The business office guides of the departments of education of Illinois and New Jersey served as the basic resource documents in forming this guide for independent school business managers. The checklists are grouped under the following headings: financial management, insurance and risk management, records retention, purchasing, nonacademic staff, food service, maintenance, and transportation service. After completing a particular checklist, business officials can identify strengths and weaknesses and develop realistic plans for outlining and reaching goals, meeting needs, and making improvement. Statements on the checklists are purposely designed to elicit a definite response, "Yes,""No," or "Not applicable" (N/A). The "correct" answer will depend on the school and its policies, practices, requirements, and circumstances. The checklists are arranged in looseleaf format to permit addition or alteration of whole sections or of individual pages. (Author/MLF)