Best Business Finance Books

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Top 14 Best Business Finance Books [Updated 2023]

Finance is all about accounting methods, investment strategies, and managing debt. As a result, several business finance books are available in the market. Below is the list of such books on business finance:

  1. The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy  
  2. Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence
  3. The Alchemy of Finance
  4. Found Money: Simple Strategies for Uncovering the Hidden Profit and Cash Flow in Your Business
  5. How Finance Works: The HBR Guide to Thinking Smart about the Numbers
  6. Financial Intelligence, Revised Edition: A Manager’s Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean  
  7. Visual Finance: The One Page Visual Model to Understand Financial Statements and Make Better Business Decisions
  8. The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business  
  9. Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms (Barron’s Business Dictionaries)
  10. Ultimate Spartan Budgeting and Minimalism: How to Save Money, Increase Productivity and Live Simply
  11. Taxes for Small Businesses: QuickStart Beginner’s Guide to Understanding Taxes for Your Startup, Sole Proprietorship, and LLC  
  12. How to Start a Business: Startup Essentials- The Simple, Step-by-Step Guide to Successfully Start Your Own Business
  13. Books: Habit of Successful and Wealthy Billionaires: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to be
  14. Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine

Let us discuss each business finance book in detail and its key takeaways and reviews.

Business Finance Books

#1 - The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

by Thomas J. Stanley, William D. Danko

This book splits American society into prodigious accumulators of wealth and under accumulators of wealth. Throughout the book, the author compares these two categories of people.

Book Review

The fact that this book is a national bestseller and has been featured on the New York Times Best Sellers list for a long time speaks volumes for its content. In this book, you will find that the author speaks about the differences between wealthy people and those who pretend to be wealthy. The text's message is clear: if you want to become wealthy, you should do what the actual wealthy people do. One of the major pieces of advice in the book is that actual wealthy people accumulate wealth by living well below their means. Hence, these people usually don't look like millionaires. In short, you can become a millionaire if you follow in their footsteps.

Key Takeaways

  • The book gives an interesting overview of the best financial habits, such as living below what one can afford and prioritizing financial security over social standing.
  • It is long, well-compiled data distilled into a finely-tuned narrative.

#2 - Your Money or Your Life:

9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence

by Vicki Robin, Joe Dominguez, Money Mustache

This book not only focuses on managing individual personal finance, such as investing, budgeting, saving, etc. but also speaks about our relationship with money.

Book Review

The book starts by highlighting the typical lifestyle of commoners like us, where we work for long hours, stress out ourselves, and there are instances where we are not even able to see our families for a long time. The underlying idea is that we lose precious time with our loved ones as we hanker after money to maintain a luxurious lifestyle and have special material possessions. Finally, the author suggests that if we are not happy with this lifestyle, we should shift to an alternate lifestyle where we reduce our expenses, increase our income, invest wisely, and retire early. So, the idea is simple and brilliant – live on less and retire early.

Key Takeaways

  • The book can be a powerful resource for people interested in becoming financially independent.
  • It is an easy read and provides many useful personal financial advice.

#3 - The Alchemy of Finance

by George Soros

The book provides you with a theoretical as well as a practical account of the current financial market trends. At the same time, it also presents a new paradigm used to decipher today's financial market.

Book Review

The book is one of the best in business as it presents a revolutionary idea about the financial market, contrary to the common belief of efficient market theory. You don't require any Ph.D. but an open mind to understand the powerful and game-changing ideas provided in this book. The fact that Soros, one of the greatest money managers of all time, is the book's author is a good enough reason for you to read it if you are interested in the financial market. In short, the book admits that efficient market theory is a myth as humans don't act rationally while making an investment or any other decisions.

Key Takeaways

  • The book offers you a peek at the mind and thought process of one of the most successful market speculators in history.
  • You also get to learn Soros' investment/trading methodologies and some of his macro views.

#4 - Found Money

Simple Strategies for Uncovering the Hidden Profit and Cash Flow in Your Business

by James Montier

The book presents various strategies that small businesses can follow to achieve success. In addition, it helps business owners understand how to control their businesses to generate higher returns.

Book Review

It is a must-read for business owners who want to transform their business into a money-making vehicle, which will help the owners realize their dream lifestyle. This book helps us determine whether our business is moving on the right track. If not, then how can it be corrected to bring it on track? It provides us with some straightforward and simple-to-use tools and techniques that help us identify the links between business operations and financial results. The text is highly engaging as the content is rich, accurate, and presented in the first person, just like a drama.

Key Takeaways

  • Small business owners can use it to maximize the money they make from the business by unearthing hidden profits and cash flows.
  • It is a fairly good and practical book that explains how to leverage the existing resources of a business.

#5 - How Finance Works

The HBR Guide to Thinking Smart about the Numbers

As the name suggests, the book discusses different financial concepts, such as understanding valuation, investment decisions, etc.

Book Review

This extraordinary book is easy to read as it avoids narrating long, boring essays. If you are interested in understanding various financial concepts, this book is for you. The author has taken an instructive approach as he walks us through the concepts in a well-coached environment. The explanations are perfect and easy to understand as they are often followed by a few short illustrations to ensure that the reader understands the subject. Undoubtedly, the author did an excellent job explaining the dry and challenging financial topics in such a lucid manner. In short, the whole idea of the book is to make finance digestible for people.

Key Takeaways

  • This book presents the financial concepts in such a way that it is equally useful for beginners and experienced practitioners.
  • The narrative of the text is lucid and easy to understand.

#6 - Financial Intelligence, Revised Edition

A Manager’s Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean

A Compulsory Reading for Global Decision Makers having no Financial Expertise

By Karen Berman

Book Review

This best business finance book has made financial intelligence topics one of the hottest and most sought-after segments in the global financial markets. It has become a highly acclaimed heading among the world's best managers who wish to take a guided walk through while discussing numbers. The support provided through the book in understanding numbers is not just what these numbers signify but why they hold so much significance.

Key Takeaways from This Top Business Finance Books

  • Teaches the managers the fundamentals of finance for using financial information to accelerate their business.
  • The book also discusses issues that have acquired notable importance in recent years, including questions related to general accounting literacy, wider financial know-how, and the global financial crisis.
  • The book is written in simple language, highly accessible, and without any jargon, with pleasurable tales of actual companies.
  • The reading allows non-financial managers much-needed sureness to comprehend the complexity apart from the numbers for supporting the daily work properly.

#7 - Visual Finance

The One Page Visual Model to Understand Financial Statements and Make Better Business Decisions –

The Real-life Application of Finance

By Georgi Tsvetanov

Book Review

The best part of this business finance book is that the topic discussed in "Visual Finance" is so easy to understand and apply that any new reader without financial knowledge can even understand the explained concepts.

Key Takeaways from This Best Business Finance Book

  • Visual finance concepts are extremely simple and easily applicable in real-life situations. This model is used continually across several "finance for non-financial managers" drill sessions in over 30 nations. For the very first time, this concept launched on paper for reading purposes
  • This book presents accounting in an exciting and readable format to attract readers' attention and force them to go through the book in one go or return for another sitting with the book.
  • A single-page visual model for comprehending financial statements while making sound business decisions is an attractive feature of this book.
  • This best business finance book also encourages its readers to start open discussions on financial topics in companies while strategically saving your firm from committing expensive mistakes, along with starting to maximize all your valued opportunities.

#8 - The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business

Skipping Top Business Schools is the Key to Success

By Josh Kaufman

Book Review

The Personal MBA provides only highly valuable business teachings into easy, unforgettable rational models that are perfectly applicable to existing actual-world problems. The author's impressive writing style has hugely attracted both the new MBA seekers and the already master's degree holders. The book warns and prevents its readers from getting into assembly-line business models that teach about irrelevant financial models and PowerPoint presentations rather than what is required while running an actual business.

Key Takeaways from This Top Business Finance Book

  • This top business finance book shares the necessities of systems design, productivity, operations, negotiation, sales, marketing, entrepreneurship, and several others, in a single digest volume.
  • The first concept described in the book is "The Iron Law of the Market," which explains why all businesses are controlled by their size, the market quality they attempt to attend to, and the technique of finding big, ambitious markets.
  • The second concept," The 12 Forms of Value," illustrates that services and products being the only two among a net of twelve means one may develop superior customer value.
  • The third concept illustrates "The Pricing Uncertainty Principle," according to which every price is malleable. Increasing the prices is the most acclaimed way of significantly expanding profitability if one understands the technique of supporting your price increases.
  • The fourth concept depicts "4 Methods to Increase Revenue," which says that any business may use four key techniques to attract money.

#9 - Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms

(Barron’s Business Dictionaries)

A Thorough and Valuable Dictionary for Private Investors, Financial Professionals, or Business Students

By John Downes

Book Review

The financial dictionary for investors would allow them to simplify the usage of finance jargon while encouraging them to use simple language in explaining even the most complex business situation.

Key Takeaways from This Best Business Finance Book

  • This business finance book contains over 5,000 terms linked to tax laws, banking, mutual funds, bonds, stocks, and deals across several global financial markets depicted in alphabetical order and descriptions.
  • The innovative ninth edition of this book contains the latest notable changes in credit, equities, and various other financial alterations, along with the recent financial regulations.
  • Readers would necessarily find a series of acronyms and financial abbreviations coupled with charts and illustrative diagrams.
  • A comprehensive, updated, sound dictionary for private investors, financial professionals, or business students.

#10 - Ultimate Spartan Budgeting and Minimalism

How to Save Money, Increase Productivity and Live Simply

The Greek’s Master Plan for Expanding Productivity While Saving Money

By Cyrus Kirkpatrick

Book Review

This business finance book is for all those readers who wish to preserve money but need more confidence with the commonly available techniques. The scripture provides already-proven ancient Greek methods of making and saving money. Moreover, it devises methods of minimizing wasteful efforts while completely satisfying one's "Business Development Plan," whether it comprises roaming the globe or minimizing debt.

Key Takeaways from This Top Business Finance Books

  • Please get to know the fundamental principles and history of the early Spartans and how they became so operative.
  • Know how to liquidate your assets and learn fast the techniques of saving money.
  • Begin prioritization of your expenditures and bills.
  • Ways of saving money despite being burdened with debt and earning minimal wages.
  • Explains the cooking method like a Spartan while significantly minimizing the meal expenditures.
  • Minimalist and Spartan business ideals can convert your firm into a profit-making entity.
  • Techniques for expanding productivity and quick learning skills.
  • The reader would discover answers to several questions: Why Spartan? How to consider inventory? How to process liquidation? What are the techniques for minimizing monthly bills? How to prioritize your bills? What are Spartan's habits and lifestyle? How to maintain a daily routine? Getting to know about the types of training, How to master your fear? What is a Spartan diet? Developing one's Spartan basic meal and learning about Spartan's core business principles.

#11 - Taxes for Small Businesses

QuickStart Beginner’s Guide to Understanding Taxes for Your Startup, Sole Proprietorship, and LLC

The Complete Tax Guide for Small Businesses

By Mike Nelson

Book Review

The reading is for anyone planning to start a business who needs taxes clarification. Any person already has a business while requiring the impacts of taxation when having employees compared to when outsourcing to independent workers. This book is used by any business owner who is confused about depreciation and needs to know how to use it for one's tax benefit. The book can also find the appropriate accounting software for running your business. Proper advice on whether you must do all your tax calculations by yourself or whether you need to hire one can understand an accountant from this reading.

Key Takeaways from This Best Business Finance Books

  • This best business finance book contains lengthy depreciation issues and how to enhance that, like a tax-deductible expenditure.
  • The reader would benefit from strategic techniques in the book for uniquely managing one's small company’s payroll tax payments that already employ some workforce to run the business.
  • Through the book, one must learn how to manage minor business taxation.
  • The technique of improving your business's rank is under the IRS authority
  • Ways of profit maximization
  • Identify the most suitable business structure for you.
  • Determine the impact of choosing the business structure on your taxes.
  • Ways of planning your tax management.
  • Various tax types that your business needs to pay.
  • Explains how the choice of accounting techniques impacts your taxation policies.
  • Is hiring a professional crucial?
  • The fundamentals of calculating the income tax returns for your business.

#12 - How to Start a Business: Startup Essentials

The Simple, Step-by-Step Guide to Successfully Start Your Own Business

Techniques of Starting Your Business from Scratch

By Rachael L. Thompson

Book Review

Any beginner willing to start a new business must first read this book as it contains even the smallest details about beginning any new trade, whether it could be a shop, home-based business, retail, or online trade.

Best Takeaways from This Top Business Finance Book

  • The Beneficiaries from this business finance Book - Those dreaming of starting their own business but the experience is overwhelming while starting, those having a plan and wish to undergo practical application upon that idea, anyone needing a simple stepwise breakdown for starting a business, those who don't possess detailed business know-how and finally, for a layman who dreams of beginning a business, however, has no idea about doing so.
  • Learnings - The reader would learn: a.) The technique of developing a lucrative idea b.) The actual situation about beginning a business presently c.) Resources and ways to identify competition and business ideals d.) Provides information about business structures while supporting you in selecting the best structure for you, e.) Identifies ways of working with employees, accountants, lawyers, and other key professionals f.) Easy breakdown of taxes g.) Financial planning procedure h.) Ways of funding your business i.) Best way to brand and market your business j.) Ways of developing a business idea.
  • Unique Characteristics of This top business finance Book - 
    • Employ easy, solid language and instances to simplify tough ideologies.
    • Provides a summary of different business types and supports you in identifying the exact match.
    • Provides readers with proper techniques to win rather than merely stating facts.

#13 - Books: Habit of Successful and Wealthy Billionaires

How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to be

The Surest Ways to Succeed in Life

By Michael B. Endwell

Book Review

This inspiring piece of literature has all the innovative ways and plans to make you achieve success in life. Although the word "Success" is a relative term still, the book gives you great ideas to stay calm while devising strategies to earn money and capture higher positions in any organization.

Best Takeaways from this Business Finance Books

  • Offers informative and key success strategies for the ambitious reader.
  • One would learn superior plans to achieve extraordinary success that would remove all the lies and myths about professional and personal success.
  • The eager reader would discover the ways to motivate and stay motivated.
  • Provides ways of approaching your dreams and objectives.
  • Teaches you how to cope with limited time efficiently.
  • Techniques to surely win.
  • Methods for teaching a positive mindset.
  • Offers tricks to remain focused on your key objectives.

#14 - Profit First

Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine

Ways of Achieving Instant Profitability from Your Business

By Mike Michalowicz

Book Review

k has employed a behavioral tactic in accounting to alter the well-known equation: Sales – Expenses = Profit. However, business is controlled by humans, and several times, they fail to be logical. Therefore, the author considers profit initially and allocates just what is residual for expenditures. Through the book, the entrepreneurs expect to change their businesses to lucrative cash cows from being just cash-consuming monsters.

Best Takeaways from This Top Business Finance Books

  • The authors believe that any small, profit-making business can achieve significantly more than a big business running through all the revenue earned.
  • Businesses capable of achieving timely and continued profitability stand a better chance of gaining long-term expansion.
  • The book offers interesting and practical case studies that hugely benefit budding entrepreneurs.
  • The simplified writing style would greatly attract the reader's attention while encouraging him to read the entire book simultaneously.