financial-accounting

Zimmerman does a good job laying out many different cost allocation schemes. He gives an unbiased review of the strengths and weaknesses of each system. The angle Zimmerman takes is to point out the differences between using cost information for decision making,and for decision (behavioral) control. There is a good deal of organizational theory involved. I took a course in cost accounting at the University of Chicago GSB with a colleague of Zimmerman's. They taught together at U of Rochester. The professor did a better job of getting the point across. Zimmerman tries not to put much opinion into the text, and as such, comes up short on making his point in most cases. If your looking for a simple layout of various costing systems, this might be the book for you. If you like a little more persuasion in your academic reading, skip this one.

Additionally, the examples used are often too long and drawn out. I dont think he gives the reader enough credit.

The great take away from this book is that executives try hard to achieve the optimal solutions for management problems, but that they seldomly succeed. The reason: they underestimate the creativity of their sub-ordinates (and their superiors).
For ages students and lecturers thought management accounting was dull. Zimmerman shows how fascinating this subject can be. The decision making parts show how to calculate optimal solutions for management accounting problems, the control parts make your realize how difficult it is to make the optimal solutions come true. The implication: the amount of consulting work to be done is infinite.

Too often management accounting is completely subsumed in cost accounting. Yes, they are part of the same topic, but they have somewhat different emphases. This book covers costs, but it is really more focused on how you allocated decision rights, set measurement criteria, and how you reward people to get the behavior you want. It is also very helpful in clarifying thinking about what could be going wrong if you aren't getting the behavior you wanted out of a given system of measurement and reward.

The writing is very good and the organization of the book is sound and helpful. While there are charts and graphs it is not a book full of color and pictures. It is a book with words and ideas that are helpfully supplemented as needed. But the self-study problems and cases are set off from the main text by being on different color pages. This helps in locating what you are after.

There is a wealth of thought provoking problems and short cases to help promote discussion and provoke your thinking on the topics discussed in each chapter.

Another aspect of the book I really like are the concept questions in each chapter that help you gauge your understanding of what you have just read. The solutions for these are provided in the back of the book so you can know if you are "getting it" or not.

This is a fine and very useful text.

just open the first sample page. you see that the author does not even understand what profit maximization, as defined by economists, is. i would be careful if i were you.

This work is a good supplement to the class text. It has hundreds
of solved problems depicted. In addition, the Schaum's covers
international financial management problems which are not always
found in the standard texts. This is a good practice
workbook to reinforce the current text and class notes.
Complex cash flow problems, present value and return on investment problems are shown with accompanying diagrams to aid
in the visual presentation. This text is excellent in order to
prepare for formal licensing exams and other comprehensive
tests .

I would recommend this book if you are looking to pass the DANTES principles of finance test. The contents of the book match well with the test subjects, and I was able to pass the test. The pass rate for this test is 21%, and this was the only study aid I used.

I must agree with the review "Rubik's Accounting System", there is very little that is intuitive about navigating your way thru the SAP FI module. Within the same business process different buttons/commands are required on subsequent screens to do the same thing. The user is also required to enter data for the same process different ways on subsequent screens. The FI module is not easy and there have been many changes to the menu paths and the screen layouts from version 3.11 to 4.6c.

In my experience with SAP writers/publishers they tend to underestimate the design changes from one version to another. Although a configuration process may be very well explained, the instructions are very often obsolete for your version of SAP. Writers and publishers often claim that the book is valid for a SAP releases long subsequent to the publishing of the book. How do they know? The best way to insure that the instructions will be valid for your version of SAP is by noting the copyright date and comparing that against the release date of your software. If the copyright date is earlier than your software, the book is obsolete for your needs.

We did not come to Amazon.com to scold SAP and their architects and designers. Clearly SAP was not designed from an accountant prospective. We are here to evaluate the usefulness of a technical book. Like it or not, that is the nature of the beast. It is our job to use and implement the system. Finding a good technical reference that is concurrent with your system is a gold mine.

This book is about SAP, the German-produced accounting/inventory/finance system software. It is good to read in the event you are contemplating acquiring SAP for use at your company.

Let me just tell you, buddy: A few years ago, some SAP salesmen staged their dog-and-pony shows for several major US oil companies. Never mind that SAP is a manufacturing-oriented system, unfit to be congruent with hydrocarbon industry processes. Their sales tap-dance dazzled the oil executives beyond all belief. They were somehow convinced that SAP was the way of the future, and that industry functionality would be served if every oil company ran its accounting systems from the same basic platform. The executives, none of whom had ever worked in the trenches -- and without consulting anyone who had worked in the trenches -- bought this pile of excrement hook, line and sinker.

SAP is an accounting process nightmare. It requires armies of people to run the thing, and its functionality is so counter-intuitive that EXTENSIVE training is required; there is NOTHING on the system that you can simply figure out from following menu paths. It is indeed Rubik's Accounting System, a broad minefield strewn with mis-steps and unintended consequences. NOTHING on SAP is ever easy, from ascertaining the business unit to which a cost center is assigned, to determining the set of vendor invoices that comprise the costs of a project.

And, Heaven help you, if you must run SAP in tandem with some other system, such as your payroll program or a custom division-of-interest database. It's tantamount to being busted for drugs in a foreign country: You're in for the HASSLE OF YOUR LIFE.

On the other hand, if you are a member of the accounting profession, SAP can guarantee you a job for life (if you don't particularly mind NEVER being able to complete anything). SAP is rife with unpleasant tasks that NO little kid ever dreams about doing when he grown up. Accordingly, you will never hear footsteps behind you, never face the prospect of someone else plotting to take your job from you. SAP is the tar baby of accounting systems if you want job security: You are stuck to it, and nobody else wants to come near you.

If you are reading this, it is quite likely that your company already has SAP, or is about to acquire it -- and you are one of the frightened, desperate, skippy-dog little bookkeeper minions, seeking reference information about this monstrous new system that's about to be shoved down your throat.

Good luck, chump. And, goodbye to your nights and weekends.

A colleague directed me to this book after our company had to convert to SAP following a merger. The SAP system is a life-saver -- or, at any rate, a job-saver. Certain system-update tasks that formerly required about 10 minutes of work by two people (primarily due to separation-of-duties parameters) now require coordination actions by four people over the course of three days. The conversion to SAP has saved our careers, because it is extremely difficult to comprehend and takes many extra hands to run (and then follow up, with all of the end-of-period clarification requests that arise as a result of SAP's reporting weaknesses). I thank SAP every day. It is keeping me, and thousands like me, employed.

Despite the huge interest in technology stocks and their incredible market volatility in recent years, there have been few sources available for would-be investors wanting to make responsible decisions.

But here's one. Chris Gardner takes you through the bedrock of responsible valuation, discounted cash flow analysis, using an extremely detailed case study of AT&T's acquisition of TCI. He provides the entire AT&T spreadsheet on his website so you can play with it on your own time.

For myself, as an internet equity analyst, the most interesting part of the book was the guide to market research. Gardner has very detailed suggestions on how to decide what to sell, survey what customers want, and estimate how much they'll buy. He cuts some slack for struggling dotcoms looking for customers: "Developers of commercial Internet services have had to rely on their instincts during these early years of the Internet, since market research could not provide much guidance on their prospects."

If you're already in the business, this book provides a good review course in valuation methods; if you're not, it's a good place to start.

As a 20 year veteran of in-house software engineering and development, I was recently challenged with creating a business case for developing shrink-wrapped software for global sale. A daunting prospect that better have some serious market anaysis and ROI numbers behind it to satisfy the board of directors. I purchased 4 books on the topic before I found Chris Gardners book, and I breathed a sigh of relief flying to headquarters as a studied and highlighted endless passages in the text. I have since read this book end-to-end; and it was worth every penny I paid for it. If you need formula's for valuation this book has them like several others; if you need a book that takes you end-to-end, from marketing considerations to valuation, this is the book for you. I have a multi-million dollar deal sewn up because my business case looked so good. The COO has even told me it was the most impressive software development business case he has ever seen. I used this book to design a marketing approach and build my business case from the ground-up; and it worked. This book will pay for itself a thousand times over if you really need to understand technology valuation. And you know what; you don't need an MBA to understand it or six months off work to read it.

The book is structured in a way to lead me to integrate the analysis of an IT business from a holistic approach. It provides an analytical framework to link all operational details which are integral to the strategic objective.

This book if fine if you have had the time and opportunity to put money aside for retirement.

It does not even touch upon those of us who are married for the second time, are basically just starting out all over again with nothing in the bank and no retirement packages at work and who are paying astronomical amounts in child support and will be until we are a hair away from retirement. How are we supposed to amass any money when the "ex" gets it all?

WE are the people who need the help. WE are the people who will be living on a very "fixed" income while the ex-wife will be living in security using the child support money for her retirement.

I'm totally disgusted.

Dr. Shirley's advice is realistic, practical, and useful. She covers a lot of ground, gives specific advice for different ages, different circumstances. She's ready to tell the truth, which for most of us is that we need to live less expensively, save money, and face facts about finances. I can't recommend this book highly enough. Others I have read are more general, repetitive, and don't give solid reasons for their advice. Dr. Shirley explains her advice, and, unique in this kind of book, names names.

I like the real world examples. I really felt as if I could apply the techniques to my life. I liked the author's personal interjections. It made her more credible.

The book focuses on individual collection through persuasion. Call it whatever you want, its still just scare tactics. The author has been in collections for several decades and it shows. The author is definitely out of touch with today's society and acceptable business practices. He actively encourages letter writing and litigation, known to be the two worst approaches to collecting debt. Scare tactics, Scare tactics, Scare tactics. The example letters were so poorly written that I would be embarrassed to use them. The lack of a qualified proofreader is readily apparent. The book was so awful I immediately sent it back....

I am a practicing Psychiatrist with a large practice in Boston. My wife is also a Physician in an unrelated field. Our accounts receivables have been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and we have tried everything possible to bring back some of those dollars.

I was " turned " on to Collect Your Money by Cody Flecker after one of my colleagues told me about this collections professional out on the West Coast and the book that he wrote to help professionals like my wife and myself.

"Collect Your Money" gets to the heart of the matter. Since using the techniques as outlined in the book our recovery rates have gone up dramatically, while not disturbing the good will of our clients. The letters as outlined by Cody Flecker were to the point, and sincere. They did bring in the required results that we were looking for.

Other good points about Collect Your Money were the telephone conversations, not so much what you say, but what your reply would be once the patient/debtor makes his statement to you and expects an answer.

My wife and I are foreigners and our command of the English language is not always up to par. Collect Your Money did the trick for us. We recommend this book to every small business trying to bring back some of those lost dollars.

I am a Doctor with a very large practice in Colorado. My accounts receivable is just alarming.Before I purchased Collect Your Money by Cody Flecker, I was owed in excess of 750,000 dollars. In 4 months using this book, its letters and simple to understand advice, my staff collected over 350,000 dollars without the advice of an attorney or collection agency. In fact, I fired the agency. Why pay them 25-50% of the outstandings when I can pay my own people to do the same. I recommend this book to every medical practioner I come into contact with. Every small to medium size business should have this book as well. I have recommended it to all of my business patients. If people or businesses owe you money you should buy this book. I am glad that I did.

Ever been to the gym and overheard a guy boasting that benching 300 lbs. is "not so hard, really"? In fact, of course, 300 lbs is a lot to bench press no matter who you are, and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous.

Similarly, it would be folly to suggest that this book is anything other than exceptionally demanding reading that requires both a solid quantitative background as well as a keen interest in the topic. The book is a compendium of research papers from a conference at NYU in 1999.

The papers will mean little to the reader without a basic understanding of derivatives and the quantitative methods associated with them. Without having read the equivalent of texts by Hull and Jorion, for example, the reader will feel a bit like George W. Bush at a Stephen Hawking lecture.

A collection of papers by Econometricians and Data Miners, on techniques of data mining, knowledge discovery, genetic algorithms, neural networks, and machine learning.
To undersatnd the papers you need to be familiar with LMC (Financial Econometrics) level of knowledge.
This book will be boring for Probabilist and Mathmaticains, because it does not contain heavy math at all (No where near Karatzas and Shreve)
The articles are taken from the conference of Computational Finance '99 in NYU.

Finally, an insightful, easy-to-read collection that bridges the gap between lofty academics and down-to-earth practitioners!

The book is far too easy for professionals and for university students. The blanks exercises are really stupid. If you are not experienced in mathematics or statistics you will probably like the book because there are no derivations of formules or demonstrations of theorems.

The person I bought this book for found it very useful for his studies and the attached Cd-ROM very useful with its chapter reviews and tests.

Because of the deep grade themes are studied. Basic for student and professionals...

Half of this book deals with the technology of organizing your own business. While that would have been very helpful in 1994, it is outdated now. If you are new to technology you may still find some good advice in those sections dealing with computer hardware, software (desktop, information management, and accounting). I just skimmed those sections to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

The other half deals with the organization and structure of accounting. I found the first chapter on getting organized particularly helpful. There is also a chapter on dealing with the IRS as a self-employed individual. The remaining few chapters address accounting and bookkeeping.

The accounting information is very good for anyone who knows very little about accounting. However, I found the same level of detail and instruction at the Small Business Administration website. I was hoping to find a little bit more of a how-to guide to setting up my business' accounting structure.

This book is an overview of all the recordkeeping issues that a self-employed person should be concerned with. However, it just didn't give me enough detail to feel secure that I was making the right decisions for my particular type of business. I just may have to use an accountant or tax attorney to get that.

I checked this book out from the library, but I wouldn't purchase it. It just doesn't have the longevity of advice that a true reference book would offer.

Written for business people who want to be accounting and computerized accounting systems literate. No longer does one have to be in awe of the professionals who spout jargon and keep the business person dependent on their supposed expertise. This book represents liberation for the formerly fiscally challenged.

Mr. Fox has a great understanding of the profession and was able to make good sense of a subject that is hard to understand.