The Top Financial Reporting Books, Rated and Reviewed for 2019
July 11, 2019
Our team has researched the best financial reporting books and ranked them by how much value they provide to finance leaders. The rankings are based on Amazon ratings, recency of publication, popularity, and accessibility. Rely on these resources to become an expert in financial reporting.
| Title | Author(s) | Description | Average Customer Review | Number of Reviews | Year of Publication | Rank in Amazon Best Sellers | Electronic Editions Available | Total Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial Intelligence, Revised Edition: A Manager’s Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean Revised, Expanded Edition | Karen Berman, Joe Knight | From its first edition forward, this book has been a must-read for decision makers who lack expertise in finance. It explains clearly what the numbers on financial reports actually mean and more importantly, why they matter. It teach the basics of finance to managers who need to use financial data to drive their business. It also addresses issues that have become even more important than ever, including questions around the financial crisis and those around broader financial and accounting literacy. | 4.5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4.7 |
| Financial Statements: A Step-by-Step Guide to Understanding and Creating Financial Reports | Thomas Ittelson | This revised and expanded second edition of Ittelson’s master work will give you that firm grasp of “the numbers” necessary for business success. It is a perfect introduction to financial accounting for non-financial managers, clearly and simply demonstrating how the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement work together to offer a “snapshot” of any company’s financial health. The book has been called “the clearest and most comprehensive introduction to financial reporting available.” | 4.5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 4.5 |
| The Model Thinker: What You Need to Know to Make Data Work for You | Scott E. Page | Data is everywhere, but the problem is that, for the most part, that data is not being used to its full potential. This book provides a toolkit for business people, students, scientists, pollsters, and bloggers to make them better, clearer thinkers, able to leverage data and information to their advantage. At its core is Page’s “many-model paradigm,” which shows the reader how to apply multiple models to organize the data, leading to wiser choices, more accurate predictions, and more robust designs. | 4.5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4.5 |
| Infonomics:How to Monetize, Manage, and Measure Information as an Asset for Competitive Advantage | Douglas B. Laney | Many senior executives talk about information as one of their most important assets, but few behave as if it is. They report to the board on the health of their workforce, their financials, their customers, and their partnerships, but rarely the health of their information assets. This book is designed to help chief data officers (CDOs) and other information and analytics leaders make their organizations more infosavvy. | 4.5 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 4.3 |
| Financial Planning & Analysis and Performance Management | Jack Alexander | With thought-provoking discussion and refreshing perspective, this book provides insightful reference for critical areas that directly impact an organization’s effectiveness. From budgeting and forecasting, analysis, and performance management, to financial communication, metrics, and benchmarking, these insights delve into the cornerstones of business and value drivers. Dashboards, graphs, and other visual aids illustrate complex concepts and provide reference at a glance, while the author’s experience as a CFO, educator, and general manager leads to comprehensive and practical analytical techniques for real world application. | 4.5 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4.1 |
| Financial Shenanigans, Fourth Edition: How to Detect Accounting Gimmicks and Fraud in Financial Reports | Howard M. Schilit, Jeremy Perler, Yoni Engleheart | A must-read for would-be investors, this book focuses on key case studies of financially fraudulent reporting and explores the latest methods companies use to mislead investors. Within its pages, you’ll learn what you need to know to unearth deceptive reporting and avoid costly mistakes. | 4.5 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Reading Financial Reports For Dummies | Lita Epstein | Especially relevant in today’s world of corporate scandals and new accounting laws, the numbers in a financial report contain vitally important information about where a company has been and where it is going. Packed with new and updated information, Reading Financial Reports For Dummies, 3rd Edition gives you a quick but clear introduction to financial reports—and how to decipher the information in them. | 4.5 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 3.9 |
| Storytelling With Data | Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic | This book teaches you the fundamentals of data visualization, a strong method for getting the sense of your financial data. It demonstrates how to go beyond conventional tools to reach the root of your data, and how to use your data to create an engaging, informative, compelling story. | 4.5 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 3.9 |
| Visual Finance: The One Page Visual Model to Understand Financial Statements and Make Better Business Decisions | George Tsvetanov | Visual Finance is a powerful, simple tool that you can learn in just a couple of hours and easily apply to real life. Over the past five years, this model has been used in thousands of “finance for non-financial managers” training sessions in more than 30 countries. Learn how to save your company from making costly mistakes and start maximizing all your valuable opportunities with this tool. | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Implementing an Analytics Culture for Data Driven Decisions: A Manifesto for Next Generation Finance | Jesper Hybholt Sorensen, Robert James Zwerling | This book describes how to build a culture of data driven decisions using analytics. It purports that Finance becomes the hub of analytics to partner with the business to deliver the insights and foresight that impact the strategic decisions. Creating a culture of data-driven decisions with analytics requires a roadmap to transform Finance to the World Class Strategic Partner. This book lays out that roadmap. | 5 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 3.4 |
| Financial Reporting: The Ultimate Guide to Creating Financial Reports and Performing Financial Analysis | Greg Shields | This book walks you through the primary documents that are included in a financial report and explains each one in turn. Not only will it explain what each report is, but it will also discuss how to assess the information and what it means. Then, it will show you basic examples of how to create each one without overcomplicating the process. | 4.5 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 3.3 |
| Optimize Growth: Predictive and Profitable Strategies to Understand Demand and Outsmart Your Competitors | Jason Green, Mark Hennerman, Dimitar Antov | A handbook for how to succeed in the age of big data, this book provides insightful guidance, real-world success stories, and practical tools to achieve growth in this new era, utilizing big data to achieve a deeper understanding of demand, customers, competitors, and opportunity. With disruption around every corner, growth now demands innovative new approaches and an improved capacity to meet customer needs. By gaining a stronger grasp of demand, businesses can elevate performance from “survive” to “thrive.” | 4.5 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 3.3 |
| Methods and Finance: A Unifying View on Finance, Mathematics and Philosophy | Emiliano Ippoliti, Ping Chen | The book offers an interdisciplinary perspective on finance, with a special focus on stock markets. It presents new methodologies for analyzing stock markets’ behavior and discusses theories and methods of finance from different angles, such as the mathematical, physical, and philosophical ones. The book, which aims at philosophers and economists alike, represents a rare yet important attempt to unify the externalist with the internalist conceptions of finance. | 5 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 3.2 |
| The Essentials of Financial Analysis | Samuel C. Weaver | The Essentials of Financial Analysis delivers practical, in-depth coverage on the key components of financial reporting, budgeting, and analysis to help you better relate to the numbers behind the business issues you face every day. By the time you turn the final page of this book, you will be able to command confident discussions on performance, investment, and other financial situations with members of your finance team and senior management. | 4.5 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 2.9 |
| Creative Cash Flow Reporting: Uncovering Sustainable Financial Performance | Eugene E. Comiskey, Charles W. Mulford | Creative Cash Flow Reporting and Analysis capitalizes on current concerns with misleading financial reporting. It identifies the common steps used to yield misleading cash flow amounts, demonstrates how to adjust the cash flow statement for more effective analysis, and how to use adjusted operating cash flow to uncover earnings that have been misreported using aggressive or fraudulent accounting practices. | 4.5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 2.9 |
| Guide to Financial Reporting and Analysis | Eugene E. Comiskey, Charles W. Mulford | Financial statements and related disclosures have become very complex. Guide to Financial Reporting and Analysis is designed to remedy this situation by offering practical, user-friendly guidance. Through the use of contemporary financial statement examples, extant generally accepted accounting principles are explained and their application is demonstrated. | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 2.4 |
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