Bare Naked Accounting

The difficulty with accounting is that it doesn't resemble anything in daily life. There is nothing you already know to hang your hat, or clothes, on. Although bank accounts, credit cards and debit cards are used all the time, the connection to accounting is not evident to bank clients. These terms refer to the bank's recording of their customers' cash activity. Accounting students often mix what they are learning about the terms Account, Debit and Credit with what they know about debit and credit cards. The result is confusion.

Accounting has the reputation of being a boring subject. This is not startling news. In movies and TV we see the handsome private detective or dashing action hero and the wimpy accountant. In more than one film the accountant is eventually bumped off. This caricature of accountants carries the perception that accounting is a subject and occupation to be avoided. Who wants to be a geek?

The reality is that every business, every not-for-profit company, every school, every church, every social club and every governmental agency needs accountants. Accounting is one of the top careers to choose from when deciding on an occupation. All individuals in the organization are affected by someone performing accounting functions. From the maintenance worker who receives a paycheck to the company president who is responsible for decisions affecting the entire company, there is an accountant providing service and information.

The down side is that accounting is difficult for many people to learn. I understand their struggle because I experienced the same bewilderment in my first accounting class. After several weeks, something finally clicked, the light went on and accounting finally made sense to me. But it took effort. It is not intuitive.

Text books give multiple explanations, problems, self-help questions, graphs, and still students struggle. Owners and managers of small businesses are no better. They buy off the shelf software that "Gets you up and running in fifteen minutes." They are off and running into accounting chaos.
Textbooks often provide information overload which hinders learning for students. Business owners try to save money by doing something they don't understand. This book is written to give these persons a quick start to learn accounting basics and understand financial statements. Only the bare naked facts about one subject are presented in each short, concise chapter. Once the basics are learned, dressing up with advanced techniques and procedures becomes easier.

Now it's time to strip down and start learning.