Target Audience

Advanced Accounting is intended for use in undergraduate and graduate accounting programs that include a course in advanced accounting as part of the curriculum. This book is especially written for advanced accounting courses in which an intuitive understanding of the material, in addition to accounting mechanics, is emphasized. Feedback from students who used our text, and subsequently completed the uniform CPA exam, has been extremely positive. They report that they felt well-prepared for the portions of the exam relating to advanced financial accounting topics.

The examples in this textbook reinforced well the theoretical concepts discussed in the chapters. The understanding I gained after using this textbook helped prepare me well for some of the toughest material in the CPA Exam.

Jon Slebodnick—Audit Associate, Deloitte

Emphasis on Intuition

We introduce topics by discussing the intuition behind accounting standards before discussing the mechanics of the accounting process. In addition, we intentionally deemphasize memorization of journal entry mechanics. We believe that this approach allows students to better understand the material and to develop relevant transferrable knowledge.

The advanced accounting textbook provided a clear and concise presentation of not only how certain accounting concepts are applied, but also why they are important and pertain to us directly.

Dan Brown—Audit Associate, PriceWaterhouseCoopers

Easy-to-Remember Mnemonic

Although our text emphasizes the intuition underlying the consolidation process, we also introduce the C-E-A-D-I (pronounced “seedy”) consolidation journal entry sequence to assist students in learning the mechanics of consolidation. The sequence systematically eliminates the book value of subsidiary equity (C, E), establishes the fair value adjustments for subsidiary net assets (A, D), and eliminates intercompany transactions and balances (I). Over the years, we’ve observed that this easy-to-remember mnemonic improves students’ understanding of consolidations and allows for easier recall of each step of the consolidation adjustment process.

FASB Codification Throughout

We wrote our text after implementation of the FASB’s Codification and we integrated the Codification throughout, including end-of-chapter problem assignments. Unlike many advanced accounting textbooks, we cite passages of the Codification frequently so that students can become familiar with the actual language of the standards, not just the authors' summary of the standards. This also allows students to easily find the relevant passages on their own. In addition, to familiarize students with the Codification search engine and to better develop their research skills, we also include numerous FASB Codification-related research assignments in our end-of-chapter problem sets.

CPA Exam Questions

The primary purpose of the Advanced Accounting course at most universities it to prepare accounting majors for the CPA exam. To provide students with relevant practice, we have included a number of multiple choice questions in each chapter that have been adapted from past CPA exams. We are grateful to the AiCPA for granting us permission to use former CPA exam questions for this purpose.

IFRS Coverage

Accounting students must become familiar with IFRS. Fortunately, the current accounting standards relating to the main topic of the book business combinations and consolidation were written jointly by the FASB and the IASB, and are 99% equivalent. In addition, other standards (e.g., segment reporting) are similar, but have key differences. In the text, we discuss the IFRS equivalent of accounting standards and highlight the differences between the two sets of accounting standards when they occur. These discussions are identified with the IFRS icon.

Relevance and Engagement

Advanced accounting is a challenging topic. We have adopted a number of techniques in our book to make the material relevant and engaging to students. These techniques include:

Focus Companies for Each Chapter

Each chapter incorporates a “focus company” for special emphasis and demonstration. We chose companies that illustrate the topic of the chapter so that students can learn the material within context. In addition, our chapters on governmental accounting are written around a small new england town that is large enough to effectively communicate the concepts of governmental accounting, yet small enough not to obscure those concepts in unnecessary complexity. The following are the focus companies we use to introduce our topics:

Consolidation chapters

AT&T, Coca-Cola, Cummins, Krispy Kreme, Alcoa, Walt Disney

Foreign currency, derivatives and consolidation of foreign subsidiaries

Coca-Cola

Government and NFP

Town of Acton, MA and the American Red Cross

Segments

3M Company

Partnerships

Boardwalk Pipeline Partners, LLP

Real company Data in Text and Assignments

We believe that an important part of the learning process involves the application of concepts to realworld data. We include references to actual footnotes in the body of our text and also include a number of end-of-chapter problems that are written around actual footnote disclosures. These problems allow students to think about accounting concepts more broadly (i.e., less mechanically) and from the perspective of the users of financial statements.

This book was very engaging and simple to follow, which made for a more enjoyable class! The examples and exhibits do a great job supporting the text to better retain the information.

Moises Numa— Audit Associate, Deloitte

Class-Tested Content

The following is a typical example:

Practice Insight Boxes

We provide a number of Practice insight Boxes resulting from interviews with practicing accountants and financial managers. These boxes provide students with insight into issues that accountants face in the real world, and with a glimpse into the types of decisions that practicing accountants must make. The following is a typical example:

Mid-Chapter and Chapter-End Reviews

Advanced accounting concepts can be challenging. To reinforce concepts presented in each chapter and to ensure student comprehension, we include topic reviews that require students to recall and apply the financial accounting techniques and concepts described in each chapter.

Readability

Our text is written with rigorous content, but in a student-friendly conversational style that facilitates the learning process. Previous textbooks by the authors have met with extremely positive reviews for writing quality, and students who have used our textbook comment on the relative ease with which they are able to assimilate the material.