Lita Epstein, who earned her MBA from Emory University's Goizueta Business School, enjoys helping people develop good financial, investing, and tax planning skills. While getting her MBA, Lita worked as a teaching assistant for the financial accounting department and ran the accounting lab. After completing her MBA, she managed finances for a small nonprofit organization and for the facilities management section of a large medical clinic. She designs and teaches online courses on topics such as investing for retirement, getting ready for tax time, and finance and investing for women. She's written more than ten books, including Streetwise Retirement Planning and Trading For Dummies. Lita was the content director for a financial services Web site, MostChoice.com, and managed the Web site Investing for Women. As a Congressional press secretary, Lita gained firsthand knowledge about how to work within and around the Federal bureaucracy, which gives her great insight into how government programs work. In the past, Lita has been a daily newspaper reporter, magazine editor, and fundraiser for the international activities of former President Jimmy Carter through The Carter Center.

Introduction. Part I: Basic Bookkeeping: Why You Need It. Chapter 1: So You Want to Do the Books. Chapter 2: Getting Down to Bookkeeping Basics. Chapter 3: Outlining Your Financial Roadmap with a Chart of Accounts. Part II: Keeping a Paper Trail. Chapter 4: Ledgers: A One-Stop Summary of Your Business Transactions. Chapter 5: Keeping Journals. Chapter 6: Computer Options for Your Bookkeeping. Chapter 7: Controlling Your Books, Your Records, and Your Money. Part III: Tracking Day-to-Day Operations with Your Books. Chapter 8: Buying and Tracking Your Purchases. Chapter 9: Counting Your Sales. Chapter 10: Employee Payroll and Benefits. Chapter 11: Employer-Paid Taxes and Government Payroll Reporting. Part IV: Preparing the Books for Year's (or Month's) End. Chapter 12: Depreciating Your Assets. Chapter 13: Paying and Collecting Interest. Chapter 14: Proving Out the Cash. Chapter 15: Closing the Journals. Chapter 16: Checking Your Accuracy - By Trial and Hopefully No Error. Chapter 17: Adjusting the Books. Part V: Reporting Results and Starting Over. Chapter 18: Developing a Balance Sheet. Chapter 19: Producing an Income Statement. Chapter 20: Completing Year-End Payroll and Reports. Chapter 21: Satisfying the Tax Man. Chapter 22: Prepping the Books for a New Accounting Cycle. Part VI: The Part of Tens. Chapter 23: Top Ten Ways to Manage Your Business Cash with Your Books. Chapter 24: Top Ten Most Important Accounts for Any Bookkeeper. Appendix: Glossary. Index.