New to accounting -- book recommendations?

General
1

New to plain text accounting and also to (personal) accounting in general. I have read ledger’s info/manpages in my debian OS, but I am still lacking the grasp of the concepts and terms. Looking for entry level, not-too-thick book recommendations on this topic (personal double-entry accounting, financial planning, etc.).

I asked an LLM for recmomendations:

1. Accounting Made Simple by Mike Piper

2. The Accounting Game: Basic Accounting Fresh from the Lemonade Stand by Darrell Mullis

3. Accounting for Non-Accountants by Wayne Label

anybody recognize any of these? Or share starter-level books that made you understanding accounting concepts.

1 Like
2

for the PTA stuff, https://plaintextaccounting.org/#accounting-basics and https://plaintextaccounting.org/#intros may be helpful ? There's a Ledger-based online booklet there.

1 Like
3

Here are some books I've come across:

Great for inspiration:

These are good:

  • Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance, Jane Gleeson-White
  • Accounting Savvy for Business Owners: A Guide to the Bare Essentials, Philip B. Goodman

These look very thorough/useful but I haven't got far with them:

  • Financial Accounting, J. David Spicer
  • Tax Savvy For Small Business: A Complete Tax Strategy Guide, Stephen Fishman

Investing:

  • The Simple Path To Wealth, JL Collins - excellent

Cryptocurrency:

  • The Bitcoin Standard, Saifdean Ammous - educational
1 Like
4

I've got The Accounting Game: Basic Accounting fresh from the lemonade stand and it was helpful when I first opened my business and set up my books. You might find that one at your local library. It's a quick read, helpful but not something I've wanted to re-read, if that makes sense.

I also found an older textbook in a Free Little Library called "Basic Bookkeeping: An Office Simulation" by Brooke C. W. Barker. 6th edition, Nelson Education. It's ~300 pages and is Canadian in scope. It's pretty decent. Must be for a community-college level bookkeeping certificate or similar. What was useful about this is the examples are all done on paper, so made it easy for me to translate to PTA methods.

Not sure where you're located, but you might want to see what your local community college uses for an introductory textbook, so it lines up with your tax system, etc.

The books that helped me the most avoided software and got right back to basics, explaining T accounts, double entry and the accounting equation. Then the slight shift to PTA methods in the link Simon shared above (#accounting-basics) makes a lot of sense. If it makes sense on paper, then it makes sense in PTA (at least that's how my brain is wired)

PS - Your Money or Your Life is a book that I read 30 years ago and re-read every few years. It was life changing for me. Highly recommended. As was mentioned, great for inspiration PLUS a reminder of why we're doing all this tracking in the first place! :slight_smile:

2 Likes
5

That was good to hear @madbaker. I believe this was another one I did not finish / did not do all that it advised! But I remember it being very impactful, and it's what finally inspired me to get serious about tracking my finances. I should reread it.