Accounting for Business - Softcover

The aim of this book is to provide an introduction to accounting in an accessible format. It is suitable for students following a wide variety of courses including Higher National, degree, postgraduate and professional programmes in non-accounting disciplines as well as managers wishing to improve their knowledge of accounting. It assumes no previous knowledge of the subject and explains accounting principles and techniques clearly and logically, using many worked examples. After an introductory chapter explaining the nature and purpose of accounting, the remaining 15 chapters are divided into two further sections: Financial Accounting and Management Accounting. The purpose of Financial Accounting is to enable the reader to understand financial statements, appreciate their limitations and use the information contained within them to assess the performance and financial position of an enterprise. The principles underlying their preparation, and the way in which the figures reported are derived are explained clearly with various methods of interpretations. The Management Accounting section considers the information requirements of managers and the ways in which these many be satisfied. Techniques which can be used to generate information for planning, control, and decision-making purposes are explained and demonstrated and the limitations of such information considered. Each chapter contains a list of learning objectives which should be achieved after studying the chapter, a summary of the main points covered and a set of self-assessment questions with worked solutions.