Financial officers often face problems are so numerous and deep seated that it is difficult to know where to start, how to set priorities and which tasks should be deferred. Often there is disagreement among senior executives about this. This book provides tools to assess the performance of the entire finance function. The most effective techniques that are most relevant to the task of financial management are presented. Although these are based on books representing the most valuable scholarship the author can find, as of this writing there are no other publications that apply these concepts to the complete scope of financial management. This book is intended to expand and enhance the tools that are available to financial professionals to solve problems effectively and in a time efficient way, to strengthen accounting controls and all the other financial management functions. This is the result of an extensive effort to develop an innovative, highly practical approach to the task of improving financial management and cash flow. Using the tools developed here, we present the results of assessments of 33 firms, including an assessment of what happened to them during the five years following the assessment.