| Preface | ix |
| 1. | Your Credibility | 1 |
| It's Absolute and Definite (Maybe) | 1 |
| A Few Definitions | 3 |
| Why Is This Important to Me? | 4 |
| A Short True-False Quiz | 5 |
| Reality and Perception | 6 |
| The Numbers Control Us | 7 |
| Will the Auditors Protect Us? | 8 |
| I Thought This Was a Math Book | 9 |
| 2. | Figures Never Lie, but Liars Figure | 11 |
| It's Absolute and Definite (Maybe), Part II | 11 |
| Is "Actual" Actually "Actual"? | 12 |
| Accounting Basics | 13 |
| The Chart of Accounts | 14 |
| Debits and Credits | 15 |
| Journals and Double Entry | 17 |
| The Two-Phase Transaction | 19 |
| Sales and Expenses | 19 |
| Revenue, Sales, and Income | 21 |
| It's an Accrual, Accrual World | 21 |
| 3. | Making a (Financial) Statement | 23 |
| How Are We Doing? | 23 |
| The Balance Sheet | 24 |
| The Income Statement | 27 |
| Fiscal Years | 30 |
| 4. | Organizations, Measurement, and Standards | 33 |
| How Are You Doing? | 33 |
| What Are We, Anyway? | 33 |
| Different Purposes, Different Rulers | 35 |
| Percentage of What? | 37 |
| The Pitfalls of Precision | 38 |
| Why Are We Looking Here? | 38 |
| The Unseen Costs of Saving Money | 39 |
| Too High? Too Low? What Standard? | 40 |
| 5. | An Economics Excursion | 43 |
| Economics, Science, Markets, and Demand | 43 |
| Utility Is Not Just Gas | 44 |
| The Economists' Curves | 44 |
| Marketing and Elasticity | 47 |
| 6. | Pricing and Profitability | 49 |
| Pricing: Theory and Practice | 49 |
| A True-False Quiz on Pricing | 50 |
| What a "Price" Really Is | 50 |
| There's More Than Price Involved in Price | 51 |
| A Small Digression on Quality | 52 |
| Price Versus Cost | 52 |
| Markups and Breakeven | 53 |
| Sensitive Pricing for Profit | 56 |
| Marginal Revenue | 58 |
| What is the Company's Objective? | 59 |
| Pricing Policies You Should Have | 61 |
| Pricing of Services | 63 |
| 7. | Costs and Profitability | 65 |
| Costs, Real and Imagined | 65 |
| Variable, Fixed, and Somewhere in Between | 66 |
| Cost Allocation | 67 |
| Why a Toilet Seat Costs $600 | 71 |
| Direct and Indirect Costs, or, Over Whose Head? | 74 |
| Is Overhead a Burden? | 75 |
| Sunk and Avoidable Costs | 75 |
| Out-of-Pocket Costs | 76 |
| Marginal Costs | 77 |
| Inventory and Stockturn | 78 |
| LIFO and FIFO | 81 |
| A Cost Control Fallacy | 81 |
| Fun with Depreciation and Amortization | 82 |
| Can We Really Measure Advertising Costs? | 83 |
| 8. | Strategy: Breakeven and Profitability | 85 |
| Profit Is Why We're Here | 85 |
| Sales and Profits | 86 |
| Breaking Even | 86 |
| Fixed Costs and Profitability | 88 |
| Must Everything Break Even? | 90 |
| 9. | Cash | 93 |
| Cash Flow | 93 |
| Source and Use of Funds | 94 |
| Sources of Funds | 94 |
| Application of Funds | 96 |
| Receivables and Payables: A/R and A/P | 97 |
| Cash Flows and Cash Gaps | 98 |
| Net Present Value | 100 |
| 10. | Budgets | 101 |
| What Is a Budget? | 101 |
| Basis for Budgets: Last Year, Percentage, or Zero? | 102 |
| The Fantasy Factor | 103 |
| Cost Fudge and Revenue Cotton Candy | 104 |
| Don't Just Divide By 12 | 105 |
| Revenues and Strategy | 106 |
| 11. | Just Look at the "Sadistics" | 109 |
| Mean Stuff and Deviations | 109 |
| That Average Just Moved! | 112 |
| A Few Final Words | 113 |
| Appendix A | A Summary of Nonmagic Formulae | 115 |
| Operations Formulas | 116 |
| Profitability Formulas | 119 |
| Financial Ratios | 120 |
| Marketing Ratios | 123 |
| Appendix B | Sample Chart of Accounts | 125 |
| About the Author | 128 |
Format: Paperback, 160 pages
