In creating this book, I have tried to combine a fictitious, humorous, engaging story with academic accountancy learning - on the face of it a seemingly impossible task. It is a novel with as its base a guy called Jack who develops a business and along the way encounters various characters including a vicious Slovenian money-laundering drug dealer and his henchmen, an undercover police sting operation, various slapstick comedy situations in restaurants and a developing love affair with his accountant, Ashna. The teaching is done by Jack asking questions about his business and Ashna answers them with a full exposition of the topics, including a worked example. The chapters are all broken down into discreet topics covering both financial and management accounting techniques and many of the topics have further learning developed in the appendices where there are also extra questions and answers taking the learning a little further on from the main text. The book is clearly structured in the following chapters, all linked through a developing fictional and humorous storyline. Chapters 1. Scenario overview, 2. The income statement, 3. Accounting concepts and cost categories 4. The balance sheet, 5. Depreciation, 6. Double entry book-keeping, 7. Limited companies, 8. Interpreting accounts through ratios, 9. Statement of cash flows, 10. Sources of finance, 11. Absorption costing, 12. Marginal costing & decision-making, 13. Planning and control through budgets, 14. Cash flow forecasting, 15. Capex appraisal techniques, 16. Epilogue, 17. Appendices part 1 - notes, 18. Appendices part 2 - questions, 19. Appendices part 2 - answers, 20. Glossary of terms. It is great fun for both an introduction to accounting and finance techniques and also for reviewing topics long forgotten. The target audience is any student encountering finance and accounting for the first time although principally it is aimed at the following groups: University or College First Year Business Studies Students University or College First Year Accounting & Finance Students HND & HNC students Students undertaking a Business or Combined Business Foundation degree Entrepreneurs or budding entrepreneurs who have ideas of running their own business"