| We have worked hard to make Financial Accounting: Reporting and Analysis, fifth edition, the most interesting, relevant, and understandable financial accounting text available. The objective of Financial Accounting: Reporting and Analysis is to prepare students to succeed as future business managers. Therefore, the important themes of the text are the business context of accounting, the interaction between accounting and business, and financial statement analysis. The target audience for the book is first-year MBA students. We believe that the book will also be attractive for use in high-quality undergraduate programs. We have consciously written the text for future business managers, not for future accountants. |
 | | | | ''The analysis material is strong. I like the use of real-world situations that require higher order thinking skills. Many of the questions require the student to assume a businessperson role and respond appropriately." |
| | Mary Lea McAnally
University of TexasAustin | |
| Through this textbook, we attempt to convince students that financial statements are a useful and interesting tool for diagnosing a company's problems (or strengths) and for making loan, investment, acquisition, employment, political decisions, and so on. We also hope to convince students that the economic and political forces operating on practicing accountants, Big 5 auditors, and accounting standard setters (both in the U.S. and internationally) make the field of financial accounting an intellectually fascinating one. |
| Along with many other instructors, we have learned through experience that the way to teach financial accounting is to repeatedly hammer home the business relevance of accounting. The beautiful thing about teaching financial accounting is that actual examples from real companies are available daily through the business press and through public disclosure of financial reports (increasingly made over the Web). We take advantage of this wealth of material by building each chapter around the most recent financial statements of a well-known company. Using actual financial statements in this way has at least two benefits. First, just the mention of a real company name (McDonald's, Microsoft, DuPont, Sears) creates an image in the student's mind and increases attentiveness. Second, we can take advantage of students' everyday consumer experiences to link accounting terminology and practice with actual events that they already understand very well. For example, the concept of unearned revenue is easy for students to understand when they remember the last time they bought air tickets from Delta or United and consider the practical accounting implications of the delay between the ticket purchase and the actual flight. |
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