Business Analysis with Microsoft® Excel, Second Edition

Chapter 1. Working with Income Statements

In many ways, operating a business is like playing a game, and keeping track of your business is very similar to studying games such as baseball. Serious baseball fans know hundreds of statistics, such as batting averages and earned run averages. Similarly, if you are serious about your business, you need to be able to measure and understand the statistics that describe how your business operates. Accounting generally, and financial statements in particular, are the scorecards.

This chapter is not a treatise on accounting and finance, but it does describe tools that you can use to better understand certain financial aspects of operating your business. There are plenty of textbooks on the generally accepted ...