The Accounting Game: Basic Accounting Fresh from the Lemonade Stand by Darrell Mullis, Sourcebooks by Darrell Mullis

The Accounting Game: Basic Accounting Fresh from the Lemonade Stand by Darrell Mullis, Sourcebooks Reviews

• 
  Karen Chung

  This book is a great introduction to how accounting works, especially for those of us who are really just not that crazy about numbers, calculations, and the nuts and bolts of money matters - but who may be involved in a business startup.
  
  I finished the book without doing the exercises - which usually means you haven't learned the material thoroughly - and do plan to reread it a second time, doing the exercises this time. The first reading was good for getting to know basic principles, like the difference between the accrual vs. cash method of accounting, and which is appropriate for what kind of business; the difference between an income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement; and how straight line vs. double declining depreciation works, and when you use which.
  
  The one thing to be aware of is that at the end, you'll be told that you've just learned about only one of the "three crucial bottom lines needed to measure the health of a business." If you want to know about the other two, plus the "six crucial drivers" of the three bottom lines, and that you should sign up for a workshop by calling an 800 number. You suddenly feel like all this time you were just being set up for an ad at the end. But the book is still a great resource and probably one of the most accessible entrance points to accounting around - so I recommend it highly.
• 
  Caleb Rogers

  A good starter book for anybody interested in basic accounting. Teaches how to read the three basic accounting sheets using a Lemonade Stand example.
  
  You literally can't not understand this book. It is so simple I'm sure a ten year old would grasp its contents. At times it can get a bit silly and repetitive with it's question-answer format, but its short, and you WILL grasp these concepts after reading.
  
  I got it on kindle, which probably isn't effective because it has you constantly updating little balance sheets as you go through. Not really necessary, I still understood, but I bet my long term memory would be a lot better if I had the physical book to fill in the accounting forms in. Maybe you can download the forms somewhere?
  
  Long story short, this thing will take you 3 days max to finish. Read it and understand how money works in business.
• 
  ravhen

  Learned a lot!
• 
  Bibiduck

  I hate accounting because I failed this subject when undergraduate. But this book is so vivid that pull me back. I am now reading it the second time.
• 
  Dmitry

  Rather nice begginner-level introduction into balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement and a small array of other accounting-related things. Easy to read, lots of examples.
• 
  Ale Chávez

  Aprendí muchísimo me encantó
• 
  Gleb Posobin

  Perfect book for its goal: a quick intro to basics of accounting. I learned a lot. Filling out a bunch of balance sheets, income and cash flow statements was fun!
• 
  Rohit Patel

  Have no clue what accounting is? Then this book is for you. The book covers the fundamentals of accounting in an unconventional manner, by using examples that even a 10 year old would get. By the end, you would have a decent understanding of all the basic terms of accounting that you would have heard like balance sheet, income statement, cash Statement and would hopefully not find yourself blank while reading more comprehensive books on accounting.
• 
  Ruth Mini

  I loved this book. It made accounting so simple to understand. I am horrible with math and this book was really helpful.
• 
  Ingrid

  A. MUST. READ. FOR. EVERYONE.
  
  As a clueless teenager and prospective undergrad student invested in my financial education, I picked up this book with low expectations. How I underestimated this book so much. Usually I'd skip past books like these with comic-sans font and "kid-friendly" sesame colors--under the impression that while these books generally had good intentions of explaining complex concepts, they only watered it down to simplex and useless jargon--I saw so many 5 star community reviews (and really I had no right to judge) that I finally said to myself, "Why not give this (free) ebook a go?" And I did.
  
  Right from the start, the authors drove their pitch home. They educate you through the story of a boy (you, the protagonist) who is opening [your] very first lemonade stand business over the summer. Here and there, they weave in scenarios in this 'story' where you're forced to encounter new concepts---concepts about accounting. Within hours, I had a solid grasp on concepts like balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements, FIFO and LIFO records, and accrual vs cash accounting. You'll be amazed at the volume of words and ideas you've absorbed at the end of this book. Seriously, if you're a sucker who has the attention span of a pinto bean, you CAN---no--WILL read this book in 3 days, tops!
  
  I would recommend reading this book in paperback rather than online though. It makes the experience that much more fun, and easy considering you don't have to do any math in your head. And proudly wave this book with your 'Accounting Game Diploma' in the air when you have!
  
  
• 
  Aishwarya Khanna

  What was I thinking trying to learn about numbers? Well, not very much. I didn't have many hopes. But this book blew me away. I thought I would write a big bad review at the end of reading if it had been confusing (stereotype dictates) but instead, I found myself mesmerized by the game of numbers. If you were a bad student at math or eco or any number-related subject in your school or college, you need to get your hands on this book because it turns your perception around from negative to positive (pun intended) about what those big equation riddles are all about. Now, coming to finance, you have a lot of, a lot of 'golden rules' which are absolutely universal and if you're anything like me, you struggle with that notion because you just don't do well with rules. But when you start something new, rules are rules. I really enjoyed understanding the basic concepts through this book because the examples, narration style, humor, and of course the writing are so fresh. This book accomplished its objective of sparking curiosity. It was bang on!
• 
  Ahmed

  I think this book was a great introduction for non-financial people like me, the fact that it used an example of a thing so simple like the lemonade stand to project accounting on it, is so demystifying and it takes all the fear of trying or learning something new from the equation, in fact i grew more curious about accounting and i am capable to go for trying to understand complex topics or taking it a level deeper, exactly because i have read this book, i like how it projects actions as transactions and then trying to analyse these decisions if there was going to be a better decision that would have skyrocketed the business even more! it's so simple and intriguing and the language was really easy and the narration was fun, i guess i'm giving it a highly rate of 4 stars because i really learned a lot from this book and how i connected with it, i understood the concepts and i feel like i have made a pretty solid foundation start digging deeper later! so yeah Highly Recommended!
• 
  Annie Whitlock

  Good comprehensive overview of accounting. I know significantly more about the subject now than I did before reading this.
  
  The authors do approach this like they’re talking to a bunch of ten year olds, and the writing is like someone is talking to an actual child sometimes, which was a little tedious. But then again, I knew nothing about accounting, and probably did need it to be explained to me like I’m a child, so I can’t complain too much.
  
  Accounting will never be something I’m passionate about, but I’m thankful that this book at least helped me understand the basic terms without just throwing the book across the room in defeat.
• 
  Yugal Jindle

  Too verbose, High noise low value
  
  Too basic of a book, I understand they wanted to dumb things down but the narration in the book was uselessly too verbose and appears that the target audience is indeed "little kids".
  
  It is filled with senetences like "what do we need to have to operate a business? Cash"
  and
  dedicates pages to capture handful of calculations.
  
  They can rewrite the book with less verbosity and highlighting key concepts for the audience who knows basic algebra. The book will be way thinner, and high quality.
• 
  Janet

  This is such a fun book! It's told like a story and there are blanks for you to fill in, so it's like accounting, math, and story all in one. I read this book with my mom over the summer, and I learned a lot from it. This is a very great book for beginners like me (who is also a teen) and it explains things very clearly with many examples and questions to think about. Although there are some things in the book that the author forgot about, which got me a little confused, and the story has some plot holes, but overall it makes me see things so much clearer.
• 
  Grommit

  I needed a quick, concise review of accounting basics. This appears to be juvenile, but is real enough, using the real language of accounting, and it helped!
  I prefer to practice, calculate, pencil, erase, correct...and this approach helped do just that.
  I missed the "T Account" approach, but this was just fine.
  The book could benefit from allowing more room in the little Assets/Liabilities/Equity box. This would be helpful to ensure you are making the correct entries.
  Overall, a good job.
• 
  Austin Carroll Keeley

  This a fun, no frills approach to learn the basics of accounting. Very helpful as a part of an introductory course. It needs to be supplemented with a more robust work for an academic course, but it gives the simplest explanations of complex concepts and allows the reader to work though the ideas using a tool (a lemonade stand) everyone intuitively grasps.
  
  Read as an intro to MGMT 403: Financial Accounting with Professor Henry Friedman at UCLA Anderson School of Management.
• 
  Nakina Roberts

  Amazing!
  
  I took a whole course and could not tell you the difference between a balance sheet, income statement, or statement of cash flow. After reading this book I completely understand now. I also learned so much more since it was broken down so understandable. There's just so much necessary information in this book. I am so much more confident with my knowledge now that this book re-taught me things more concretely.
• 
  Lalalanh

  Phải chi trước khi học nguyên lý kế toán toi đã biết đến sự tồn tại của cuốn sách này sớm hơn =)) nhưng mà học xong rồi mới đọc cuốn này cũng có tác dụng riêng của nó, như một cách ôn bài thực tiễn và tác giả diễn đạt siêu chi tiết từng dòng suy nghĩ cần có khi chỉnh sửa các báo cáo tài chính. Hay hơn nữa là bởi vì diễn đạt bằng story telling nên tác giả còn đề cập đến những mindset của một người làm chủ/ kinh doanh cần phải có nữa. Ai coi được review này mà học kinh tế thì nên cân nhắc nhé
• 
  KH Sprague

  Great book for budding small business entrepreneurs. Easy to follow and clear delivery of basic accounting concepts. It didn't really help me with my financial accounting class (which was my reason for reading the book) but it did help me gain clearer understanding of what the main reporting sheets were and how to properly utilize them.
• 
  Keifer May

  A wonderful introduction that gives plenty of information and drives home a lot of the concepts of accounting. It's made fun and easy by including characters and stories that can be related.
  
  If anything, I wish there was more technical information and exercises to drive home some of the aspects of this book. If nothing else, it was an invaluable introduction.
• 
  Rishavdeep Singh

  It's a fun start to much needed education of business world and give you a birdseye view of accounting in the old fashion way you were tough in school. Terms of business are woven into fiction, immaculate and Vivid, which is bound to stick to your memory so much so that by the end of the book you can close your eyes and create a balance sheet in your mind without cramming.
• 
  Fer Prz

  Making sure I freshen up my jargon for an upcoming accounting class for my MBA.
  
  Simple explanations and easy to follow. It makes you fill out reports and perform accounting for a kid’s lemonade stand — amount of dollars and scenarios are very conventional. Using a child as the audience as the target audience for the book, makes it humorous and quirky.
  
  I got my money’s worth.
• 
  Milan Navratil

  A fantastic introduction to how accounting works and why you should care. The book explains the basics in a really undestandable fashion and I've learned a lot. At the same time, the book is quite an entertaining read.
  
  You can check out the table of contents and a pre-test in the Amazon sample for free.
• 
  Allison Henderson

  Great introduction for adults to learning the accounting and basic economics skills. Practical, useful, and a wonderful stepping stone for those of us who should, but may not, already know how to use these valuable skills.