The numbers, for people who did not train as accountants
Most owners run their business on a bank balance and a feeling. That works until it doesn't — usually at the point where growth starts consuming cash faster than it generates it, which is precisely when it looks like things are going well.
The books here explain the numbers side without assuming you want to become an accountant. The core of it is a small amount of genuinely important material: the difference between profit and cash, what your gross margin is really telling you, how working capital swallows money as you grow, and what a lender or a buyer looks at.
That is a short list, and it is worth over-learning. Most owners who get into difficulty were not short of information — the figures were in the software the whole time. They were short of the habit of looking, and of knowing which two or three numbers mattered.
If you only ever read one book from this shelf, read it before you take on borrowing rather than after.
