Accounting is the score keeping system in the “game” of business, and you won’t do well in any “game” if you don’t understand how the score is kept. If you’re a practicing manager, MBA student, or a non-accounting business major, this book will do more than help you stay in the game. Inside, United States financial reporting standards are compared and contrasted with international financial reporting standards, and the author details how management’s choice of accounting methods and their required estimates in reporting transactions and events impact financial statements, both immediately and in the future. Unlike typical accounting books, journal entries are not used to illustrate topical coverage. This unique book exclusively provides you with a decision-making perspective by using the accounting equation format to directly illustrate financial statement effects of transactions and events. Most of the topics addressed in this book are typically studied by accounting majors in the two course “intermediate” accounting sequence, but the text also includes discussion of consolidations—a topic generally covered in the “advanced” accounting course. Intermediate accounting textbooks alone typically exceed well over 1,500 pages. By exclusively applying a user’s perspective, and limiting topical content to areas relevant for decision making, this book allows non-accountants to acquire the requisite underlying knowledge in a concise, easy to understand text.