Text Features

New Features

• New four-color design.
• Updated real-world examples help students understand theoretical concepts by studying the decisions made by progressive companies such as Microsoft, Ford, and The Gap.
• The latest FASB pronouncements, including 130, 131, 132, 133, and 137.
• New material on the treatment of in-process R;D in acquisitions, reflecting FASB's recent discussions of accounting for mergers and acquisitions.
• New coverage of earnings quality, a hot topic in the press today.
• Because most new start-up companies are high-tech firms, the Second Edition now explores software revenue recognition, enabling internal auditors to accurately account for these intellectual properties.
• Expanded coverage of comprehensive income, including real-world disclosure examples and presentations.

Retained Features

• Conceptual Emphasis - Spiceland is more conceptual in how it successfully explains not just how to account for something, but why you account for it in a particular manner.
• Decision-Making Perspective - These sections appear in almost every chapter, and are presented to reinforce how concepts are applied in the real world. This text addresses the issues of how creditors use information about accounts receivables and inventories, determine which information is useful to investors, and why managers choose a particular accounting method over an allowable alternative. By the end of this course, students will be able to use accounting information to make decisions, understand financial reporting issues, and most importantly, critically evaluate reporting alternatives.
• Flexibility - The author team has organized the chapters modularly so basic concepts are covered early in the chapter, while more difficult concepts can be studied later, or skipped completely. With other encyclopedic texts, this can be very difficult for instructors to accomplish.
• Chapter Opening Financial Reporting Cases - Each chapter opens with a Financial Reporting Case that places the students in the role of the decision-maker. These cases will help students understand why and how the material covered in a given chapter is applied in business. Questions relating to these cases are placed appropriately throughout the chapter where the learned concepts can be applied. Solutions to these questions are located in the End-of-Chapter material.
• Ethical Dilemmas - Ethical boxes are integrated throughout the text and are intended to create an awareness of accounting issues with ethical ramifications. These are great for classroom discussions and ask students to consider situations dealing with fraud, accounting for contingencies, and post-retirement pension plans.
• Global Perspectives - International boxes integrated throughout the text to give students a sense of how accounting is used in other countries. Students will get some insight into how income tax regulations are handled in other countries, how investments are reported, and uniformity of accounting standards in a global marketplace.
• Additional Consideration Boxes - provide students with more detail on selected topics such as understanding ratios, LIFO/FIFO, and goodwill.
• Critical Thinking Skills are Developed with the Integration of the Following 12 Types of Cases - Critical Thought Cases, International Cases, Integrating Cases, Research Cases, Real-World Cases, Internet Cases, Writing Cases, Discussion Cases, Financial Analysis Cases, Ethics Cases, Group Interaction Cases, and Trueblood Cases. These cases are integrated throughout every chapter and allow students to apply their knowledge.
• Concept Review Exercises w/ Solutions - reinforces the understanding of chapter material, and allows students to apply concepts and procedures learned in earlier chapters prior to their homework assignment. Some chapters will discuss more than one distinct topic, and in so doing, a concept review exercise will immediately follow.
• Consistent Teaching Material - The authors worked closely with supplement authors to review all supplements to their text. By doing so, the supplements package is one of the most correlated (text/supps) packages on the market.
• Extensive Web Site - Students can find helpful resources such as practice exams, assignment solutions, articles related to chapter topics, Real World Electronic Cases, present value tables, links to FASB pronouncement summaries and IASC web site, and many other useful references. Faculty will find additional assignment materials, an Instructors' Resource Manual, modifiable teaching transparency masters, Power Point Presentations, FASB updates, including complete, revised chapters if new FASB pronouncements are issued. The unique quality of this web site is that the authors are responsible for updating the content, making changes to such items as the FASB's and supplement package easy and allowing students and instructors to have the most up-to-date material available.