About GAAP

While many businesses assume that accountants are bound by generally accepted accounting practices and that these are inviolate, nothing could be further from the truth. Everything is subject to interpretation, and GAAP is no different. For one thing, GAAP themselves permit alternative accounting methods to be used for certain expenses and for revenue in certain specialized types of businesses. For another, GAAP methods require that decisions be made about the timing for recording revenue and expenses, or they require that key factors be quantified. Deciding on the timing of revenue and expenses and putting definite values on these factors require judgments, estimates and interpretations.

The mission of GAAP over the years has been to standardize accounting methods in order to bring about uniformity across all businesses. But alternative methods are still permitted for certain basic business expenses. No tests are required to determine whether one method is more preferable than another. A business is free to select whichever method it wants. But it must choose which cost of good sold expense method to use and which depreciation expense method to use.

For other expenses and for sales revenue, one general accounting method has been established; there are no alternative methods. However, a business has a fair amount of latitude in actually implementing the methods. One business applies the accounting methods in a conservative manner, and another business applies the methods in a more liberal manner. The end result is more diversity between businesses in their profit measure and financial statements than one might expect, considering that GAAP have been evolving since 1930.

The pronouncement on GAAP prepared by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is now more than 1000 pages long. And that doesn't even include the rules and regulations issued by the federal regulatory agency that jurisdiction over the financial reporting and accounting methods of publicly owned businesses - the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Budgeting

Ugh, budgeting is one of those topics we'd rather avoid, but in business, it's an absolute necessity. To prepare a reasoned and thoughtful budget, an accountant must start with a broad-based critical analysis of the most recent actual performance and position of the business by the managers who are responsible for the results. Then the managers decide on specific and concrete goals for the coming year. It demands a fair amount of management time and energy. Budgets should be worth this time and effort. It's one of the key components of a manager's job.

To construct budged financial statements, a manager needs good models of the profit, cash flow and financial condition of your business. Models are blueprints or schematics of how things work. A business budget is, at its core, a financial blueprint of the business. Budgeting relies on financial models that are the foundation for preparing budgeted financial statements. Those statements include:

--Budgeted income statement (or profit report): This statement highlights the critical information that managers need for making decisions and exercising control. Much of the information in an internal profit report is confidential and should not be divulged outside the business.

--Budgeted balance sheet: The connections and ratios between sales revenue and expenses and their corresponding assets and liabilities are the elements of the basic model for the budgeted balance sheet.

--Budgeted statement of cash flows: The changes in assets and liabilities from their balances at the end of the year just concluded to the projected balances at the end of the coming year determine cash flow from profit for the coming year.

Budgeting requires good working models of profit performance, financial condition, and cash flow from profit. Constructing good budgets is a strong incentive for businesses to develop financial models that not only help in the budgeting process but also help managers in making strategic decisions.

The Heart of Accounting

This short four-hour accounting course uses a step-by-step approach that carefully leads the student to a hands-on understanding of the basic accounting cycle and how to prepare a small business financial statement. Knowing how to write general journal entries (translating financial events into accounting transactions) is an essential skill that must be mastered in order to speak the language of business, which is accounting. This requires a solid grasp of how debits and credits work. Unique to this course, is John Day's innovative "six-step method" that makes these critical concepts easy to learn. For those who want to hone their newly acquired accounting skills, 100 practice journal entries related to sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, and non-profit organizations are presented at the end of the course.View product details at Amazon

Financial Accounting

Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision Making

Product Description
Financial Accounting, 5^th Edition provides students with an understanding of fundamental concepts necessary to use accounting effectively. Starting with a “macro” view of accounting information, the authors present real financial statements. They establish how a financial statement communicates the financing, investing, and operating activities of a business to users of accounting information. Kimmel, Weygandt and Kieso motivate students by grounding the discussion in the real world, showing them the relevance of the topics covered to their future.

From the Publisher
This user-friendly book teaches readers fundamental accounting procedures with an emphasis on the relationship between the procedural detail and the fundamental accounting equation. It gives readers the conceptual and procedural accounting tools they need in order to make sound internal and external business decisions. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.View product details at Amazon

Principles of Accounting

Needles, Powers, and Crosson continue to help instructors stay on top of the change curve with Principles of Accounting. Balanced, flexible content in this market-leading text is supported by an array of integrated print and technology supplements. Whether an instructor wants to present a user or procedural orientation, incorporate new instructional strategies, develop students' core skills and competencies, or integrate technology into the classroom, Principles of Accounting provides a total solution, making it the natural choice for accounting instructors. Ideal for two-semester courses, the Tenth Edition focuses primarily on the use of accounting information in today's business world--beginning with sole proprietorships--and represents the most significant revision of the text to date. Content updates reflect current accounting and business practices, while greater attention is given to ethics, service enterprises, and international issues. In addition, the text features a more concise, accessible writing style; a new design to emphasize the user-oriented content; and enhanced technology components for both instructors and students. Accuracy reviewers check every line and work through each exercise in the text and supplements, making Principles of Accounting the most accurate among similar texts on the market. View product details at Amazon

Accounting Handbook

Updated to reflect the latest tax laws, this comprehensive reference book presents descriptions and examples covering financial and cost accounting, business and individual tax preparation, computer applications of accounting, quantitative accounting methods, auditing, personal financial planning, and governmental and nonprofit accounting. A lengthy dictionary section presents more than 2,500 accounting terms and definitions. New in this edition are definitions of professional designations, and an expansion of the "Auditing" chapter with discussions of internal control, fraud, forensic accounting, internal auditing, assurance services, and control assessment.View product details at Amazon

Fundamentals Of Aaccounting: Basic Aaccounting Principles Simplified For Accounting Students

Can you believe that accounting can be made incredibly easy to study and learn? Fundamentals of Accounting - Basic Accounting Principles Simplified for Accounting Students will be to achieve what many accounting books failed to accomplish. Students who use this book will develop a fondness for accounting before the semester is over because they will find out that accounting is not difficult to learn, after all. Oftentimes, students demonstrate a natural anxiety about absorbing accounting knowledge. Accounting involves mathematics, another subject disliked by many students. Mathematics and analyses are necessary in learning accounting. The book discusses and presents accounting principles and concepts in lay man's terms using simple day-to-day terminologies. Definitions are always amplified by examples familiar to students. The steps in the accounting process are discussed using the same illustration problem from chapter to chapter so that the student can connect the relationship of the steps in the accounting process. Being a basic accounting textbook, the book will provide students with a solid and strong basic accounting knowledge to better equip them to tackle more advanced accounting courses. Accounting, as a field of study is progressive; accounting knowledge is learned in stages; what is learned in basic accounting is used and applied in more advanced accounting courses. Consequently, if a student has a weak basic accounting foundation, he will have difficulty succeeding in more advanced accounting courses. The book discusses accounting as a profession, the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAPs), the steps in the accounting process and the qualitative and quantitative methods of assessing company performance. Financial statement analyses are discussed thoroughly in the final chapter. Students are provided with chapter review questions, sample examinations and numerous problems to solve in order to assist them develop their basic account.