"Fantastic Learning Tool...Don't let this book title fool you. It is not an oversimplification of accounting and financial principles. It is, however, a serious and very effective examination of a very small but progressively complex business. There are not many books available on the market that make a complex and dry subject understandable and even fun. This book successfully does just that."
-Amazon Reviewer
The Clearest Explanation Ever of the Key Accounting Basics
The world of accounting can be intimidating. Whether you're a manager, business owner or aspiring entrepreneur, you've likely found yourself needing to know basic accounting...but baffled by complicated accounting books. What if learning accounting could be as simple and fun as running a child's lemonade stand? It can.
The Accounting Game presents financial information in a format so simple and so unlike a common accounting textbook, you may forget you're learning key skills that will help you get ahead! Using the world of a child's lemonade stand to teach the basics of managing your finances, this book makes a dry subject fun and understandable. As you run your stand, you'll begin to understand and apply financial terms and concepts like assets, liabilities, earnings, inventory and notes payable, plus:
--Interactive format gives you hands-on experience
--Color-coded charts and worksheets help you remember key terms
--Step-by-step process takes you from novice to expert with ease
--Fun story format speeds retention of essential concepts
--Designed to apply what you learn to the real world
The revolutionary approach of The Accounting Game takes the difficult subjects of accounting and business finance and makes them something you can easily learn, understand, remember and use!
"The game approach makes the subject matter most understandable. I highly recommend it to anyone frightened by either numbers or accountants."
-John Hernandis, Director of Corporate Communications, American Greetings
from the Introduction
The Accounting Game is written in a way that creates a specific learning experience for you as it teaches you the basic skills of accounting. We call the learning method accelerative learning. What do you think that means? It is a learning methodology that uses all of your senses as well as your emotions and your critical thinking skills. If you can remember your kindergarten or elementary school classrooms, you will see many colored maps, letters and numbers, bold (even raw) drawings by each child, etc. You learned the alphabet by singing. You learned the multiplication tables by saying them out loud with each other. You laughed a lot. You were creative.
Then, how you were taught began to change when you entered middle school or high school. Learning became more lecture, more black and white, more rote. You studied before tests and probably did well or maybe not. Yet, for all the endless homework and "cramming," most of the information you learned in high school you don't remember now. That's because it went into your short-term memory so that you could pass the tests and move on to the next grade.
Yet, look at all the things you remember from early childhood! While in elementary school, much of the information you learned went directly to your long-term memory, because it was peppered with music, color, movement, smells, emotional experiences and lots of play and fun.
The methodology we use in this book in many ways parallels how you learned in grade school. We do this by accessing the part of your brain where long-term memory lives. Now, the way to reach your long-term memory has to include emotion, because they reside in the same place in your brain--the limbic region.
The truth is, because of the way we humans learn, we have to discover something ourselves to really learn it. This book, based on Educational Discoveries' flagship seminar, is designed so you make dozens of discoveries. In short, you will learn a college semester's worth of accounting in the time it takes you to interact with this book.
This is quite a reversal, because business people and students have over the years found the subject of accounting quite difficult to master. Many have simply given up in frustration, others have decided to leave accounting to the "experts." This book is for all of you who have hated accounting, had difficulty learning it or ever thought you didn't really "get it."
We think that most attempts to teach accounting fail because of too much attention to details and a failure to present the big picture framework of how it all works and fits together. In this book, we promise not to overburden you with details and to focus on what are really the key concepts of accounting that any businessperson needs to know.
You will learn the structure and purpose of the three primary financial statements--the balance sheet, the income statement and the cash flow statement. You will learn how these fit together and their interrelationships. You will also learn the basic language of business--concepts like cost of goods sold, expenses, bad debts, accrual vs. cash methods of accounting, FIFO and LIFO, capitalizing vs. expensing, depreciation and the difference between cash and profit.
Our promise is that you will get all this information in a fun and easy way that allows you to participate, interact and discover all that you need to know. Many people need to have understanding and confidence in working with financial concepts, but are not ever going to be doing accounting details. If that is you, then this book fits that need, too. It is set up so that you can actually do financial statements as you are learning them. We invite you to "play the game" as you interact with this book.
Understanding all this information is nice, but what do you do with it? The final chapter will give you some tools for analyzing financial information and making better decisions for your company and your career.
About the Author
For the past 25 years, Judith Orloff has been helping people transform their lives through self-awareness and education. Among her most significant accomplishments is the founding of the Burlington College in Vermont, where she also created a B.A. program in Transpersonal Psychology. In addition, Orloff is the founder of Educational Discoveries, Inc., which not only produces The Accounting Game, but also is the training industry leader in accelerative learning and instructional design. EDI's The Accounting Game is the most successful financial seminar in the world, with over 100,000 graduates.
For the past decade, Darrell Mullis, the Director of Training and Development at Educational Discoveries, has taught EDI's learning technology and developed a training program for its trainers. Mullis has also taught over 300 of the phenomenally successful Accounting Game seminars to thousands of Americans. Mullis lives with his four daughters in Louisville, Colorado.
Product Details :
- Paperback: 179 pages
- Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.; Revised edition (April 18, 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1402211864
- ISBN-13: 978-1402211867
- Product Dimensions: 0.5 x 8.3 x 10.5 inches
More Details about The Accounting Game: Basic Accounting Fresh from the Lemonade Stand, Revised edition
