Accounting and Recordkeeping Made Easy for the Self-Employed

Each year, thousands of hardworking people watch their dreams of successful self-employment go up in smoke because of poor paper management. That's right, one of the main reasons why so many businesses fold nowadays is because their owners never learned how to properly manage their paperwork or keep accurate financial records. Now there's a way to guarantee that your business doesn't get plowed under by an avalanche of complicated paperwork or hurt by inconsistent financial recordkeeping. It's Accounting and Recordkeeping Made Easy for the Self-Employed.

In this new guide written just for the self-employed, business consultant and renowned seminar leader Jack Fox, shows you how to painlessly?and inexpensively?set up and maintain easy-to-follow recordkeeping and accounting systems in your business, whether it's service or manufacturing oriented. Based on his many years of consulting in this area and his own personal experiences, Fox clearly and concisely:

• Arms you with cutting-edge techniques for managing all the financial, clerical, and analytical aspects of running a home-based business
• Describes the latest recordkeeping and accounting software and shows you how to integrate it into your day-to-day operations
• Demystifies accounting and walks you through accounting skills and operations, including accounts receivable, invoicing, and creating and analyzing profit and loss statements
• Provides practical solutions to the most common financial and recordkeeping problems the self-employed face
• Supplies you with numerous case studies, usable worksheets, and sample forms

You don't need to hire an expensive efficiency consultant because Jack Fox shows you how to manage your business in his simple, straightforward system.

The other half deals with the organization and structure of accounting. I found the first chapter on getting organized particularly helpful. There is also a chapter on dealing with the IRS as a self-employed individual. The remaining few chapters address accounting and bookkeeping.

The accounting information is very good for anyone who knows very little about accounting. However, I found the same level of detail and instruction at the Small Business Administration website. I was hoping to find a little bit more of a how-to guide to setting up my business' accounting structure.

This book is an overview of all the recordkeeping issues that a self-employed person should be concerned with. However, it just didn't give me enough detail to feel secure that I was making the right decisions for my particular type of business. I just may have to use an accountant or tax attorney to get that.

I checked this book out from the library, but I wouldn't purchase it. It just doesn't have the longevity of advice that a true reference book would offer.


Clarifies accounting the way wheat is separated from chaff   July 23, 1999
7 out of 12 found this review helpful

Written for business people who want to be accounting and computerized accounting systems literate. No longer does one have to be in awe of the professionals who spout jargon and keep the business person dependent on their supposed expertise. This book represents liberation for the formerly fiscally challenged.


It makes accounting understandable and business easy!   July 20, 1999
3 out of 6 found this review helpful

Mr. Fox has a great understanding of the profession and was able to make good sense of a subject that is hard to understand.


Well written but miss titled   July 9, 1998
27 out of 30 found this review helpful

I felt the book was well written and he does know his stuff.... but the book was more about the history of computers than a book to learn Accounting principals, which is what I thought I had bought:( What he does write about he does well and you will learn from it A more appropriate title might be "The History of Computers and Chips" with a touch of "Accounting"