As an owner of a business or a manager, you will deal with numbers of various types. This book is written for those who may be responsible for, or are generally interested in, the activities of organizations but do not have the knowledge to interpret the financial information that is available.

The book identifies the types of organizations that generate financial information and explains how you can use it for your benefit. The early chapters focus on the information that is publicly available for large companies and demonstrate how to select and analyze the figures for decision making. The later chapters concentrate on the detailed management accounting information that is available internally for managers so that they can make decisions, investigate problems, and set performance targets. The final chapter, explores emerging and very pertinent issues such as "Can the organization obtain the basic resources to stay in business?" and "Are its activities harmful to the environment?"