IT?S AMAZING HOW THOSE WHO run their own businesses (or business students preparing business plans) have so much sales and market-related information at their fingertips.

Similarly, they tend to be quite savvy on technical aspects, like what tools and equipment to use, where to get the raw materials and at what price, and how long it takes to make a product or provide a service.

Yet, when it comes to projecting their financial statements, they (and even business majors) usually get lost.

When they attend a seminar on business planning, they?re usually asked to use prepared templates to project their income statement and cash flow requirements. But when they get to the balance sheet, they are hard pressed making it balance. And they don?t know why. If or when they finally do, it usually takes them a few days or even weeks to succeed.

There?s a new book for entrepreneurs and budding entrepreneurs who have little or no background in accounting. It goes by a long title, ?Having a hard time projecting your financial statements in doing a business plan? You don?t need an accountant (Well, almost).?

The book starts with a self-assessment exercise. This confirms how much the readers know about their business, i.e., how much they know in selling and manufacturing their product or performing their service. It also confirms how they price, promote, and position their product or service?and what they use, namely: men, money, materials, machinery, and maintenance and the costs that go with these.

With these out of the way, they are introduced to the accounting equation. This is nothing more than: (a) the total amount of whatever an enterprise owns and uses, equals (b) the amount of credit availed of, plus (c) the funds invested by the owner in the business.

What follows next is a chapter called the ?Working Paper.? Unlike the usual templates, this uses the accounting equation on a single spreadsheet to provide the data for projecting the income statement, the cash flow statement, and the balance sheet?one that?s not force balanced.

However, the entrepreneurs need to be comfortable using electronic spreadsheets. If they?re not, they should ask someone who is, while bearing in mind that computer programs have become very, very user friendly.

Eventually, the readers come upon a section on how to transfer the outputs of their ?Working Paper? into the standard formats of the financial statements.

There is as well a ?What Happens If?? section to cover different business ventures (services, trading, or manufacturing) and the legal forms of business (sole proprietorships, partnerships, and corporations).

Annexed is a typical chart of accounts, which entrepreneurs can modify with the help of their accountant to suit the needs of their own business.

This reference manual has been prepared by Amelita Ileto-Sibayan and her husband, Salvador.

As a CPA, Amelita made sure that developments in accounting and business taxation are current.

Salvador, a non-accountant, toned down the accounting gibberish for readers who never took accounting or forgot their accounting.

Readers should find the book easy to follow as I have, and I?m not an accountant, far from one.

The book is available at a retail price of P250 per copy at all the eight outlets of Central Books (http://www.central.com.ph).