I find this book very interesting about accounting theory and principles. He base his structure about a revenus-expenses method, instead of the usual assets-liabilieties approach. Furthermore, the Author develops his structure starting from some declared principles, instead of implicit or misunderstood assumptions or preconceptions. He derives some operational concepts starting from these principles. His assumption about satisfying principle is most insteresting. The Author considers this satisfying principle as opposed to the maximisation principle as firm's objective. See also an article in Harvard Business Review, 1960. A book to buy, to study hard and to remember.

This realtively short book is a good place to review accounting principles and terminology with excellent examples provided covering Balance sheets, income statements, cash flow reports, etc. This was used as a supplementary text in a course I just completed that was sponsered by a Society of Financial Analysts and used in conjunction with the other material provided by the instructor this book was quite helpful. I will continue to use it as reference. However if you are looking for detailed training in accounting this is NOT the book to choose.

While not a good source for those who have never taken an accounting course, this text is great for those who have taken an introductory course but need a concise refresher. As appropriately stated in the title, it is a review of the essentials of accounting.

I am a software engineer who needed to learn the basics of accounting in a hurry. If you know nothing about accounting, this book is for you. It is a small, thin (150pp) book that gives you 'just the facts' with simple real world examples (i.e. why is 7up an asset but Coca Cola is not?)

Unless you go to Haaaaarvaaard (I always forget how many A's to put), you are probably going to be a bit perplexed by the content of this book.

The cases go WAY beyond what is covered in the Chapters, and its up to the instructor to try to fill in the gaps (hopefully your instructor realizes this).

I have found myself referring to my textbook from my intro accounting course more often than this book itself in order to grasp the concepts at hand. Seriously, this book is a punishment to anyone who has to buy it for school. And its FREAKIN heavy to haul around across campus.

'Nough said.

I used this book for my MBA and found it to be lengthy and dense. One would be lost if he has no basic accounting knowledge. I spent more time looking up other books in the book shop for my revision.

It's not that bad as other reviews say it is, but it is definetely such a heavy book to carry around.