The primary question I receive is, why would anyone write so many accounting books? The story began in the early 1990s, when my former boss, Jan Roehl-Anderson, asked me to assist in taking over a book called Controllership from Jim Willson (correct spelling), who had been maintaining the book since the early 1950s. I liked the experience, and even found it relaxing (I must have issues!).
So... I had an idea for another book, called Just-in-Time Accounting, which the publisher accepted, and which got me on the track of doing management accounting books. Most accounting books up to that point had primarily dealt with accounting principles and not how to management the department, so this was a rich area for new books.
The Accounting Best Practices book, which is one of the top-selling accounting books in the country, started when I was bouncing around ideas for new books with one of my editors, John DeRemigis. He suggested the accounting best practices idea, and I said, "nah, there's not enough material." Four editions later and over 400+ pages long, it appears that he was right and I was wrong.
Writing became more intense in 2005, when John Wiley & Sons recommended me to the authors of the Wiley GAAP Guide as a new co-author. This is a seriously technical high-end accounting principles guide, and so was nothing like what I had written before. My first assignment was adding a hundred or so new examples to the book, which was absolutely frantic -- imagine becoming an expert on a really far-out accounting topic in one day, writing an esoteric example, and then hurrying on to an entirely different example the next day.
I have just finished writing Accounting Controls Best Practices, which is chock-full of control points for the most common accounting systems, as well as for best practices upgrades to those systems. And now, it is time for a break, if only for a week.
So... I am heading to the Western Pacific for some serious diving off a live aboard dive boat.
Steve Bragg
