Relevance

"Why do I need to study financial accounting?"

Students frequently ask this or similar questions. The extent to which they feel accounting is relevant to their daily lives will often determine how much effort they put into the course. The following feature are used throughout the book to convey the relevance of accounting to their lives and society.

Real Data and Examples

Today's students must be skilled in using real financial statements to make business decisions. Through their exposure to various financial statements, students will learn that, while financial statements do not all look the same, they can readily understand and interpret them to make business decisions. In each chapter, we incorporate a wide range of examples using real companies that students know. In addition, the Extending Your Knowledge section in the assignments of each chapter requires students to use the financial statements of Columbia Sportswear Company and Under Armour Corporation.

Accounting in Practice

These boxed inserts help bridge the gap between the classroom and what students encounter in the world. Accounting In Practice illustrations document situations a reader is likely to encounter and present the choices that companies make in reporting financial results.

Accounting in Everyday Life

Accounting in Everyday Life boxes illustrate how accounting is used and is useful day-to-day situations. By demonstrating the relevance of accounting to students, we hope to further engage students and spur their interest in succeeding in the course.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Increasingly, companies have found that doing good leads to a more successful, profitable enterprise. These boxed inserts help students understand how corporate social responsibility is being embraced by forward-thinking enterprises as part of their long-term business models.

Success

Financial accounting can be challenging—especially for students lacking business experience or previous exposure to business courses. To help students succeed in the course, we provide a wealth of resources through our online learning and homework systems, myBusinessCourse (MBC), and through pedagogical devices used throughout the textbook.

Putting each chapter in context

Often, students lose sight of the big picture. 

• Road Map: Each chapter opens with a grid that identifies each learning objective for the chapter, the related pages, eLecture and Guided Example videos, and end of chapter assignments. This allows students and faculty to quickly grasp the chapter contents and to efficiently navigate to the desired topic.
• The Past/Present/Future feature provides students with an overview of where the chapter fits within the whole course.
• Chapter Organization Chart: Each chapter's opener also includes an overview that visually depicts the layout of the chapter.

Your Turn!

Your Turn boxes are integrated throughout each chapter as a mends of reinforcing the material just presented. Solutions are provided at the end of the chapter so students can check their work.

A.K.A Callouts

A.K.A margin callouts inform students of commonly used alternative terms that they may encounter.

Hints

Helpful suggestions are inserted in the margin as Hints to help students understand difficult concepts. To record the bad debts expense for the period. This entry brings the credit balance in the Allowance for Doubtful Accounts account to the required amount—$1,560, as shown below.

Takeaways

These in-chapter summaries ensure that students grasp key concepts before proceeding to the next topic.

Data Analytics

A discussion of data analytics is included to expose students to its relevance in accounting.

Ethics

In today’s post-Sarbanes-Oxley world, ethical decision making has never been more pertinent to business and students studying accounting. We discuss ethics where appropriate in the text, and we have included at least one assignment in each chapter that raises an ethical issue. Assignments involving ethics are identified by the icon in the margin.

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)

Our introductory students should develop a basic understanding of the similarities and differences in the current reporting requirements and methods under U.S. GAAP and IFRS. Consequently, we incorporate discussions that examine these similarities and differences where appropriate throughout the book. In addition, the financial statements for LVMH Moet Hennessey-Louis Vuitton S.A. (a Paris-Based holding company) are included in Appendix C at the end of the book. Each chapter includes an IFRS assignment related to LVMH. The IFRS icon identifies those assignments.

Thinking Globally

These boxes emphasize the similarities and differences in business practices between companies in the U.S. and companies in other countries.

• Road Map: Each chapter opens with a grid that identifies each learning objective for the chapter, the related pages, eLecture and Guided Example videos, and end of chapter assignments. This allows students and faculty to quickly grasp the chapter contents and to efficiently navigate to the desired topic.

• Updated revenue recognition coverage for standard change

• Updated inventory chapter (Chapter 6) for new standard on lower of cost or net realizable value

• Added coverage on natural resources and depletion in Chapter 9

• Updated lease appendix for standard change in Chapter 10

• Updated Appendix D on Investments to reflect the new standard

• Data Analytics: Added a discussion of data analytics to expose students to its relevance in accounting.
• Updated real financial data throughout the text and assignments

• Expanded the number of guided example videos and assignments included in MBC

●      myBusinessCourse: A web-based learning and assessment program intended to complement your textbook and classroom instruction. This easy-to-use course management system grades homework automatically and provides students with eLecture and Guided Example videos to assist them in mastering the material.  In addition, detailed diagnostic tools assess class and individual performance. myBusinessCourse is ideal for online courses or traditional face-to-face courses for which you want to offer students more resources to succeed. MBC integrates with Canvas, BlackBoard, D2L, Sakai, and other LMS platforms.

●       Solutions Manual: Created by the authors, the Solutions Manual contains complete solutions to all the assignment material in the text.

●       Test Bank/Computerized Test Bank: The test bank includes multiple-choice items, matching questions, short-essay questions, and problems. The computerized version of the test bank enables an instructor to add and edit questions; create up to 99 versions of each test; attach graphic files to questions; import and export AsCii files; and select questions based on type or learning objective.  It provides password protection for saved tests and question databases and is able to run on a network.

●       PowerPoint: The PowerPoint slides outline key elements of each chapter.

●      Excel Templates:  We provide Excel spreadsheets for assignments.  These spreadsheets will save time in data entry and allow students to dedicate additional time to learning the material.  The Excel spreadsheets are identified by the EXCEL icon.

●       Self-Study Quizzes: Available for students within MBC.

●       Jeopardy-style review game created by the authors. Available for each chapter along with an instructional video on how to play and how to add material.