***LOGIN REQUIRED*** Accounting covers accounting principles and practices, the complete accounting cycle and creation of financial reports. Use of the general journal and special journals, general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable and proper financial reporting.This course provides instruction in the basic accounting procedures used to operate a business including sole proprietorship, partnerships, and corporations. The accounting procedures presented will also serve as a sound background for employment in office jobs and preparation for further education and training. The complete accounting cycle is covered, students learn how to us generally accepted accounting principles to prepare, analyze, verify financial transactions, reports and economic information to make decisions for organizations.The course trains students in the basics of manual and computerized accounting. Students learn accounting topics including ethics, accounting principles, computing accounting, accounting terminology, job specific accounting, and clerical duties related to accounting. Students also gain real-world applications in income tax, personal finance, and stock market.

Accounting Principles: A Business Perspective uses annual reports of real companies to illustrate many of the accounting concepts in use in business today. Gaining an understanding of accounting terminology and concepts, however, is not enough to ensure your success. You also need to be able to find information on the Internet, analyze various business situations, work effectively as a member of a team, and communicate your ideas clearly. This text was developed to help you develop these skills.

Though accounting may seem like a dense and complex subject, this course is designed to present the accounting cycle in an accessible and logical manner. It will provide you with a solid understanding of basic accounting principles and will introduce you to financial statement analysis.

Accounting involves a process of collecting, recording, and reporting a business’s economic activities to users. It is often called the language of business because it uses a unique vocabulary to communicate information to decision makers. To understand accounting, we first look at the basic forms of business organizations. The concepts and principles that provide the foundation for financial accounting are then discussed. With an emphasis on the corporate form of business organization, we will examine how we communicate to users of financial information using financial statements. Finally, we will review how financial transactions are analyzed and then reported on financial statements. The text goes on to form a complete introduction to financial accounting.

A second edition of an approximately 800 page introductory financial accounting text has been developed. This version of the text has been professionally edited. It has also been revised from the first edition based on instructor feedback.

The text and all ancillary materials are freely-sharable under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-NC licence. There are two .pdf versions: an online version of the text is extensively bookmarked for easy access. Suggested solutions to about 25% of assessment material are included and linked to the appropriate questions and problems. The .pdf printable version includes an index. A print-based student solutions manual is available with this version.

A free, nearly 1,000-page .pdf student workbook has been developed to accompany either version of the text. Students can print out solution outlines as they need them, then fill in solutions by hand.

Original .docx source files are also available for all material to facilitate modification by individual instructors.

A free, complete instructor’s solutions manual is available upon request and review of instructor bona fides.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction to Financial Accounting
2. The Accounting Process
3. Financial Accounting and the Use of Adjusting Entries
4. The Classified Balance Sheet and Related Disclosures
5. Accounting for the Sale of Goods
6. Assigning Costs to Merchandize
7. Cash and Receivables
8. Long-lived Assets
9. Debt Financing: Current and Non-current Liabilities
10. Debt Financing: Bonds
11. Equity Financing
12. Proprietorships and Partnerships
13. Financial Statement Analysis
14. The Statement of Cash Flows

Accounting can be considered the language of business. If you are learning accounting for the first time, embracing its foundational concepts may be a challenging process. Mastery of accounting primarily rests in your ability to critically think through and synthesize the information as it applies to a given situation. You should approach the learning of accounting the same way you would approach learning a foreign language; It will take time and practice to ensure you remember the concepts. There are a number of sub-disciplines that fall under the umbrella of "accounting,” but in this course, we will be focused on financial accounting.

Based on International Financial Reporting Standards, this textbook was written by Henry Dauderis and published by Athabasca University's David Annand, EdD, MBA, CA, Professor of Accounting in the Faculty of Business. It contains 13 chapters and includes discussion questions, cases and comprehension problems. The first four chapters provide a succinct overview of the the financial accounting process before delving into specific topics in later chapters. This second edition has been professionally edited and significantly revised based on instructor feedback. Notable changes include: information about the classified balance sheet; notes to the financial statements, audit report and management discussion; analysis have been moved up to chapter 4 including an introduction to accounting for payroll, sales taxes, contingent liabilities and warranty reserves, among others, and a comprehensive demonstration problem has been added; accounting for proprietorships has been expanded in chapter 12; a section on notes receivable has been added to chapter 6; coverage of currently liabilities has been significantly expanded in chapter 9. Accounting for LIFO inventory valuation has been eliminated from the relevant chapter. A free, nearly 1,000-page student workbook has been developed to accompany the text. Students can print out solution outlines as they need them and then fill in solutions by hand. An Instructors Manual for this book is available. For access, please contact the author directly at davida@athabascau.ca

Revenue, profit and loss, balance sheets - are these accounting terms that intimidate you? This unit will help you to understand the very basics of accounting, from its historical beginnings to the objectives of modern day accountants. You will learn how an accountant in business balances conflicting demands to maximize market share and profit.