Schaum's Quick Guide to Business Formulas: 201 Decision-Making Tools for Business, Finance, and Accounting Students

The 201 tools contained in this small, highly useful book range from Acid Test (doing a quick ratio of financials) to Z-Scores. Each tool is listed alphabetically, its use explained, and instructions on how to use it is provided. What I particularly liked is the worked examples that accompany each tool.

As an IT consultant who specializes in service delivery this book is not one I would normally include in my professional library. I was introduced to it when a colleague and I were writing a white paper on recovery management. We were searching for a way to link business imperatives to justification for investment in recovery strategies. We found one piece of the puzzle in this book - the Altman Z-Score. This tool predicts whether or not a company is likely to enter into bankruptcy within one or two years. This led to the development of a copyrighted model that addressed survival level objectives, and also became a key part of the Tarrani-Zarate Information Technologies Management Model. All this from a single entry in a small book!

Aside from discovering a relatively obscure, but important, tool I also found other useful tools in this book. Because I am not a business consultant or financial expert the tools were like a cram course in financial management for non-financial people. For example, I was able to apply some of the tools to personal financial matters - the real costs of a loan become quickly apparent when you compute them. I was also able to employ some of the tools to conduct realistic cost/benefit analyses, examine trade-offs supporting approaches to projects, etc. In this respect this small book has significantly improved my professional skills and has inspired me to read other books on financial management.

I strongly recommend this book - collection of tools really - to anyone who deals with finance, anyone who has P&L responsibilities, and business and IT consultants. The latter group will find this book to be invaluable for developing proposals, deliverables and project plans that add value.


GREAT!   January 11, 2002
11 out of 11 found this review helpful

This book saved me through four accounting courses three finance courses and two real estate courses. It is well organized and easy to locate any formula that is needed.


Effective refresher ... Efficient reference   January 6, 2007
HMC (San Diego, CA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

I recommend this text to financial professionals I teach ... VERY helpful to clear the cobwebs several years after college!


Nice Handbook for Accounting students   February 20, 2007
Rav (USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

The book is a nice handbook for students majoring in Finance and Accounting students. It has all the necessary explanations of the formulas along with good examples.As a person with some exposure to Finance and Accounting,I found the book to be extremely useful for students and pros in this field.


Well Worth the Money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   February 22, 2010
A. Sparks (Atlanta, Ga)
I absolutely love this book. It is a must for any finance professional. I am a financial analyst and always find myself referring to this book as a quick reference during many projects. I don't think I can honestly work without it.