If you were building a house, would you hire an architect, give her some money and say, “Build me a house?” If you did, the house might end up on the front cover of an architectural magazine, but it might not be a house you would want to live in. I suggest you might benefit from learning a bit about architecture before building a house so that you could work with the architect to build the house you want to live in. Any time you hire a professional, it is best to have a basic understanding of what the professional does so you can tell the professional what you want them to do. If you are managing a firm, investing in a firm, lending to a firm, or even working for a firm, you should be able to read the firm’s financial statements and ask questions based on those statements.
This book examines some of the more advanced topics in accounting. As such, it assumes the reader already has some familiarity with basic accounting. (If not, a related book covering the basics of accounting is Accounting for Fun and Profit: A Guide to Understanding Financial Statements.) Many accountants would benefit from reading this book to improve their understanding of why they are doing what they do, and to help them better explain accounting. However, the book is designed and meant for nonaccountants (i.e., those who hire accountants).
The book takes the perspective of a user of financial information and therefore limits its coverage of some of the technical aspects. The book is meant to explain what an accountant means when she uses certain terms, how the user of financial statements should interpret the accounting techniques presented, and help the user conduct in-depth analyses of annual reports.
Hopefully this book shows that accounting, even the advanced topics, can be fun and informative, or at least that it is not as painful as you may fear.