Name: Financial statements
ISBN: 9781601630230

Financial statements

Amazon readers love this five-star title:"Buy this book first.""Perfect for budding entrepreneurs!""Makes a complicated subject seem like child's play.""A masterpiece for non-financial managers.""The best book available on the subject."Now the best-selling book of its kind has gotten even better. This revised and expanded second edition of Ittelson's master work will give you that firm grasp of "the numbers" necessary for business success. With more than 100,000 copies in print, Financial Statements is a perfect introduction to financial accounting for non-financial managers, stock-market investors, undergraduate business and MBA students, lawyers, lenders, entrepreneurs, and more.Most introductory finance and accounting books fail either because they are written "by accountants for accountants" or the authors "dumb down" the concepts until they are virtually useless. Financial Statements deftly shows that all this accounting and financial-reporting stuff is not rocket science and that you can understand it! Ittelson empowers non-financial managers by clearly and simply demonstrating how the balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement work together to offer a "snapshot" of any company's financial health. Every term is defined in simple, understandable language. Every concept is explained with a basic, straightforward transaction example.

What Hacker News says

SonOfLilitMay 2025

I'm halfway through Feld and Mendelson's Venture Deals and earlier this year worked through Ittelson's Financial Statements.

Having cofounded a startup that raised investor money before, I can state confidently that both are going to make me better at what I do next time I start something.

Of course, they're not books about "what to do", just "how people do the basics". Which is harder because there's less ambiguity to hide behind. Sometimes my eyes glaze and I need to put them down and wait for a time when I have more energy.

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MimmyApr 2023

If you want to start from "first principles", I thought this book [1] was good for getting right to the meat of accounting.

It seems like there's a new edition that came out. [2]

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Financial-Statements-Step-Step-Unders...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Financial-Statements-Step-Step-Unders...

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pjungwirMar 2021

I've read Code. I also liked Financial Statements by Thomas R. Ittelson. It has a similar tutorial-like approach.

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pjungwirJul 2020

For another light but slightly more in-depth introduction, you might enjoy Financial Statements by Thomas Ittelson. It uses running an applesauce factory as an ongoing example throughout the book. As a programmer with no accounting/finance background, I found it very easy to follow.

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jonahbentonJul 2020

The onramp for finance is accounting. There is no other right answer. This is also essential for general business administration.

Accounting is a huge topic; being able to read financial statements is a good, first tangible exercise.

Best book I have found for this is Thomas Ittelson, Financial Statements.

Using double-entry accounting methods for your own financials with a tool like Beancount is super helpful from a practice perspective, and appealing to an engineering mind:

http://furius.ca/beancount/

"Being able to level with CEOs and CFOs" is less about administering a business and more about being able to communicate with executives. This is essential for all technical people, whether or not they have management or executive ambitions themselves.

This also is a huge topic, I would suggest starting with concise definitions of what managing is, and what being an executive is about. When you understand the concerns of the people you are communicating with, you can do so more efficiently and effectively.

From a mindset perspective I would start with Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive, and since everyone is their own CEO, his book Managing Oneself is very valuable.

These are all classic texts, still valuable and relevant, as these topics are as old as the hills.

Good luck.

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narakJul 2020

If you don't want to go through thousand page textbooks on financial accounting, managerial accounting, and corporate finance, I recommend the following two short books to everyone:

1. Financial Statements, Thomas Ittelson - https://www.amazon.com/Financial-Statements-Rev-Thomas-Ittel...

2. Financial Intelligence, Karen Berman - https://www.amazon.com/Financial-Intelligence-Revised-Manage...

I've also found this website useful: https://www.accountingcoach.com/

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