Bookkeeping on a Cruel Basis

If you want to sell your business for the most amount of money, you've got to have your books done right. Good bookkeeping should be telling you every month: Are you making money? Bad bookkeeping tells you, ok, i know how much is in my bank account, but that by itself doesn't give you the whole picture. The other place that a cruel is superimportant, an i promise. That's the only accounting word i'm going to use. I won't use any other accounting words, but a cruel.