Running Your Own Business

Peter Strathy is Vice-President Planning, Doctors’ Hospital, Toronto.

A joint venture by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, Gage Publishing, and the Financial Post has produced a practical and informative text for those persons considering involvement or actually operating a small business. Twenty-five succinct articles, each prepared by a chartered accountant, treat a wide spectrum of topics in the financial and legal areas of small business management. Tax planning, leasing, and government aid programs are examples of subjects included. The information and advice offered are highly practical and easily understood, avoiding a detailed and complex treatment that would be confusing and/or overwhelming for the audience to which the book is directed. That audience is the layman who lacks professional training in the field of business management. The chapters on general planning, food franchises, and insurance requirements are particularly valuable.

The limitations of the book lie in its lack of balance or completeness as a general introduction to small business management. It fails to present any material in the areas of marketing or personnel management, both areas of major importance. A less significant deficiency relates to the tax advice sections, valid to the end of 1981, which by their very nature require updating on an annual basis if those sections are to maintain their value to the reader.

This work will be restricted to public library collections where it will be heavily used by the many readers seeking information on small business management.