Book Review: Your Bookkeeping Stinks by Scott Gregory, CPA

Title: Your Bookkeeping Stinks! Why It's Killing Your Business & Wrecking Your Plans for Retirement
Author: Scott Gregory
Formats: PDF (ebook) Paperback
Pages: 60



Your Bookkeeping Stinks! provides 60 pages of commonsense advice for small business owners and the otherwise self-employed. Scott Gregory, CPA addresses 21 common accounting and bookkeeping mistakes or "stinkers" made by well intentioned small business owners and self-employed service providers. He discusses the need to seek professional bookkeeping, accounting and payroll assistance unless such expertise is already part of your repetoire of experience or that of an employee. He dispells the misconception that its necessary to go to the expense of employing such assistance on a full time basis; depending on the size of your enterprise, a quaterly or semi-annual basis check-up could be sufficient.

Each "stinker" is clearly stated and explained using real world examples. Gregory also provides solutions to each stinker, such as shoebox recordkeeping--develop a filing system, allowing your computer guy to setup your bookkeeping database--don't do it; get help from a professional accountant or bookkeeper and not backing-up/updating such records on a regular basis--make it part of your schedule. He also provides some helpful checklists in the form of appendices at the end of the book.

This book is a quick read and a good overview for those new to the accounting side of working for themselves, as well as the old pros, who need to do some maintenance work on the financial transaction applications and records part of their business. Gregory lets his readers know that they don't have to endure the burden of past financial trangressions; they can clean up their filing and records systems and look forward to a more manageable financial future.

I would have liked more detailed answers in the solutions offered at the end of each section. I also would have liked a listing of resources. For example, a listing of additional reading materials and online resources would have been very helpful as readers seek ways to apply the solutions provided by Gregory.

Overall, I would recommend this book to those trying to gain a better understanding of accounting and bookkeeping. It's a quick non-intimidating read which addresses a topic that many find a bit overwhelming and thus, don't approach efficiently or effectively. In short, Your Bookkeeping Stinks! is a good way to start airing out your office.

Get Your Copy of Your Bookkeeping Stinks!

D.M.H.