figures. I found this confusing and pointless. I presume that the accounts were explained in this way because the book was written before the invention of electronic calculators. Using a calculator, the more complex numbers of the E Foster accounts are very easy to follow.

Although updated since originally written (in the 1960's?), the updated sections are very uneven. The computerised record keeping section is obviously a complete afterthought that does not stitch itself into the rest of a "paper" centric book.

This may be a positive or negative point depending on how you plan to do your accounting. If you are planning to computerise your accounts, this is most definitely not the book for you. Even if you are planning to set up simple paper accounts, you will probably be better off with another book.

A document from the dark ages, 22 Jan 2006
Oh dear. There are three pages in the appendix that include "useful website addresses", "2005/6 tax rates" and "Computer bookkeeping software".
This is the almost the only evidence I could find that this book has in any way been updated in the last fifty years, although it was allegedly revised as recently as 2003.
All records are supposed to be kept in hand-written books of account, with the occasional reference to carbon copies. Spreadsheets? They don't even rate a mention.
As an accountant trying to help small businesses, I feel that HowTo Books should withdraw this completely irrelevant volume from sale, as anyone starting up a business who reads this will at best get a headache and at worst follow the instructions and waste a lot of time that should be spent in the 21st century.

Typical archaic methods of accountants, 05 Jan 2006
Example: He advocates using exercise books to keep accounts.

In 2006 this is unacceptable and possibly negligent advice.
Use a spreadsheet at a minimum, at least then you can create backups.

The book would be fine if you wish to have the pain of record keeping and accounts by hand, or it were still the 1950s, but it isn't and there is no need to perpetuate the out-dated and laborious methods cited in this book.

I'm going to look instead for a book about computerized accountancy.

not the book for me. or anyone who want s to learn., 14 Oct 2008
this is one of those books that you get at school that the teacher absolutely loved getting you to copy text out of for a couple of hours while they read something far more interesting for the class time. its written in the way that a page is read six times and not and not a thing has gone in. everything is there that an accountant requires and i have no doubt its a very accurate book. however i defy anyone to try and read more than 6 pages and be able to answer the questions at the end of the section.
basically its a book so tedious that its impossible to learn from. it also takes a quite interesting subject and petrifies it to beyond boring, i never learned a thing from it due to my unwillingness to get more than a page read at a time. but then again this is only my opinion.

Not comrehensive and at times confusing, 07 Aug 2007
I bought his book as a way to get a basic understanding of book-keeping. The first two chapters are useful if you want to set up a very simple system. Chapter three gives a good overview of VAT but doesn't give enough details about how to create a VAT return, which is not very helpful.

As your business grows, you will want to increase the sophistication of your book-keeping. Unfortunately this is a particularly weak aspect of the book. The chapter on double-entry book-keeping is very poor and I certainly couldn't follow it. You need a good understanding of debits and credits to be able to do double-entries, which if well-explained is easy. But the author doesn't explain it well and the examples confuse things further. By comparison, accountingforeveryone dot com provides a much better explanation and it may be worth buying the online book (though I haven't yet).

Not realllly what I was looking for....., 20 Mar 2007
I'm starting a small business. I figured I'd best brush up on my book-keeping skills so I went to my local Boarders and ended up buying this.

Bit of a dissapointment. Admitedly I've only read the first two chapters in depth, but that's enough for me, and it obviously was for the author, because the first two chapters (well, just the second chapter really) are the only ones that brush upon pure book-keeping. And it doesn't even do that very well. The examples are vaugely supported, but have little to no explanation as to where some of the figures come from. I actually had to get a calculator out to understand exactly what they were trying to illustrate and still came up short.

Don't be fooled by the "Revised and Updated" seal of approval either. Supposedly having been revised in 2003, it only deals with cash or cheque payments, with no consideration of electronic or debit payments. Also in the tiny section on computerised book-keeping it recommends that your computer will most likely have a Windows based operating system which is (and I quote) "a graphical interface which provides an intuitive and efficient work enviroment for your personal computer", ha! Unbelieveable! I bought the book to learn about recording cash flow, not to learn the basics of Personal Computing! It gets better.... it recommends that this intuitive operating system will most likely be Windows ME! Laughable!

But I digress. This book was updated in the sense of a few extra paragraphs to include Limited Liability Partnerships and suchlike, and the rest of the book was obviously left without tweaking.

If your parents want to understand how to balance their cheques and maybe keep financial records of the logers rent then this is the book for them. If thats not what you're looking for (which let's be honest...it's not) then steer well clear!

I'm off to Boarders tomorrow to ask the nice manager guy if he would give me a refund.

Unevenly written and out of date., 03 Jan 2007
The basic accounting principles and methods outlined in the book are still valid.

However, they are sometimes poorly illustrated. For instance, when explaining the example accounts of a company called E Foster, simplified random numbers brought in, instead of using the E Foster account figures. I found this confusing and pointless. I presume that the accounts were explained in this way because the book was written before the invention of electronic calculators. Using a calculator, the more complex numbers of the E Foster accounts are very easy to follow.

Although updated since originally written (in the 1960's?), the updated sections are very uneven. The computerised record keeping section is obviously a complete afterthought that does not stitch itself into the rest of a "paper" centric book.

This may be a positive or negative point depending on how you plan to do your accounting. If you are planning to computerise your accounts, this is most definitely not the book for you. Even if you are planning to set up simple paper accounts, you will probably be better off with another book.

A document from the dark ages, 22 Jan 2006
Oh dear. There are three pages in the appendix that include "useful website addresses", "2005/6 tax rates" and "Computer bookkeeping software".
This is the almost the only evidence I could find that this book has in any way been updated in the last fifty years, although it was allegedly revised as recently as 2003.
All records are supposed to be kept in hand-written books of account, with the occasional reference to carbon copies. Spreadsheets? They don't even rate a mention.
As an accountant trying to help small businesses, I feel that HowTo Books should withdraw this completely irrelevant volume from sale, as anyone starting up a business who reads this will at best get a headache and at worst follow the instructions and waste a lot of time that should be spent in the 21st century.

Typical archaic methods of accountants, 05 Jan 2006
Example: He advocates using exercise books to keep accounts.

In 2006 this is unacceptable and possibly negligent advice.
Use a spreadsheet at a minimum, at least then you can create backups.

The book would be fine if you wish to have the pain of record keeping and accounts by hand, or it were still the 1950s, but it isn't and there is no need to perpetuate the out-dated and laborious methods cited in this book.

I'm going to look instead for a book about computerized accountancy.

not the book for me. or anyone who want s to learn., 14 Oct 2008
this is one of those books that you get at school that the teacher absolutely loved getting you to copy text out of for a couple of hours while they read something far more interesting for the class time. its written in the way that a page is read six times and not and not a thing has gone in. everything is there that an accountant requires and i have no doubt its a very accurate book. however i defy anyone to try and read more than 6 pages and be able to answer the questions at the end of the section.
basically its a book so tedious that its impossible to learn from. it also takes a quite interesting subject and petrifies it to beyond boring, i never learned a thing from it due to my unwillingness to get more than a page read at a time. but then again this is only my opinion.

Bookkeeping for Dummies work book, 12 Apr 2008
Do not buy this book if you live in England. It is the USA version and is not the 'perfect partner' to bookkeeping for Dummies, as advertised. Also The Book Depository will not refund your postage, even though the book is misrepresented.

Not comrehensive and at times confusing, 07 Aug 2007
I bought his book as a way to get a basic understanding of book-keeping. The first two chapters are useful if you want to set up a very simple system. Chapter three gives a good overview of VAT but doesn't give enough details about how to create a VAT return, which is not very helpful.

As your business grows, you will want to increase the sophistication of your book-keeping. Unfortunately this is a particularly weak aspect of the book. The chapter on double-entry book-keeping is very poor and I certainly couldn't follow it. You need a good understanding of debits and credits to be able to do double-entries, which if well-explained is easy. But the author doesn't explain it well and the examples confuse things further. By comparison, accountingforeveryone dot com provides a much better explanation and it may be worth buying the online book (though I haven't yet).

Not realllly what I was looking for....., 20 Mar 2007
I'm starting a small business. I figured I'd best brush up on my book-keeping skills so I went to my local Boarders and ended up buying this.

Bit of a dissapointment. Admitedly I've only read the first two chapters in depth, but that's enough for me, and it obviously was for the author, because the first two chapters (well, just the second chapter really) are the only ones that brush upon pure book-keeping. And it doesn't even do that very well. The examples are vaugely supported, but have little to no explanation as to where some of the figures come from. I actually had to get a calculator out to understand exactly what they were trying to illustrate and still came up short.

Don't be fooled by the "Revised and Updated" seal of approval either. Supposedly having been revised in 2003, it only deals with cash or cheque payments, with no consideration of electronic or debit payments. Also in the tiny section on computerised book-keeping it recommends that your computer will most likely have a Windows based operating system which is (and I quote) "a graphical interface which provides an intuitive and efficient work enviroment for your personal computer", ha! Unbelieveable! I bought the book to learn about recording cash flow, not to learn the basics of Personal Computing! It gets better.... it recommends that this intuitive operating system will most likely be Windows ME! Laughable!

But I digress. This book was updated in the sense of a few extra paragraphs to include Limited Liability Partnerships and suchlike, and the rest of the book was obviously left without tweaking.

If your parents want to understand how to balance their cheques and maybe keep financial records of the logers rent then this is the book for them. If thats not what you're looking for (which let's be honest...it's not) then steer well clear!

I'm off to Boarders tomorrow to ask the nice manager guy if he would give me a refund.

Unevenly written and out of date., 03 Jan 2007
The basic accounting principles and methods outlined in the book are still valid.

However, they are sometimes poorly illustrated. For instance, when explaining the example accounts of a company called E Foster, simplified random numbers brought in, instead of using the E Foster account figures. I found this confusing and pointless. I presume that the accounts were explained in this way because the book was written before the invention of electronic calculators. Using a calculator, the more complex numbers of the E Foster accounts are very easy to follow.

Although updated since originally written (in the 1960's?), the updated sections are very uneven. The computerised record keeping section is obviously a complete afterthought that does not stitch itself into the rest of a "paper" centric book.

This may be a positive or negative point depending on how you plan to do your accounting. If you are planning to computerise your accounts, this is most definitely not the book for you. Even if you are planning to set up simple paper accounts, you will probably be better off with another book.

A document from the dark ages, 22 Jan 2006
Oh dear. There are three pages in the appendix that include "useful website addresses", "2005/6 tax rates" and "Computer bookkeeping software".
This is the almost the only evidence I could find that this book has in any way been updated in the last fifty years, although it was allegedly revised as recently as 2003.
All records are supposed to be kept in hand-written books of account, with the occasional reference to carbon copies. Spreadsheets? They don't even rate a mention.
As an accountant trying to help small businesses, I feel that HowTo Books should withdraw this completely irrelevant volume from sale, as anyone starting up a business who reads this will at best get a headache and at worst follow the instructions and waste a lot of time that should be spent in the 21st century.

Typical archaic methods of accountants, 05 Jan 2006
Example: He advocates using exercise books to keep accounts.

In 2006 this is unacceptable and possibly negligent advice.
Use a spreadsheet at a minimum, at least then you can create backups.

The book would be fine if you wish to have the pain of record keeping and accounts by hand, or it were still the 1950s, but it isn't and there is no need to perpetuate the out-dated and laborious methods cited in this book.

I'm going to look instead for a book about computerized accountancy.

not the book for me. or anyone who want s to learn., 14 Oct 2008
this is one of those books that you get at school that the teacher absolutely loved getting you to copy text out of for a couple of hours while they read something far more interesting for the class time. its written in the way that a page is read six times and not and not a thing has gone in. everything is there that an accountant requires and i have no doubt its a very accurate book. however i defy anyone to try and read more than 6 pages and be able to answer the questions at the end of the section.
basically its a book so tedious that its impossible to learn from. it also takes a quite interesting subject and petrifies it to beyond boring, i never learned a thing from it due to my unwillingness to get more than a page read at a time. but then again this is only my opinion.

Bookkeeping for Dummies work book, 12 Apr 2008
Do not buy this book if you live in England. It is the USA version and is not the 'perfect partner' to bookkeeping for Dummies, as advertised. Also The Book Depository will not refund your postage, even though the book is misrepresented.

This Dictionary will be a handy reference to any accountant!, 22 May 2001
Whether you audit the records of a large corporation or balance your own checkbook, you will find Barron's Dictionary of Accounting Terms of immeasurable help. You may be a business person-a bookkeeper, a manager, or a proprietor. You may be a business student- an accounting major or an MBA candidate. You may be an accountant or you may have to deal with accountants. Whatever the case, this Dictionary provides the definitions, examples, and illustrations you need to know about all aspects of financial record keeping. A worthwhile investment.

Not comrehensive and at times confusing, 07 Aug 2007
I bought his book as a way to get a basic understanding of book-keeping. The first two chapters are useful if you want to set up a very simple system. Chapter three gives a good overview of VAT but doesn't give enough details about how to create a VAT return, which is not very helpful.

As your business grows, you will want to increase the sophistication of your book-keeping. Unfortunately this is a particularly weak aspect of the book. The chapter on double-entry book-keeping is very poor and I certainly couldn't follow it. You need a good understanding of debits and credits to be able to do double-entries, which if well-explained is easy. But the author doesn't explain it well and the examples confuse things further. By comparison, accountingforeveryone dot com provides a much better explanation and it may be worth buying the online book (though I haven't yet).

Not realllly what I was looking for....., 20 Mar 2007
I'm starting a small business. I figured I'd best brush up on my book-keeping skills so I went to my local Boarders and ended up buying this.

Bit of a dissapointment. Admitedly I've only read the first two chapters in depth, but that's enough for me, and it obviously was for the author, because the first two chapters (well, just the second chapter really) are the only ones that brush upon pure book-keeping. And it doesn't even do that very well. The examples are vaugely supported, but have little to no explanation as to where some of the figures come from. I actually had to get a calculator out to understand exactly what they were trying to illustrate and still came up short.

Don't be fooled by the "Revised and Updated" seal of approval either. Supposedly having been revised in 2003, it only deals with cash or cheque payments, with no consideration of electronic or debit payments. Also in the tiny section on computerised book-keeping it recommends that your computer will most likely have a Windows based operating system which is (and I quote) "a graphical interface which provides an intuitive and efficient work enviroment for your personal computer", ha! Unbelieveable! I bought the book to learn about recording cash flow, not to learn the basics of Personal Computing! It gets better.... it recommends that this intuitive operating system will most likely be Windows ME! Laughable!

But I digress. This book was updated in the sense of a few extra paragraphs to include Limited Liability Partnerships and suchlike, and the rest of the book was obviously left without tweaking.

If your parents want to understand how to balance their cheques and maybe keep financial records of the logers rent then this is the book for them. If thats not what you're looking for (which let's be honest...it's not) then steer well clear!

I'm off to Boarders tomorrow to ask the nice manager guy if he would give me a refund.

Unevenly written and out of date., 03 Jan 2007
The basic accounting principles and methods outlined in the book are still valid.

However, they are sometimes poorly illustrated. For instance, when explaining the example accounts of a company called E Foster, simplified random numbers brought in, instead of using the E Foster account figures. I found this confusing and pointless. I presume that the accounts were explained in this way because the book was written before the invention of electronic calculators. Using a calculator, the more complex numbers of the E Foster accounts are very easy to follow.

Although updated since originally written (in the 1960's?), the updated sections are very uneven. The computerised record keeping section is obviously a complete afterthought that does not stitch itself into the rest of a "paper" centric book.

This may be a positive or negative point depending on how you plan to do your accounting. If you are planning to computerise your accounts, this is most definitely not the book for you. Even if you are planning to set up simple paper accounts, you will probably be better off with another book.

A document from the dark ages, 22 Jan 2006
Oh dear. There are three pages in the appendix that include "useful website addresses", "2005/6 tax rates" and "Computer bookkeeping software".
This is the almost the only evidence I could find that this book has in any way been updated in the last fifty years, although it was allegedly revised as recently as 2003.
All records are supposed to be kept in hand-written books of account, with the occasional reference to carbon copies. Spreadsheets? They don't even rate a mention.
As an accountant trying to help small businesses, I feel that HowTo Books should withdraw this completely irrelevant volume from sale, as anyone starting up a business who reads this will at best get a headache and at worst follow the instructions and waste a lot of time that should be spent in the 21st century.

Typical archaic methods of accountants, 05 Jan 2006
Example: He advocates using exercise books to keep accounts.

In 2006 this is unacceptable and possibly negligent advice.
Use a spreadsheet at a minimum, at least then you can create backups.

The book would be fine if you wish to have the pain of record keeping and accounts by hand, or it were still the 1950s, but it isn't and there is no need to perpetuate the out-dated and laborious methods cited in this book.

I'm going to look instead for a book about computerized accountancy.

not the book for me. or anyone who want s to learn., 14 Oct 2008
this is one of those books that you get at school that the teacher absolutely loved getting you to copy text out of for a couple of hours while they read something far more interesting for the class time. its written in the way that a page is read six times and not and not a thing has gone in. everything is there that an accountant requires and i have no doubt its a very accurate book. however i defy anyone to try and read more than 6 pages and be able to answer the questions at the end of the section.
basically its a book so tedious that its impossible to learn from. it also takes a quite interesting subject and petrifies it to beyond boring, i never learned a thing from it due to my unwillingness to get more than a page read at a time. but then again this is only my opinion.

Bookkeeping for Dummies work book, 12 Apr 2008
Do not buy this book if you live in England. It is the USA version and is not the 'perfect partner' to bookkeeping for Dummies, as advertised. Also The Book Depository will not refund your postage, even though the book is misrepresented.

This Dictionary will be a handy reference to any accountant!, 22 May 2001
Whether you audit the records of a large corporation or balance your own checkbook, you will find Barron's Dictionary of Accounting Terms of immeasurable help. You may be a business person-a bookkeeper, a manager, or a proprietor. You may be a business student- an accounting major or an MBA candidate. You may be an accountant or you may have to deal with accountants. Whatever the case, this Dictionary provides the definitions, examples, and illustrations you need to know about all aspects of financial record keeping. A worthwhile investment.

It's The Business!, 16 May 2008
What an excellent book. Having learned bookkeeping and the fundamentals over a period, I was toying with the idea of leaving my job and offering my services to small businesses. The book lives up to it's title perfectly - clear guidance to move you from being an employee to being your own boss. I loved that it was written by an American - home of the 'can do' attitude! Very stimulating.

Anyone who is a bookkeeper and wants to set up and run their own business really must get this.

Not much use for beginners or in the UK., 09 Nov 2007
I feel this book could have had the title "Start and run a (insert any) Business". The information was in my opinion too general and although the book said information was not country specific I feel the message contained was USA-centric.
It really was a book without point. If you are a bookkeeper you would know what you could or could not do and if you were not a bookkeeper the book did not give you much information on how to become a self-employed one. What about UK National Insurance rules..where is information about UK professional bodies? How will the Inland Revenue and local authorities treat use of your private home for Tax purposes? (Watch out for Council Tax)
Not questions directly answered.
Although there is a whole page allocated to telling your customer to get lost. I sent my copy back to Amazon for a refund.

Not comrehensive and at times confusing, 07 Aug 2007
I bought his book as a way to get a basic understanding of book-keeping. The first two chapters are useful if you want to set up a very simple system. Chapter three gives a good overview of VAT but doesn't give enough details about how to create a VAT return, which is not very helpful.

As your business grows, you will want to increase the sophistication of your book-keeping. Unfortunately this is a particularly weak aspect of the book. The chapter on double-entry book-keeping is very poor and I certainly couldn't follow it. You need a good understanding of debits and credits to be able to do double-entries, which if well-explained is easy. But the author doesn't explain it well and the examples confuse things further. By comparison, accountingforeveryone dot com provides a much better explanation and it may be worth buying the online book (though I haven't yet).

Not realllly what I was looking for....., 20 Mar 2007
I'm starting a small business. I figured I'd best brush up on my book-keeping skills so I went to my local Boarders and ended up buying this.

Bit of a dissapointment. Admitedly I've only read the first two chapters in depth, but that's enough for me, and it obviously was for the author, because the first two chapters (well, just the second chapter really) are the only ones that brush upon pure book-keeping. And it doesn't even do that very well. The examples are vaugely supported, but have little to no explanation as to where some of the figures come from. I actually had to get a calculator out to understand exactly what they were trying to illustrate and still came up short.

Don't be fooled by the "Revised and Updated" seal of approval either. Supposedly having been revised in 2003, it only deals with cash or cheque payments, with no consideration of electronic or debit payments. Also in the tiny section on computerised book-keeping it recommends that your computer will most likely have a Windows based operating system which is (and I quote) "a graphical interface which provides an intuitive and efficient work enviroment for your personal computer", ha! Unbelieveable! I bought the book to learn about recording cash flow, not to learn the basics of Personal Computing! It gets better.... it recommends that this intuitive operating system will most likely be Windows ME! Laughable!

But I digress. This book was updated in the sense of a few extra paragraphs to include Limited Liability Partnerships and suchlike, and the rest of the book was obviously left without tweaking.

If your parents want to understand how to balance their cheques and maybe keep financial records of the logers rent then this is the book for them. If thats not what you're looking for (which let's be honest...it's not) then steer well clear!

I'm off to Boarders tomorrow to ask the nice manager guy if he would give me a refund.

Unevenly written and out of date., 03 Jan 2007
The basic accounting principles and methods outlined in the book are still valid.

However, they are sometimes poorly illustrated. For instance, when explaining the example accounts of a company called E Foster, simplified random numbers brought in, instead of using the E Foster account figures. I found this confusing and pointless. I presume that the accounts were explained in this way because the book was written before the invention of electronic calculators. Using a calculator, the more complex numbers of the E Foster accounts are very easy to follow.

Although updated since originally written (in the 1960's?), the updated sections are very uneven. The computerised record keeping section is obviously a complete afterthought that does not stitch itself into the rest of a "paper" centric book.

This may be a positive or negative point depending on how you plan to do your accounting. If you are planning to computerise your accounts, this is most definitely not the book for you. Even if you are planning to set up simple paper accounts, you will probably be better off with another book.

A document from the dark ages, 22 Jan 2006
Oh dear. There are three pages in the appendix that include "useful website addresses", "2005/6 tax rates" and "Computer bookkeeping software".
This is the almost the only evidence I could find that this book has in any way been updated in the last fifty years, although it was allegedly revised as recently as 2003.
All records are supposed to be kept in hand-written books of account, with the occasional reference to carbon copies. Spreadsheets? They don't even rate a mention.
As an accountant trying to help small businesses, I feel that HowTo Books should withdraw this completely irrelevant volume from sale, as anyone starting up a business who reads this will at best get a headache and at worst follow the instructions and waste a lot of time that should be spent in the 21st century.

Typical archaic methods of accountants, 05 Jan 2006
Example: He advocates using exercise books to keep accounts.

In 2006 this is unacceptable and possibly negligent advice.
Use a spreadsheet at a minimum, at least then you can create backups.

The book would be fine if you wish to have the pain of record keeping and accounts by hand, or it were still the 1950s, but it isn't and there is no need to perpetuate the out-dated and laborious methods cited in this book.

I'm going to look instead for a book about computerized accountancy.

not the book for me. or anyone who want s to learn., 14 Oct 2008
this is one of those books that you get at school that the teacher absolutely loved getting you to copy text out of for a couple of hours while they read something far more interesting for the class time. its written in the way that a page is read six times and not and not a thing has gone in. everything is there that an accountant requires and i have no doubt its a very accurate book. however i defy anyone to try and read more than 6 pages and be able to answer the questions at the end of the section.
basically its a book so tedious that its impossible to learn from. it also takes a quite interesting subject and petrifies it to beyond boring, i never learned a thing from it due to my unwillingness to get more than a page read at a time. but then again this is only my opinion.

Bookkeeping for Dummies work book, 12 Apr 2008
Do not buy this book if you live in England. It is the USA version and is not the 'perfect partner' to bookkeeping for Dummies, as advertised. Also The Book Depository will not refund your postage, even though the book is misrepresented.

This Dictionary will be a handy reference to any accountant!, 22 May 2001
Whether you audit the records of a large corporation or balance your own checkbook, you will find Barron's Dictionary of Accounting Terms of immeasurable help. You may be a business person-a bookkeeper, a manager, or a proprietor. You may be a business student- an accounting major or an MBA candidate. You may be an accountant or you may have to deal with accountants. Whatever the case, this Dictionary provides the definitions, examples, and illustrations you need to know about all aspects of financial record keeping. A worthwhile investment.

It's The Business!, 16 May 2008
What an excellent book. Having learned bookkeeping and the fundamentals over a period, I was toying with the idea of leaving my job and offering my services to small businesses. The book lives up to it's title perfectly - clear guidance to move you from being an employee to being your own boss. I loved that it was written by an American - home of the 'can do' attitude! Very stimulating.

Anyone who is a bookkeeper and wants to set up and run their own business really must get this.

Not much use for beginners or in the UK., 09 Nov 2007
I feel this book could have had the title "Start and run a (insert any) Business". The information was in my opinion too general and although the book said information was not country specific I feel the message contained was USA-centric.
It really was a book without point. If you are a bookkeeper you would know what you could or could not do and if you were not a bookkeeper the book did not give you much information on how to become a self-employed one. What about UK National Insurance rules..where is information about UK professional bodies? How will the Inland Revenue and local authorities treat use of your private home for Tax purposes? (Watch out for Council Tax)
Not questions directly answered.
Although there is a whole page allocated to telling your customer to get lost. I sent my copy back to Amazon for a refund.

Excellent book, 16 Nov 2008
A lady who worked in our office as a general clerk doing basic duties such as computer inputting and filing decided that she would like to go further and she bought this book. Although she had left school with only a few 'O' levels many years ago she made good progress with a little bit of help from one of my colleagues. After a while she was able to do reconciliations and so on and won promotion and a better salary. She then enrolled at evening classes and is now part way through an AAT course.

This book gives a good solid introduction to double entry book-keeping and covers all the usual ground including bank reconcilations and control accounts. It extends beyond book-keeping into basic accounting as it explains the basics of P & L a/cs and balance sheets too.

Many clerks nowadays are simply trained to do a job entering transactions onto computer packages such as Sage. Since the computer does the trial balance many clerks never learn the principles of double entry book-keeping. This is no longer necessary to learn if one is happy being a data input clerk all one's life but double entry is still needed to understand how accountancy works. When I qualified as an accountant more than 25 years ago there were many middle aged book-keepers who had learned by experience. Sometimes job advertisements might ask for someone who was a part qualified or else a QBE. The phrase QBE i.e. qualified by experience was used to refer to a person who typically had say 5 to 10 years experience as a book-keeper and could go well beyond the trial balance stage. Since the books were kept on a manual basis in those days we could train an office junior from scratch and teach them on the job. With computerised accounts this is more difficult as they don't get the experience of adding up day books and cash books and posting them to the nominal ledger each month and posting the sales day book to the sales ledger each day (and the purchase day book to the puchase ledger) as they go along. Before one took out the trial balance years ago one had to reconcile all the bank accounts, control accounts and payroll accounts and the time spent looking for differences in e.g. the sales ledger control account involved logical reasoning and helped one to build up one's basic skills.

Nowadays, with computerised accounts everywhere a good book like this is more essential then ever in order to bridge the gap between someone who can enter an invoice onto Sage, for example, and someone who is ready to be trained to prepare a set of final accounts.

This book is highly recommended.

Not comrehensive and at times confusing, 07 Aug 2007
I bought his book as a way to get a basic understanding of book-keeping. The first two chapters are useful if you want to set up a very simple system. Chapter three gives a good overview of VAT but doesn't give enough details about how to create a VAT return, which is not very helpful.

As your business grows, you will want to increase the sophistication of your book-keeping. Unfortunately this is a particularly weak aspect of the book. The chapter on double-entry book-keeping is very poor and I certainly couldn't follow it. You need a good understanding of debits and credits to be able to do double-entries, which if well-explained is easy. But the author doesn't explain it well and the examples confuse things further. By comparison, accountingforeveryone dot com provides a much better explanation and it may be worth buying the online book (though I haven't yet).

Not realllly what I was looking for....., 20 Mar 2007
I'm starting a small business. I figured I'd best brush up on my book-keeping skills so I went to my local Boarders and ended up buying this.

Bit of a dissapointment. Admitedly I've only read the first two chapters in depth, but that's enough for me, and it obviously was for the author, because the first two chapters (well, just the second chapter really) are the only ones that brush upon pure book-keeping. And it doesn't even do that very well. The examples are vaugely supported, but have little to no explanation as to where some of the figures come from. I actually had to get a calculator out to understand exactly what they were trying to illustrate and still came up short.

Don't be fooled by the "Revised and Updated" seal of approval either. Supposedly having been revised in 2003, it only deals with cash or cheque payments, with no consideration of electronic or debit payments. Also in the tiny section on computerised book-keeping it recommends that your computer will most likely have a Windows based operating system which is (and I quote) "a graphical interface which provides an intuitive and efficient work enviroment for your personal computer", ha! Unbelieveable! I bought the book to learn about recording cash flow, not to learn the basics of Personal Computing! It gets better.... it recommends that this intuitive operating system will most likely be Windows ME! Laughable!

But I digress. This book was updated in the sense of a few extra paragraphs to include Limited Liability Partnerships and suchlike, and the rest of the book was obviously left without tweaking.

If your parents want to understand how to balance their cheques and maybe keep financial records of the logers rent then this is the book for them. If thats not what you're looking for (which let's be honest...it's not) then steer well clear!

I'm off to Boarders tomorrow to ask the nice manager guy if he would give me a refund.

Unevenly written and out of date., 03 Jan 2007
The basic accounting principles and methods outlined in the book are still valid.

However, they are sometimes poorly illustrated. For instance, when explaining the example accounts of a company called E Foster, simplified random numbers brought in, instead of using the E Foster account figures. I found this confusing and pointless. I presume that the accounts were explained in this way because the book was written before the invention of electronic calculators. Using a calculator, the more complex numbers of the E Foster accounts are very easy to follow.

Although updated since originally written (in the 1960's?), the updated sections are very uneven. The computerised record keeping section is obviously a complete afterthought that does not stitch itself into the rest of a "paper" centric book.

This may be a positive or negative point depending on how you plan to do your accounting. If you are planning to computerise your accounts, this is most definitely not the book for you. Even if you are planning to set up simple paper accounts, you will probably be better off with another book.

A document from the dark ages, 22 Jan 2006
Oh dear. There are three pages in the appendix that include "useful website addresses", "2005/6 tax rates" and "Computer bookkeeping software".
This is the almost the only evidence I could find that this book has in any way been updated in the last fifty years, although it was allegedly revised as recently as 2003.
All records are supposed to be kept in hand-written books of account, with the occasional reference to carbon copies. Spreadsheets? They don't even rate a mention.
As an accountant trying to help small businesses, I feel that HowTo Books should withdraw this completely irrelevant volume from sale, as anyone starting up a business who reads this will at best get a headache and at worst follow the instructions and waste a lot of time that should be spent in the 21st century.

Typical archaic methods of accountants, 05 Jan 2006
Example: He advocates using exercise books to keep accounts.

In 2006 this is unacceptable and possibly negligent advice.
Use a spreadsheet at a minimum, at least then you can create backups.

The book would be fine if you wish to have the pain of record keeping and accounts by hand, or it were still the 1950s, but it isn't and there is no need to perpetuate the out-dated and laborious methods cited in this book.

I'm going to look instead for a book about computerized accountancy.

not the book for me. or anyone who want s to learn., 14 Oct 2008
this is one of those books that you get at school that the teacher absolutely loved getting you to copy text out of for a couple of hours while they read something far more interesting for the class time. its written in the way that a page is read six times and not and not a thing has gone in. everything is there that an accountant requires and i have no doubt its a very accurate book. however i defy anyone to try and read more than 6 pages and be able to answer the questions at the end of the section.
basically its a book so tedious that its impossible to learn from. it also takes a quite interesting subject and petrifies it to beyond boring, i never learned a thing from it due to my unwillingness to get more than a page read at a time. but then again this is only my opinion.

Bookkeeping for Dummies work book, 12 Apr 2008
Do not buy this book if you live in England. It is the USA version and is not the 'perfect partner' to bookkeeping for Dummies, as advertised. Also The Book Depository will not refund your postage, even though the book is misrepresented.

This Dictionary will be a handy reference to any accountant!, 22 May 2001
Whether you audit the records of a large corporation or balance your own checkbook, you will find Barron's Dictionary of Accounting Terms of immeasurable help. You may be a business person-a bookkeeper, a manager, or a proprietor. You may be a business student- an accounting major or an MBA candidate. You may be an accountant or you may have to deal with accountants. Whatever the case, this Dictionary provides the definitions, examples, and illustrations you need to know about all aspects of financial record keeping. A worthwhile investment.

It's The Business!, 16 May 2008
What an excellent book. Having learned bookkeeping and the fundamentals over a period, I was toying with the idea of leaving my job and offering my services to small businesses. The book lives up to it's title perfectly - clear guidance to move you from being an employee to being your own boss. I loved that it was written by an American - home of the 'can do' attitude! Very stimulating.

Anyone who is a bookkeeper and wants to set up and run their own business really must get this.

Not much use for beginners or in the UK., 09 Nov 2007
I feel this book could have had the title "Start and run a (insert any) Business". The information was in my opinion too general and although the book said information was not country specific I feel the message contained was USA-centric.
It really was a book without point. If you are a bookkeeper you would know what you could or could not do and if you were not a bookkeeper the book did not give you much information on how to become a self-employed one. What about UK National Insurance rules..where is information about UK professional bodies? How will the Inland Revenue and local authorities treat use of your private home for Tax purposes? (Watch out for Council Tax)
Not questions directly answered.
Although there is a whole page allocated to telling your customer to get lost. I sent my copy back to Amazon for a refund.

Excellent book, 16 Nov 2008
A lady who worked in our office as a general clerk doing basic duties such as computer inputting and filing decided that she would like to go further and she bought this book. Although she had left school with only a few 'O' levels many years ago she made good progress with a little bit of help from one of my colleagues. After a while she was able to do reconciliations and so on and won promotion and a better salary. She then enrolled at evening classes and is now part way through an AAT course.

This book gives a good solid introduction to double entry book-keeping and covers all the usual ground including bank reconcilations and control accounts. It extends beyond book-keeping into basic accounting as it explains the basics of P & L a/cs and balance sheets too.

Many clerks nowadays are simply trained to do a job entering transactions onto computer packages such as Sage. Since the computer does the trial balance many clerks never learn the principles of double entry book-keeping. This is no longer necessary to learn if one is happy being a data input clerk all one's life but double entry is still needed to understand how accountancy works. When I qualified as an accountant more than 25 years ago there were many middle aged book-keepers who had learned by experience. Sometimes job advertisements might ask for someone who was a part qualified or else a QBE. The phrase QBE i.e. qualified by experience was used to refer to a person who typically had say 5 to 10 years experience as a book-keeper and could go well beyond the trial balance stage. Since the books were kept on a manual basis in those days we could train an office junior from scratch and teach them on the job. With computerised accounts this is more difficult as they don't get the experience of adding up day books and cash books and posting them to the nominal ledger each month and posting the sales day book to the sales ledger each day (and the purchase day book to the puchase ledger) as they go along. Before one took out the trial balance years ago one had to reconcile all the bank accounts, control accounts and payroll accounts and the time spent looking for differences in e.g. the sales ledger control account involved logical reasoning and helped one to build up one's basic skills.

Nowadays, with computerised accounts everywhere a good book like this is more essential then ever in order to bridge the gap between someone who can enter an invoice onto Sage, for example, and someone who is ready to be trained to prepare a set of final accounts.

This book is highly recommended.

General Knowledge Bookkeeping and Accounts, 13 Feb 2008
Excellent piece of work for those interested in getting an idea of what is done

Not comrehensive and at times confusing, 07 Aug 2007
I bought his book as a way to get a basic understanding of book-keeping. The first two chapters are useful if you want to set up a very simple system. Chapter three gives a good overview of VAT but doesn't give enough details about how to create a VAT return, which is not very helpful.

As your business grows, you will want to increase the sophistication of your book-keeping. Unfortunately this is a particularly weak aspect of the book. The chapter on double-entry book-keeping is very poor and I certainly couldn't follow it. You need a good understanding of debits and credits to be able to do double-entries, which if well-explained is easy. But the author doesn't explain it well and the examples confuse things further. By comparison, accountingforeveryone dot com provides a much better explanation and it may be worth buying the online book (though I haven't yet).

Not realllly what I was looking for....., 20 Mar 2007
I'm starting a small business. I figured I'd best brush up on my book-keeping skills so I went to my local Boarders and ended up buying this.

Bit of a dissapointment. Admitedly I've only read the first two chapters in depth, but that's enough for me, and it obviously was for the author, because the first two chapters (well, just the second chapter really) are the only ones that brush upon pure book-keeping. And it doesn't even do that very well. The examples are vaugely supported, but have little to no explanation as to where some of the figures come from. I actually had to get a calculator out to understand exactly what they were trying to illustrate and still came up short.

Don't be fooled by the "Revised and Updated" seal of approval either. Supposedly having been revised in 2003, it only deals with cash or cheque payments, with no consideration of electronic or debit payments. Also in the tiny section on computerised book-keeping it recommends that your computer will most likely have a Windows based operating system which is (and I quote) "a graphical interface which provides an intuitive and efficient work enviroment for your personal computer", ha! Unbelieveable! I bought the book to learn about recording cash flow, not to learn the basics of Personal Computing! It gets better.... it recommends that this intuitive operating system will most likely be Windows ME! Laughable!

But I digress. This book was updated in the sense of a few extra paragraphs to include Limited Liability Partnerships and suchlike, and the rest of the book was obviously left without tweaking.

If your parents want to understand how to balance their cheques and maybe keep financial records of the logers rent then this is the book for them. If thats not what you're looking for (which let's be honest...it's not) then steer well clear!

I'm off to Boarders tomorrow to ask the nice manager guy if he would give me a refund.

Unevenly written and out of date., 03 Jan 2007
The basic accounting principles and methods outlined in the book are still valid.

However, they are sometimes poorly illustrated. For instance, when explaining the example accounts of a company called E Foster, simplified random numbers brought in, instead of using the E Foster account figures. I found this confusing and pointless. I presume that the accounts were explained in this way because the book was written before the invention of electronic calculators. Using a calculator, the more complex numbers of the E Foster accounts are very easy to follow.

Although updated since originally written (in the 1960's?), the updated sections are very uneven. The computerised record keeping section is obviously a complete afterthought that does not stitch itself into the rest of a "paper" centric book.

This may be a positive or negative point depending on how you plan to do your accounting. If you are planning to computerise your accounts, this is most definitely not the book for you. Even if you are planning to set up simple paper accounts, you will probably be better off with another book.

A document from the dark ages, 22 Jan 2006
Oh dear. There are three pages in the appendix that include "useful website addresses", "2005/6 tax rates" and "Computer bookkeeping software".
This is the almost the only evidence I could find that this book has in any way been updated in the last fifty years, although it was allegedly revised as recently as 2003.
All records are supposed to be kept in hand-written books of account, with the occasional reference to carbon copies. Spreadsheets? They don't even rate a mention.
As an accountant trying to help small businesses, I feel that HowTo Books should withdraw this completely irrelevant volume from sale, as anyone starting up a business who reads this will at best get a headache and at worst follow the instructions and waste a lot of time that should be spent in the 21st century.

Typical archaic methods of accountants, 05 Jan 2006
Example: He advocates using exercise books to keep accounts.

In 2006 this is unacceptable and possibly negligent advice.
Use a spreadsheet at a minimum, at least then you can create backups.

The book would be fine if you wish to have the pain of record keeping and accounts by hand, or it were still the 1950s, but it isn't and there is no need to perpetuate the out-dated and laborious methods cited in this book.

I'm going to look instead for a book about computerized accountancy.

not the book for me. or anyone who want s to learn., 14 Oct 2008
this is one of those books that you get at school that the teacher absolutely loved getting you to copy text out of for a couple of hours while they read something far more interesting for the class time. its written in the way that a page is read six times and not and not a thing has gone in. everything is there that an accountant requires and i have no doubt its a very accurate book. however i defy anyone to try and read more than 6 pages and be able to answer the questions at the end of the section.
basically its a book so tedious that its impossible to learn from. it also takes a quite interesting subject and petrifies it to beyond boring, i never learned a thing from it due to my unwillingness to get more than a page read at a time. but then again this is only my opinion.

Bookkeeping for Dummies work book, 12 Apr 2008
Do not buy this book if you live in England. It is the USA version and is not the 'perfect partner' to bookkeeping for Dummies, as advertised. Also The Book Depository will not refund your postage, even though the book is misrepresented.

This Dictionary will be a handy reference to any accountant!, 22 May 2001
Whether you audit the records of a large corporation or balance your own checkbook, you will find Barron's Dictionary of Accounting Terms of immeasurable help. You may be a business person-a bookkeeper, a manager, or a proprietor. You may be a business student- an accounting major or an MBA candidate. You may be an accountant or you may have to deal with accountants. Whatever the case, this Dictionary provides the definitions, examples, and illustrations you need to know about all aspects of financial record keeping. A worthwhile investment.

It's The Business!, 16 May 2008
What an excellent book. Having learned bookkeeping and the fundamentals over a period, I was toying with the idea of leaving my job and offering my services to small businesses. The book lives up to it's title perfectly - clear guidance to move you from being an employee to being your own boss. I loved that it was written by an American - home of the 'can do' attitude! Very stimulating.

Anyone who is a bookkeeper and wants to set up and run their own business really must get this.

Not much use for beginners or in the UK., 09 Nov 2007
I feel this book could have had the title "Start and run a (insert any) Business". The information was in my opinion too general and although the book said information was not country specific I feel the message contained was USA-centric.
It really was a book without point. If you are a bookkeeper you would know what you could or could not do and if you were not a bookkeeper the book did not give you much information on how to become a self-employed one. What about UK National Insurance rules..where is information about UK professional bodies? How will the Inland Revenue and local authorities treat use of your private home for Tax purposes? (Watch out for Council Tax)
Not questions directly answered.
Although there is a whole page allocated to telling your customer to get lost. I sent my copy back to Amazon for a refund.

Excellent book, 16 Nov 2008
A lady who worked in our office as a general clerk doing basic duties such as computer inputting and filing decided that she would like to go further and she bought this book. Although she had left school with only a few 'O' levels many years ago she made good progress with a little bit of help from one of my colleagues. After a while she was able to do reconciliations and so on and won promotion and a better salary. She then enrolled at evening classes and is now part way through an AAT course.

This book gives a good solid introduction to double entry book-keeping and covers all the usual ground including bank reconcilations and control accounts. It extends beyond book-keeping into basic accounting as it explains the basics of P & L a/cs and balance sheets too.

Many clerks nowadays are simply trained to do a job entering transactions onto computer packages such as Sage. Since the computer does the trial balance many clerks never learn the principles of double entry book-keeping. This is no longer necessary to learn if one is happy being a data input clerk all one's life but double entry is still needed to understand how accountancy works. When I qualified as an accountant more than 25 years ago there were many middle aged book-keepers who had learned by experience. Sometimes job advertisements might ask for someone who was a part qualified or else a QBE. The phrase QBE i.e. qualified by experience was used to refer to a person who typically had say 5 to 10 years experience as a book-keeper and could go well beyond the trial balance stage. Since the books were kept on a manual basis in those days we could train an office junior from scratch and teach them on the job. With computerised accounts this is more difficult as they don't get the experience of adding up day books and cash books and posting them to the nominal ledger each month and posting the sales day book to the sales ledger each day (and the purchase day book to the puchase ledger) as they go along. Before one took out the trial balance years ago one had to reconcile all the bank accounts, control accounts and payroll accounts and the time spent looking for differences in e.g. the sales ledger control account involved logical reasoning and helped one to build up one's basic skills.

Nowadays, with computerised accounts everywhere a good book like this is more essential then ever in order to bridge the gap between someone who can enter an invoice onto Sage, for example, and someone who is ready to be trained to prepare a set of final accounts.

This book is highly recommended.

General Knowledge Bookkeeping and Accounts, 13 Feb 2008
Excellent piece of work for those interested in getting an idea of what is done

Does not deliver what it says on the cover, 30 Oct 2008
Wanted a beginners guide to book keeping that a complete novice could understand. This book does not deliver. More for someone that has an understanding of book keeping than a beginner.


What bookkeeping is, 04 May 2007
The book gives an overview of bookkeeping dealing with all aspects of what is necessary to enable someone to understand how and why financial records are compiled and what those records can tell you about the finacial health of the business. The guidance offered in this book will give anyone a better understanding of how a business is performing and an idea of what to do about it. The one criticism I have would be the lack of worked examples in the book. However the book is worth the purchase price.
A companion book would be a work book dealing with actual examples with suggested answers to further reinforce the topics covered in the book.

Be aware! Not for us locals..., 12 Sep 2006
This book is written from a US perspective. While the basic principles are the same, it uses US terminology and can be a little confusing. The tax section relates to that of the USA and not the UK. I sent mine back for an immediate refund and will wait until the UK version is published in February 2007.

Not comrehensive and at times confusing, 07 Aug 2007
I bought his book as a way to get a basic understanding of book-keeping. The first two chapters are useful if you want to set up a very simple system. Chapter three gives a good overview of VAT but doesn't give enough details about how to create a VAT return, which is not very helpful.

As your business grows, you will want to increase the sophistication of your book-keeping. Unfortunately this is a particularly weak aspect of the book. The chapter on double-entry book-keeping is very poor and I certainly couldn't follow it. You need a good understanding of debits and credits to be able to do double-entries, which if well-explained is easy. But the author doesn't explain it well and the examples confuse things further. By comparison, accountingforeveryone dot com provides a much better explanation and it may be worth buying the online book (though I haven't yet).

Not realllly what I was looking for....., 20 Mar 2007
I'm starting a small business. I figured I'd best brush up on my book-keeping skills so I went to my local Boarders and ended up buying this.

Bit of a dissapointment. Admitedly I've only read the first two chapters in depth, but that's enough for me, and it obviously was for the author, because the first two chapters (well, just the second chapter really) are the only ones that brush upon pure book-keeping. And it doesn't even do that very well. The examples are vaugely supported, but have little to no explanation as to where some of the figures come from. I actually had to get a calculator out to understand exactly what they were trying to illustrate and still came up short.

Don't be fooled by the "Revised and Updated" seal of approval either. Supposedly having been revised in 2003, it only deals with cash or cheque payments, with no consideration of electronic or debit payments. Also in the tiny section on computerised book-keeping it recommends that your computer will most likely have a Windows based operating system which is (and I quote) "a graphical interface which provides an intuitive and efficient work enviroment for your personal computer", ha! Unbelieveable! I bought the book to learn about recording cash flow, not to learn the basics of Personal Computing! It gets better.... it recommends that this intuitive operating system will most likely be Windows ME! Laughable!

But I digress. This book was updated in the sense of a few extra paragraphs to include Limited Liability Partnerships and suchlike, and the rest of the book was obviously left without tweaking.

If your parents want to understand how to balance their cheques and maybe keep financial records of the logers rent then this is the book for them. If thats not what you're looking for (which let's be honest...it's not) then steer well clear!

I'm off to Boarders tomorrow to ask the nice manager guy if he would give me a refund.

Unevenly written and out of date., 03 Jan 2007
The basic accounting principles and methods outlined in the book are still valid.

However, they are sometimes poorly illustrated. For instance, when explaining the example accounts of a company called E Foster, simplified random numbers brought in, instead of using the E Foster account figures. I found this confusing and pointless. I presume that the accounts were explained in this way because the book was written before the invention of electronic calculators. Using a calculator, the more complex numbers of the E Foster accounts are very easy to follow.

Although updated since originally written (in the 1960's?), the updated sections are very uneven. The computerised record keeping section is obviously a complete afterthought that does not stitch itself into the rest of a "paper" centric book.

This may be a positive or negative point depending on how you plan to do your accounting. If you are planning to computerise your accounts, this is most definitely not the book for you. Even if you are planning to set up simple paper accounts, you will probably be better off with another book.

A document from the dark ages, 22 Jan 2006
Oh dear. There are three pages in the appendix that include "useful website addresses", "2005/6 tax rates" and "Computer bookkeeping software".
This is the almost the only evidence I could find that this book has in any way been updated in the last fifty years, although it was allegedly revised as recently as 2003.
All records are supposed to be kept in hand-written books of account, with the occasional reference to carbon copies. Spreadsheets? They don't even rate a mention.
As an accountant trying to help small businesses, I feel that HowTo Books should withdraw this completely irrelevant volume from sale, as anyone starting up a business who reads this will at best get a headache and at worst follow the instructions and waste a lot of time that should be spent in the 21st century.

Typical archaic methods of accountants, 05 Jan 2006
Example: He advocates using exercise books to keep accounts.

In 2006 this is unacceptable and possibly negligent advice.
Use a spreadsheet at a minimum, at least then you can create backups.

The book would be fine if you wish to have the pain of record keeping and accounts by hand, or it were still the 1950s, but it isn't and there is no need to perpetuate the out-dated and laborious methods cited in this book.

I'm going to look instead for a book about computerized accountancy.

not the book for me. or anyone who want s to learn., 14 Oct 2008
this is one of those books that you get at school that the teacher absolutely loved getting you to copy text out of for a couple of hours while they read something far more interesting for the class time. its written in the way that a page is read six times and not and not a thing has gone in. everything is there that an accountant requires and i have no doubt its a very accurate book. however i defy anyone to try and read more than 6 pages and be able to answer the questions at the end of the section.
basically its a book so tedious that its impossible to learn from. it also takes a quite interesting subject and petrifies it to beyond boring, i never learned a thing from it due to my unwillingness to get more than a page read at a time. but then again this is only my opinion.

Bookkeeping for Dummies work book, 12 Apr 2008
Do not buy this book if you live in England. It is the USA version and is not the 'perfect partner' to bookkeeping for Dummies, as advertised. Also The Book Depository will not refund your postage, even though the book is misrepresented.

This Dictionary will be a handy reference to any accountant!, 22 May 2001
Whether you audit the records of a large corporation or balance yo