The Business Owner's Guide to Reading and Understanding Financial Statements: How to Budget, Forecast, and Monitor Cash Flow for Better Decision Making

In order to gauge a company's health—as well as the competition's—managers must know how to properly read and understand financial statements. The Business Owner's Guide to Reading and Understanding Financial Statements will introduce managers and business owners to various types of financial statements and explain why they are important. Serving as a desktop reference, especially for managers without a strong background in finance, this book will discuss the difference between internal and external financial statements and explain how they can be used for financial decision-making in order to avoid common missteps.

Whether you're planning for major capital projects or simply managing the fiscal aspects of your department, this nontechnical, results-driven guide will arm you with the fundamentals to:

• Understand the budget process and why it is important
• Manage assets and track inventory
• Gauge profitability
• Monitor success throughout the year using internal reporting
• Set prices and make key cost decisions

Financial statements are essential to determining a company's fiscal health. Understand where your company stands so that you can make informed decisions about its future.

Keywords: Small Business & Entrepreneurship, The Business Owner&rsquo, s Guide to Reading and Understanding Financial Statement, Lita Epstein, financial planning, profit and loss statements, balance sheets, cash flow statement, valuation, financial statements, small business, running a business, doing the books, how to read a financial statement, entrepreneurship, starting a business, start ups, basic business understanding