Financial Intelligence: A Manager’s Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean by Karen Berman, John Case and Joe Knight
Release Date: January 1, 2006
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Genre: Non Fiction
Pages: 272
Source: Purchased
Challenge: 100 Books in 2013

Companies expect managers to use financial data to allocate resources and run their departments. But many managers can’t read a balance sheet, wouldn’t recognize a liquidity ratio, don’t know how to calculate return on investment. Worse, they don’t have any idea where the numbers come from or how reliable they really are. In Financial Intelligence, Karen Berman and Joe Knight teach the basics of finance-but with a twist. Financial reporting, they argue, is as much art as science. Because nobody can quantify everything, accountants always rely on estimates, assumptions, and judgement calls. Savvy managers need to know how those sources of possible bias can affect the financials and that sometimes the numbers can be challenged. While providing the foundation for a deep understanding of the financial side of business, the book also arms managers with practical strategies for improving their companies’ performance-strategies, such as “managing the balance sheet,” that are well understood by financial professionals but rarely shared with their non financial colleagues. Accessible, jargon-free, and filled with entertaining stories of real companies, Financial Intelligence gives non financial managers the financial knowledge and confidence for their everyday work. Karen Berman and Joe Knight are the owners of the Los Angeles based Business Literacy Institute and have trained tens of thousands of managers at many leading organizations. Co-Author John Case has written several popular books on management.

Even though I went to school for business there was always topics we didn’t get to spend quite enough time on so when we purchased a business I wanted to read as much as I could to help in this endeavor.

This book was exceptional and would be recommended reading no matter what position you hold in the company.

Everyone who reads this book will gain a new perspective on the financial position of the company as well as being able to help the company grow to to their full potential.