Accounting Principles 11th Edition

Book Preface

Knowing the Numbers

Many students who take this course do not plan to be accountants. If you are in that group, you might be thinking, “If I’m not going to be an accountant, why do I need to know accounting?” Well, consider this quote from Harold Geneen, the former chairman of IT&T: “To be good at your business, you have to know the numbers—cold.” In business, accounting and fi nancial statements are the means for communicating the numbers. If you don’t know how to read financial statements, you can’t really know your business. Many businesses agree with this view. They see the value of their employees being able to read fi nancial statements and understand how their actions affect the company’s financial results. For example, consider Clif Bar & Company. The original Clif Bar® energy bar was created in 1990 after six months of experimentation by Gary Erickson and his mother in her kitchen. Today, the company has almost 300 employees and is considered one of the leading Landor’s Breakaway Brands®. Clif Bar is guided by what it calls its Five Aspirations— Sustaining Our Business, Our Brands, Our People, Our Community, and the Planet. Its website documents its efforts and accomplishments in these fi ve areas. Just a few examples include the company’s use of organic products to protect soil, water, and biodiversity; the “smart” solar array (the largest in North America), which provides nearly all the electrical needs for its 115,000-square foot building; and the incentives Clif Bar provides to employees to reduce their personal environmental impact, such as $6,500 toward the purchase of an efficient car or $1,000 per year for eco-friendly improvements toward their homes.

One of the company’s proudest moments was the creation of an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) in 2010. This plan gives its employees 20% ownership of the company (Gary and his wife Kit own the other 80%). The ESOP also resulted in Clif Bar enacting an open-book management program, including the commitment to educate all employee-owners about its fi nances. Armed with this basic financial knowledge, employees are more aware of the financial impact of their actions, which leads to better decisions. Many other companies have adopted this open-book management approach. Even in companies that do not practice open-book management, employers generally assume that managers in all areas of the company are “financially literate.”

Taking this course will go a long way to making you financially literate. In this textbook, you will learn how to read and prepare financial statements, and how to use basic tools to evaluate financial results. Throughout this textbook, we attempt to increase your familiarity with financial reporting by providing numerous references, questions, and exercises that encourage you to explore the financial statements of well-known companies.

Brief Contents
1 Accounting in Action 2
2 The Recording Process 52
3 Adjusting the Accounts 98
4 Completing the Accounting Cycle 160
5 Accounting for Merchandising Operations 216
6 Inventories 274
7 Accounting Information Systems 328
8 Fraud, Internal Control, and Cash 374
9 Accounting for Receivables 428
10 Plant Assets, Natural Resources, and Intangible
Assets 470
11 Current Liabilities and Payroll Accounting 522
12 Accounting for Partnerships 566
13 Corporations: Organization and Capital Stock
Transactions 606
14 Corporations: Dividends, Retained Earnings, and Income
Reporting 648
15 Long-Term Liabilities 684
16 Investments 738
17 Statement of Cash Flows 776
18 Financial Statement Analysis 840
19 Managerial Accounting 892
20 Job Order Costing 938
21 Process Costing 982
22 Cost-Volume-Profit 1030
23 Budgetary Planning 1074
24 Budgetary Control and Responsibility Accounting 1122
25 Standard Costs and Balanced Scorecard 1176
26 Incremental Analysis and Capital Budgeting 1226
APPENDICES
A Specimen Financial Statements: Apple Inc. A1
B Specimen Financial Statements: PepsiCo, Inc. B1
C Specimen Financial Statements: The Coca-Cola
Company C1
D Specimen Financial Statements: Amazon.com, Inc. D1
E Specimen Financial Statements: Wal-Mart
Stores, Inc. E1
F Specimen Financial Statements: Zetar plc F1
G Time Value of Money G1
*H Using Financial Calculators H1
*I Standards of Ethical Conduct for Management
Accountants I1