Using Accounting and Financial Information

Accounting is often referred to as the language of business. Unfortunately, many business professionals lack the required fluency in this unique language to perform basic financial analysis, prepare budgetary forecasts, or to compare competing capital investment alternatives. This book targets individuals with limited exposure to-or formal training in-accounting and related finance disciplines. These individuals include-but certainly are not limited to-engineers, information technology specialists, retail managers, entrepreneurs, marketing directors, construction contractors, attorneys, and bankers who are making career transitions from consumer lending positions to become commercial loan officers. The primary purpose of this book is to help managers and business owners from diverse professional and educational backgrounds to (1) converse more effectively with their accounting and finance colleagues; (2) understand the structure and the elements of general purpose financial statements; (3) identify both the usefulness and the limitations of accounting information; (4) prepare budgets and financial forecasts; and (5) make sense of commonly used decision-making models.

Mark S. Bettner, PhD, is the Christian R. Lindback professor of accounting & financial management in the Freeman College of Management at Bucknell University, PA. Mark is an author of several widely used accounting textbooks and has published numerous scholarly and practitioner articles. Mark is on the editorial advisory boards of a wide range of academic journals and serves on several not-for-profit boards. He offers a commercial lending course each summer for the Pennsylvania Bankers Association and conducts financial seminars for a variety of professional and civic organizations. Mark received his PhD in business administration from Texas Tech University, TX; MS in accountancy from Virginia Tech, VA; and BS in business administration from Oregon State University, OR.