Intermediate Accounting: Financial Reporting and Analysis

Intermediate Accounting is changing the way instructors teach and students learn. The text provides students with a core body of knowledge on the traditional financial preparation issues?including the most recent pronouncements from the accounting standards boards and the implications of Sarbanes-Oxley?yet offers a streamlined approach more conceptual in nature than other texts. Authors Curt Norton, Mike Diamond, and Don Pagach recognize that the role of the accountant has expanded well beyond basic recording and reporting functions. Accounting professionals must lead businesses and interpret the implications of business transactions and industry events. This text responds to the demands students will face as future accountants, enabling them to think critically and to understand the "why" of accounting as well as the "how."

The Second Edition integrates current accounting standards and combines print and electronic resources to ensure that students can practice the skills they need to succeed in the course. Within each chapter, the integration of financial statements from real companies provides a basis for comparison and analysis, while "Point/Counterpoint" features present contrasting perspectives on controversial accounting topics. Through CPA Exam Simulations and other web-based activities, students conduct research, prepare reports, communicate financial information, and apply critical-thinking and decision-making skills.

• This streamlined text presents a core body of knowledge, verified through research with academicians and practitioners.
• While maintaining a preparer-based approach, the text introduces a user orientation that emphasizes analysis and interpretation of financial statements.
• New! The Second Edition has been updated to include all the latest FASB statements and opinions. Current accounting standards have been fully integrated to ensure all data, examples, and end of chapter assignments are current and accurate.
• In the Second Edition, several companies featured in the chapter-opening "Financial Reporting Cases" have been replaced to highlight recent events and trends in business accounting. For instance, Nike replaces Transmeta in the chapter on "Intangible Assets," with a look at how Nike's purchase of Converse counted on the intangibles brought by Converse's "retro" style comeback.
• The authors introduce cash flow early in the text?in Chapter 5?and again in Chapter 19, while integrating the topic throughout all the chapters.
• Updated! "Point/Counterpoint" features, which present the opposing viewpoints of prominent financial professionals on controversial accounting topics, have been updated to include coverage of stock options.
• Chapter 18 on "Dilutive Securities and Earnings per Share" has been significantly revised to address changes to share-based compensation made in FASB Statement No. 123. Revised in 2004, this statement now requires fair-value accounting for employee stock options.
• Chapter-ending CPA-adapted simulations model the simulations found on the new Uniform CPA exam. In addition, through a partnership with Efficient Learning Systems/CPAexcel, students using Intermediate Accounting will have access to online simulations that function in the same way as CPA exam simulations. CPAexcel also allows students to practice other skills and sequences required on the new CPA exam, with feedback and assessment that let students know where they need to focus their review efforts.
• Coverage of ethics and corporate responsibility issues includes dedicated chapter sections on ethics; critical-thinking questions tied to learning objectives; end-of-chapter cases; and unique "Point/Counterpoint" features, which present the opposing viewpoints of prominent financial professionals on controversial accounting topics.
• "Check Your Understanding" review questions at the end of each major section offer the opportunity for concise, step-by-step reinforcement of section topics before moving on to the next section. End-of-chapter assignment materials?while requiring students to prepare statements and solve problems based on quantitative data?also include skills-based components designed to develop students' communication, research, analysis, and decision-making skills.
• Bridge tutorial software integrated with the text's review chapter (Chapter 1) includes a series of interactive tutorials designed to reinforce accounting transactions, review the debit/credit mechanism, and provide a foundation for the preparation of financial statements. Part of the eStudy CD and automatically packaged with new Intermediate Accounting texts, this resource helps close the gap between introductory and intermediate accounting.