Mike Darlow was born in Birmingham, England. After receiving a B.Sc. in civil engineering and an M.Sc. in construction management, he emigrated to Sydney in 1969. There he worked for ten years as a site engineer, site manager and project manager in multi-storey construction. Between 1974 and 1979 he attended Sydney Technical College in the evenings, and completed the three-year trade courses in woodturning and in cabinetmaking. In 1979 he became a professional woodturner. He’s since written six books, 150 magazine articles, and published three DVDs on woodturning. The details of these are shown at mikedarlow.com.

Mike signed up for a correspondence course in bookkeeping. He was so disappointed by the explanations in the course notes and in the books available on bookkeeping and accounting that he contemplated writing his own accounting book. In researching the feasibility of this, Mike came across the book Accounts Demystified by Anthony Rice. Rice’s book includes what Rice calls balance sheet charts. Mike saw that if these charts were modified so that they could show negative amounts, they could be far more versatile and powerful. Mike calls his charts balance charts. He wrote KAG so that others could benefit by using them.