Whether you’re a small business owner or just want to understand your 401(k) statements, a basic understanding of accounting practices is important for anyone who handles money. Knowing how to balance the books and stay in the black is vital for keeping a business afloat or keeping your checkbook balanced.

If you need to keep the books in order, this new edition of Accounting For Dummies helps you get a handle on all those columns of numbers. It offers fully up-to-date coverage of accounting basics and includes all the tools and tips you need to:

Make sense of bookkeeping basics
Read a financial statement
Manage budgets for a better bottom line
Analyze business strengths and weaknesses
Evaluate accounting methods and business structures
John Tracy, Certified Public Accountant and former professor of accounting, presents everything you need to know to master modern accounting. Packed with practical guidance and real-world scenarios, this handy guide covers it all:

Making and reporting profit
Reporting a company’s financial condition
Preparing financial reports
Budgeting profit and cash flow
Choosing and implementing accounting methods
How to read a financial report
Audits, accounting fraud, and audit failure
How to decipher accounting jargon
And savvy ways businesses use accounting
From balance sheets, to income statements, to inventory, almost every aspect of modern business requires basic accounting techniques. You’ll learn it all here. Plus, this new edition covers the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, recent accounting fraud scandals, the establishment of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and the new financial reporting standards for stock options and financial derivatives.