About the Author

I have been involved in accounting and bookkeeping for 50 years. I left school to join a bank. It was a small branch and the customer bank account records were kept in large ledgers on sloping desks. All records were handwritten. I can still smell the Indian ink on my stained fingers. I sat on a stool and we were told that, in the event of an attempted bank robbery, we were to throw a ledger through the nearest window to attract attention. Fortunately, it was never necessary for me to endanger passing pedestrians

While studying for banking exams by correspondence course, I discovered double entry bookkeeping. This changed my life. Something about the way it worked took a grip on my imagination. I bought a translation of the first guide to book keeping published by Pacioli in 1494. I left the bank to study accountancy and became a chartered accountant.

I gained vast experience of all types of accounting systems, both manual and computerised. I had extensive experience on computerised accounting systems running under MS-DOS. I saw the introduction of self-assessment tax returns and the transfer of many government transactions online.

I have dealt with enquiries by UK tax authorities into business accounts. Many of the employees I trained went on to highly paid positions with accountancy firms, or to responsible positions in large companies.

All this experience has given me a unique insight into the difficulties faced by taxpayers, accountants and the tax authorities.

This book is the distilled wisdom of a half a century of intensive experience of bookkeeping and accounting. It will give you the key visualisations and concepts enabling you to reach a high standard of ability. This is targeted training with, hopefully, all the boring and unnecessary bits left out. Once you've reached competence in this area, I would hope it will also give you the techniques and confidence to master any field you choose.