6 practitioner guides by Julian R. Sterling, best read first at the top. Each one is built on a single worked case, and every figure it prints is a live formula in a free workbook.
The quickest way into business operations: cost, contracts, pricing and supply chain is Construction Cost Control, the most read title in this list. The others go deeper into one job or one asset each. Every book below has a free companion page with the workbooks, so the arithmetic can be checked before the book is bought.
Construction Cost Management and Contract Administration from the Contract Sum to the Final Account
The four workbooks behind Construction Cost Control: both bridges from the contract sum to the final account with all eleven lines and their workings, the appraisal run six ways with the break-even solved in closed form, six one-input sensitivities that print every line, and a calculator for a project that has not been signed yet.
Worked example: Do liquidated damages cover what a late week costs the client?
What the Clauses Actually Cost, and How to Price Them Before You Sign
The four workbooks behind Contract Management: the Larchmere case priced clause by clause with both bridges and the month-nineteen crossover, nine standalone clause calculators, a calculator that prices your own contract before you sign it, and the one-page negotiation ledger with its per-unit values.
Worked example: Is a longer warranty worth more than a better remedy?
Product Costing, Overhead Allocation and What a Wrong Standard Cost Does to the Orders You Win
The four workbooks behind Cost Accounting: one factory costed twice on the same 13,440,000 of overhead with the identity that both methods distribute it, the five pools and their driver rates with capacity and the avoidable split, the decisions from the batch and the make-or-buy to the spiral and the price correction, and a calculator that costs your own part before the quotation leaves the building.
Worked example: Should a factory buy a part quoted below its absorbed cost?
Discounts, Price Increases, Price-Volume-Mix and What One Point of Price Is Actually Worth
The four workbooks behind Pricing Strategy: the list-to-pocket waterfall on one account and on a whole company, the break-even volume of a discount with the rebate cliff solved by bisection, the price-volume-mix bridge with the elasticity as an input cell, and a blank calculator for your own book of business.
Worked example: How much of a price increase does forward buying take back?
Safety Stock, Service Levels and Lead Time, Priced on One Product Line
The four workbooks behind Supply Chain Management: demand during lead time and where its variance comes from, service level against fill rate, the three policies priced in euros, what supplier reliability is worth, pooling, bias and the holding rate.
Worked example: Which costs more: a forecast 10 per cent low or 10 per cent high?
The four workbooks behind Trade Finance: the order and all six routes priced at held terms, the documentary credit in every form with the risk it removes set against the risk it introduces, the cost of the money from the discount that is not a yield to the receivable sold outright, and a calculator that prices a payment term on an order you have not quoted yet.
Worked example: Is a 6.90 per cent discount cheaper than an 8.40 per cent facility?
Start with Construction Cost Control by Julian R. Sterling. It is the most read title in this list, and like the others it is built on one fully specified worked case whose every printed figure is reproduced in a free Excel workbook.
Yes. Every title in this guide has a free companion page on julianrsterling.com with the workbooks, blank templates and checklists. They need no account and no email address.
Analysts, associates and managers who need to compute the numbers rather than describe them: each book follows one case from the first input to the decision, at practitioner level.
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