According to PersonalMBA.com as reported in BusinessWeek.com

Josh Kaufman, editor of the website http://www.personalmba.com/ compiled and posted his list of the 77 best business books which would, if they were all read, amount to the equivalent of a personal MBA. His list, which includes my book, can be found at http://personalmba.com/best-business-books/. The list was then mentioned again in an article in BusinessWeek.com -http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/apr2006/bs2006042_3490_bs001.htm.

Here is what Mr. Kaufman had to say about Finance for Non-Financial Managers:

If you're responsible for profit and loss in your business or organization, you need a business finance reference close at hand.

Finance for Non-Financial Managers is everything that a business finance reference text should be: clear, comprehensive, and easy to use. Using plain and simple English, Siciliano makes even the most obtuse financial concepts easy to understand and apply.

Most accounting and finance reference texts have a bad habit of being terminally boring. Fortunately, this book's snappy presentation of financial concepts will give you all the information you need quickly, without putting you to sleep in the process. Call-outs and sidebars add additional context to core subjects, giving you a broad understanding of how financial matters impact your company and teaching you "tricks of the trade" that can help you keep your company's financial situation under control.

With the help of Finance for Non-Financial Managers, you'll be prepared to understand any financial situation.

What more can I say? Available in paperback or e-book. Buy one.

The best book in print on simplified finance!

OK, maybe those weren’t words from an independent source exactly. But my book is still a best seller for good reason. Finance for Non-Financial Managers, published by McGraw-Hill, is truly finance in plain English for those who are averse to learning about finance and accounting reports and all that stuff. It’s used in classrooms and corporate offices, by big company executives and startup entrepreneurs. Why this book? Because you can understand it!

And if you buy it from us you also get the right to email me any questions that come up in your reading. And I’ll sign it for you besides. Is that a blatant pitch for your money? Yup! Go to http://www.amazon.com/Finance-Non-Financial-Managers-Briefcase-Books/dp/0071413774/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213433046&sr=8-1 on Amazon.com and read the many reviews from delighted readers. Then you can either buy the book from Amazon for a few dollars off the cover price, or come to us and get the autographed book and the email rights for $14.95 plus shipping. It’s a steal! Go to http://www.executivefinancecoach.com/finance_book.html and get yours while they last. OK, that last part is puffery. We’ve got lots of them. But they’re not helping you while they’re sitting on our shelf. Use your PayPal account or your credit card and get your copy now.

Procurement software? Bah, Humbug!

The Wall Street Journal carried an article this week discussing web spending tools, that is to say software that helps businesses control costs by telling them where they’re spending their money. It’s called procurement software and it sells for big bucks to big companies. Most companies are not big companies, and most of them can get the same results by learning how to read their own financial reports, IF they also learn how to ask for the information they don’t see in the standard forms their software spits out every month.

Too many managers are frustrated because they don’t see what they need or they don’t understand what they see and they don’t know what to do about it. They don’t understand what is possible and reasonable to expect from their financial departments, so they accept that it’s a different language and they lower their expectations. With all due respect to their skills, I call this Financial Illiteracy.

Some of the most creative CEOs I’ve known keep numbers on the back of an envelope – or the equivalent – because it’s the only think they understand. How sad is that? If you know anyone in that state of affairs, do them a huge favor. Tell them to call me.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Internal Audit and the CFO - inherent conflict of interest?

I was reading an interview with the WorldCom whistle blower, once the vice president in charge of internal audit at WorldCom. She made a comment that every CEO whose company has an internal audit function should read. She said having that function report to the CFO, a common situation because of the kind of work internal auditors do, is an inherent conflict of interest for the CFO. The conflict is that much of the work done by internal auditors involves reviewing the work performed by people who work for the CFO. The likelihood of internal auditors reporting problems in their boss's organization seems somewhat problematic, if you think about it.

Her point was that the internal audit team should report to the audit committee of the board of directors, and I agree. Lacking that, such as in a privately owned company that doesn't have an audit committee, that reporting relationship should be to the CEO. The problem: the CEO probably doesn't want the direct responsibility of managing a function whose activities are so foreign to what he/she feels comfortable with. My message to the CEO: get over it! These people can keep you out of trouble and make your company run better.

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If you don't like the sound of "internal controls" then how about "integrity and efficiency controls?" Learn what it takes to oversee these mechanisms in your company, and that includes internal audit. And if your company is over $50 million or so in sales and you don't have a separate internal audit function, you should be worried. If you don't know why you should be worried, call me to talk about a coaching relationship.

I welcome your comments.

Don't take them for granted!

I'm teaching finance for non-financial managers to the management team of a company whose CEO believed they didn't have enough appreciation for the financial side of their business. It's a command performance, in effect, as all managers are required to attend.

You'd expect a "show me" attitude, wouldn't you? Glum faces, resistance to participation, and doing only what is required. Well, you'd be wrong!

These folks are anxious to learn more about finance, and they particularly want to learn more about the financial affairs of their own company. They want to understand things like working capital, ROI, contribution margin, and debt management. Their participation is eager, sincere, and apparently driven by a genuine desire to get better at this foreign language called finance.

If your managers are unaware of the power of financial concepts and practices to improve profits and careers, and you wonder if closing that education gap could help your company, we should talk. I can practically guarantee you'll like the results. Visit us at http://www.executivefinancecoach.com/ or http://www.genesiciliano.com/ to learn more about educational programs that can deliver an amazing return on investment, aka ROI.

And if any new readers know a good resource to get this kind of customized training, I'd like to know about it. Your comments are encouraged.