Le informazioni per le decisioni: dalla contabilità ordinaria e industriale al bilancio contabile e d'esercizio

This volume is the second part of the text "Decision-making tools for the firm. Handbook for engineers and technicians who must make economic decisions". It offers guidance to students and professionals who find themselves having to make decisions that affect the economic dimension of the firm. After the definition and description of the firm offered in volume I, the second step analyses the accounting sys-tem as a source of information that can be used to make decisions. Finally, the third volume will present the criteria to be adopted to correctly take some of the main short and long-term decisions that charac-terize the management of a business. In this volume, we start analyzing the accountability rules on the basis of which the company registers day by day all the events involving the company facing external entities. The same rules are applied to determine the balance sheet, the yearly picture of the health status of the company. Understanding these rules will allow being aware of the opportunities and limitations of the accountability system as a source of information to take strategic decisions. In the second part, the balance sheet will be analyzed through indexes, to better explore the main financial and economic di-mensions relevant for the governance of the firm. Finally, in part three, we will have a look to another information source, represented by cost accounting. This optional register allows to have detailed infor-mation on the events occurring inside the firm (production processes, warehouse). The approach of this volume is to give the reader a good understanding of the accounting methods, avoiding an excessive lev-el of technical details, so as to have a clear comprehension of the information included in the accounta-bility data.