3 out of 4 stars
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I have a great interest in accounting, so I jumped at the chance to read and review Akshay Rajgor’s Understand Accounting Terms. I thought that it would be a great way to both review what I knew as well as learn something new. I downloaded this book and immediately began reading it.
Understand Accounting Terms clocks in at 118 pages and 12,764 words. And all 118 of those pages are packed full of helpful and relevant information about different accounting terms. In all, there were 401 accounting terms discussed in the book, from common terms (such as salaries and budgets) to very specific ones (such as liens, contra accounts, and float). And there were surprisingly few grammatical errors. The biggest things that I could find were a few missing parentheses and a couple of misspelled words. It is of quite high quality for a self-published book.
That being said, this book is a little dry. To a degree, that can be explained. After all, what accounting encyclopedia would not be dry? But the wording could be changed a little to make it more readable.
For example, the definition for ‘Time Deposit’ is: A savings account or certificate of deposit (cd) held for a fixed-term, with the understanding that the depositor can make a withdrawal only by giving notice. A time deposit is an interest-bearing bank deposit that has a specified date of maturity.
Now, this may be (and is) needed for those who want to go deep into accounting, to understand the exact meanings of terms. But this book in particular, especially the title and cover, gave the appearance of being a simple guide to help novices (like me) understand the basics of accounting. So I was a little (but not too much) disappointed by the ‘complexity’ of this book. Yes, I did learn a lot from it, but I believe that a simpler-to-read format would have let me learn even more, especially as a beginner.
Just one more thing. This book is given in a way that encourages you to read it from cover to cover. But this book would benefit people more as a reference book, to be opened when the reader comes across a term that he/she does not know. And this book lacks just one thing to make it a perfect reference book: a good table of contents. There is a table of contents, but it only gives chapters separated into the different letters (Letter A, Letter B, etc.) without hyperlinks.
Conclusion: In all of my reviews, including this one, I find that I tend to focus more on the few aspects that was wrong with the book, and expect others to realize that the rest of the book was perfect (or nearly so). But even as I read my own reviews, I see that I tend to come across slightly negative. So I want to emphasis to you, the reader, that other than the slight problems that I noted before, Understand Accounting Terms is a great book, and I recommend it highly.
Even with ‘only’ 401 accounting terms, it is an excellent resource for beginners. I officially give Understand Accounting Terms a 3 out of 4 star rating. For only $4 on Amazon, it is a great little book for those wanting to both go into accounting or to learn more about the basics of accounting.
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Understand Accounting Terms
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