Accounting has been called the language of business. To be successful as a non-financial manager and in business in general you must understanding financial statements, the product of the financial accounting process, and the assumptions that underlie those financial statements. The more you understand the score and statistics of a football game, the better you can understand what happened, and the better you can predict what is likely to happen in the next game. Accounting serves the same function. This book provides you with the background and skills that you need as a non-financial manager so that financial statements will talk to you. You will discover that the language that financial statements speak is easy to understand and that the stories that financial statements tell are both fascinating and useful.