Free study guides for Business Administration
Resources for studying the financial and quantitative side of the degree on your own. Free to use for your studies.
Two guides for the part of the degree that gives international and bilingual students the most trouble: the financial mathematics you are examined on in Spain, and the accounting vocabulary that sits between your English textbook and the Spanish Plan General de Contabilidad. Both are free to read here, with no sign-up and no email.
Financial mathematics formulas
Eight blocks of formulas: simple and compound interest, simple discounting (commercial and rational), compound discounting, equivalent and nominal rates and APR, level annuities, growing annuities, loans, and NPV and IRR. Each block gives the formula in the notation used at Spanish universities and a worked numerical example.
Open the financial mathematics formula sheet
Spanish accounting glossary
Eighty accounting and finance terms mapped between English and Spanish, with the Plan General de Contabilidad account number where there is one, and a note on where UK/IFRS English and US English part ways — which is exactly where bilingual students lose marks.
Open the Spanish accounting glossary
If you would rather work through a subject in one-to-one lessons, message me and we will see.
Would you rather go through it with a tutor?
I give one-to-one online Business Administration lessons, at the hour you choose, in English or Spanish.
Common questions about the guides
Are the guides free?
Yes. They are published in full on this site, there is no sign-up and no email to leave, and you can print them or copy them into your notes. They are not a teaser for anything: they are written to be useful on their own.
Do the guides follow Spanish university conventions?
They do. The formula sheet uses the notation of Spanish textbooks, which is what you will meet in an exam here, and the glossary is built around the Plan General de Contabilidad, the Spanish chart of accounts your Spanish-language materials refer to.
Which guide should I start with?
If you are taking financial mathematics or corporate finance, start with the formula sheet: it covers annuities, loans and NPV and IRR. If you are taking financial accounting or cost accounting in English at a Spanish university, start with the glossary.
Are there more guides in Spanish?
Yes. The Spanish side of the site also has a step-by-step guide to passing Contabilidad Financiera and one on choosing a tutor, on top of the two translated here. If you read Spanish comfortably, they are worth the detour.
Do the guides replace one-to-one lessons?
For looking up a formula, checking a translation or working out where to start, they are enough on their own. What they cannot do is look at the exercise in front of you — the one that will not come out and that tends to be the one in the exam. That is what the lessons are for.