Accounting and Finance (Coursebook)

Was used : highlighted.

This book is meant to be an introduction to accounting and finance for lawyers. I liked the finance section very much, especially the part about present value and future value of money. However, the accounting portion is simplistic, and sometimes even wrong. They define revenue as "increases in equity" and expenses as "decreases in equity." As someone familiar with accounting, these terms are not accurate. Revenue is sales, or money coming in from customers, expenses are monies used to develop, sell, and manage the selling process. Equity has no part in these definitions, and in fact, is downright confusing because equity does come into play, but only once the income statement has been closed out after an accounting period. These instances of linguistic slippage are problematic and will confuse a new student of this subject. If I was in business and a lawyer started using these formalistic definitions, I would think twice about using their services. I would recommend Financial Statements by Thomas R. Ittelson as a much better introduction to accounting.