Business is a cut-throat environment. Even with an excellent idea or brilliant marketing plan, there is no guarantee of success. Besides having innovative ideas and the willpower to succeed, you need sound management and business skills, and you need to know how to apply the best business practices, whether you are an entrepreneur or professional manager.

A business is fundamentally a cash-oriented process. This means that its ideas, image or products, no matter how remarkable, are still not as important as the ability to earn an income to stay afloat and have a reliable and accessible cash flow. A manager must be able to keep track of all income, expenses, assets the business owns and the cash flow. Poor fiscal management and inadequate accounting practices produce weak or incorrect information, preventing management from making well informed decisions or adapting adequately to changes in the environment.

Basic Financial Management is written to answer the question: What does ANY manager or entrepreneur need to know to guarantee sound financial management?

The aim of this book is to teach the basic principles and skills of financial management in an understandable and logical way. The book also gives you the opportunity to apply the principles in your specific profession as well as in your own enterprise. Knowledge of the basic principles and their application will give you a good point of departure for sound financial management in your chosen field. The approach followed in the writing of this book was based on the question: `What does ANY manager need to know to guarantee sound financial management?' This book provides you with answers to this question and gives guidelines for managing the financial matters of any enterprise or institution, even governmental institutions, not for-profit companies and non-governmental organisations. The book contains relevant examples and exercises, which will give you the confidence to apply these principles and practices in your professional as well as private life.