Overview
Main description
J. Fred Weston provides managers and executives with the information they need to understand essential accounting principles, from vocabulary and financial statements to cash flow and valuation. Covering balance sheets, income statements, reporting measures, and even essential ratios, this practical, in-depth book provides a one-stop, reference for all aspects of finance and accounting, and will help managers take essential steps toward making informed decisions based on the numbers they face every business day.
Table of contents
Part One: Accounting and Finance Fundamentals. Chapter 1: The Role and Functions of Accounting and Finance. Chapter 2: Financial Statements and Cash Flows. Chapter 3: The Time Value of Money. Chapter 4: Financial Markets and Market Efficiency. Chapter 5: Business Organization and Taxes. Chapter 6: Interest Rates in the International Economy. Part Two: Financial Planning and Control. Chapter 7: Financial Performance Metrics. Chapter 8: Financial Working Capital Management. Part Three: Investment and Financing Strategies. Chapter 9: Capital Investment Decisions. Chapter 10: Cost of Capital, Hurdle Rates, and Financial Structure. Chapter 11: Long-Term Financing.
Author comments
Samuel C. Weaver, Ph.D., is associate professor of finance at Lehigh University, where he formerly served as the Theodore A. Lauer Adjunct Professor of Finance. He spent 20 years as an executive with Hershey Foods Corporation, serving in various capacities, including director, financial planning and analysis. He received his Ph.D. degree in Finance and Economics from Lehigh University in 1985. Dr. Weaver serves on the Board of Trustees of the Financial Management Association and was on the Board of Editors of Financial Practice and Education and Financial Management Collection. In 1999, he received the Lehigh MBA Excellence in Teaching award.
J. Fred Weston, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus Recalled of Managerial Economics and Finance at the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, where, since 1968, he has been Director of the UCLA Research Program on Takeovers and Restructuring. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Chicago in 1948. Dr. Weston has served as president of the American Finance Association, president of the Western Economic Association, president of the Financial Management Association, and member of the American Economic U.S. Census Advisory Committee. He has been selected as a fellow of the American Finance Association, of the Financial Management Association, and of the National Association of Business Economists, and published 147 journal articles and 31 books, including Managerial Finance, Public Policy Toward Mergers and The Art of M&A Financing and Refinancing.
Back cover copy
The McGraw-Hill Executive MBA Series
A One-Volume, MBA-Level Course for Makingand UnderstandingCritical Financial Decisions
As a manager, each decision you make has financial implications. Finance and Accounting for Nonfinancial Managers will help you understand exactly what those implications are andby giving you a practical, in-depth introduction to the key elements of financial reporting, budgeting, and analysishelp you relate to the numbers you face every day.
More than a skim-the-surface primer, this unique book is a comprehensive guide to the essential, day-to-day aspects of finance and accounting. From key terminology to dynamic strategies for increasing a firm's value, it explains everything you need to know about:
- Financial reporting
- Budgeting
- Balance sheets
- Income statements
- Regulations
- Ratios
- Cash flow areas: operations, investing, and financing
- Performance measures
Your career success depends on your ability to understandand act uponbasic financial principles. Let Finance and Accounting for Nonfinancial Managers take you inside the numbers, and give you a stronger idea of where your firm has been, where it is going, and how you can help it get there.
Look to the McGraw-Hill Executive MBA Series for straight-talking, technique-filled books, written by front-line executive education professors and modeled after the programs of top business schools. Other titles in the series include:
- Sales Management
- Mergers & Restructuring
- Corporate Strategy
Revenues, costs, ratios, valuations, performance measuresthe world of business is built on a foundation of numbers. As a professional manager, you must make critical decisions based on these numbers, decisions that sometimes leave you uneasy because you may not have the training or background to completely understand what they mean.
Finance and Accounting for Nonfinancial Managers helps non-financial managers make financial decisions with confidence. This hands-on book details the strategies, elements, and instruction found in today's finest business schools and executive education seminars, then outlines a step-by-step model for understanding and acting on the numbers that come across your desk. CEOs, CIOs, COOs, and non-financial managers can use its proven formulas for success, case studies, exercises, charts, checklists, and quizzes to discover:
- How to use balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements to spotlight your company's weaker areasand improve its financial efficiencies
- Basic concepts of the "time value of money"essential in understanding growth, value, and the calculation of value
- Methods for selecting which financial markets, intermediaries, and instruments will best suit the financing needs of your firm
- Key tax laws and regulations, and how they impact your firm's overall fiscal strength and performance
- How to make capital investment decisions that more effectively contribute to a firm's health and growth as they enhance shareholder value
- Factors for establishing dividend and share repurchase policies that serve to increase shareholder value
- Strategies for pursuing growthincluding M&As, joint ventures, restructuring, recapitalizations, and numerous others
Look at any company's financials, and you'll get detailsdetails of why and how it succeeded or, in many cases, details of how knowledgeable managers could have sidestepped disaster. Let Finance and Accounting for Nonfinancial Managers show you how to understand those details, and use that understanding and knowledge as a tool to shore up your company's foundation as you strengthen its ability to stretch for new successes in the 21st century.
