Friday, September 27, 2013

Financial Accounting (with IFRS), 11th Edition, Belverd E. Needles




FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING, Eleventh Edition continues a distinguished tradition of combining academic needs with professional thought to prepare students for a dynamic business world. Through market-leading integration of International Financial Reporting Standards coverage and real-world data, trusted pedagogy, and a clear writing style that simplifies complex concepts, FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING, Eleventh Edition, develops the judgment and critical-thinking skills students will need to succeed. The new edition is fully updated for IFRS, includes unique elements on ratio analysis, and offers two unique choices for online homework software: CengageNOW and Aplia.

Review
"I would urge [our academic coordinator] to strongly look at this book, as having been changed significantly and positively since the last time he probably looked at it. I would also suggest it to colleagues at other schools, where the course was appropriate, if they asked me for ideas."

"Needles/Powers is the most readable comprehensive text on the market. Even poor readers can and do learn from the text. Most importantly, Needles/Powers allows the instructor flexibility in teaching style and material emphasis. Needles works well whether you teach from a preparer or user approach."

About the Author
Belverd E. Needles, Jr., received his BBA and MBA degrees from Texas Tech University and his PhD degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He teaches financial accounting, managerial accounting, and auditing at DePaul University, where he is an internationally recognized expert in international accounting and education. He has published in leading journals and is the author or editor of more than 20 books and monographs. His current research relates to international financial reporting, performance measurement, and corporate governance of high-performance companies in the United States, Europe, India, and Australia.

His textbooks are used throughout the world and have received many awards, including (in 2008) the McGuffey Award from the Text and Academic Authors Association. Active in many academic and professional organizations, he is immediate past vice president-education of the American Accounting Association. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Texas Tech University, the Illinois CPA Society Outstanding Educator Award and its Life-Time Achievement Award, the Joseph A. Silvoso Faculty Award of Merit from the Federation of Schools of Accountancy, the Ledger & Quill Award of Merit, and the Ledger & Quill Teaching Excellence Award. He was named Educator of the Year by the American Institute of CPAs, Accountant of the Year for Education by the national honorary society Beta Alpha Psi, and Outstanding International Accounting Educator by the American Accounting Association. He received the Excellence in Teaching Award from DePaul University.

Marian Powers received her B.S. degree from Chicago State University and her Ph.D. degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In addition to the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, she has taught financial accounting at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. Internationally recognized as a dynamic teacher in executive education, she specializes in teaching nonfinancial managers how to read and understand internal and external financial reports, including the impact of international financial reporting standards (IFRS).

Her current research relates to international financial reporting, performance measurement, and corporate governance of high-performance companies in the United States, Europe, India, and Australia. Her research has been published in leading journals. Her textbooks, coauthored with Belverd E. Needles, Jr., are used throughout the world and have received many awards, including the Textbook Excellence Award and the McGuffey Award from the Text and Academic Authors Association. She has also coauthored three interactive multimedia software products. She currently serves on the Board of the CPA Endowment Fund of Illinois and is immediate past-chair of the Board of Governors of the Winnetka Community House. She is a member of International Association of Accounting Education and Research, and Illinois CPA Society. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Illinois CPA Society, the Educational Foundation of Women in Accounting, and both the national as well as Chicago chapters of ASWA.

I used this book for my Financial Accounting I course I took this past Spring working towards my Bachelors degree. This was in the first accounting course and I really didn't know too much about accounting beforehand. While the book overall is a good text and full of helpful information and examples, the first chapter or two were totally useless because they approached accounting pragmatically and tried to cover too many fundamentals too soon. Accounting is not an easy subject and theres no easy way to get started with it.

However, my professor (who had used the book before) skipped over the first couple chapters and taught us the fundamentals using her own method which did work very well and then the rest of the book made more sense. At times it seems the book might cover a topic or circumstance in only one or two sentences and then will have a problem or two that deal more extensively with that short concept. The only reason I could think they did this was to stimulate creativity and learning and force the student to figure out how to mold the various principles to fit a particular "new" situation rather than just have you memorize some rules. Some might not like this method.

I started out with practically no knowledge of accounting - this book did a very impressive job of introducing me to the various concepts. I can now read and understand the financial statements put out by the companies. Our professor used this book very extensively - he would talk about a topic and then point out the page numbers where the authors had written about that topic. This is a pretty good reference too - I have refered to the book many times when I see certain accounting terms used in the press. The authors have kept the explanation very concise and have inserted examples that capture the essence of the explanation. I found the book to be very expensive though.

Good service. The customer service was great. The book was well written and provided a great deal of information. Had a few good parts for the toolbox.

Product Details :

  • Hardcover: 736 pages
  • Publisher: Cengage Learning; 11 edition (December 20, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 053847601X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0538476010
  • Product Dimensions: 1.1 x 9.1 x 10.9 inches


More Details about Financial Accounting (with IFRS), 11th Edition

No comments:

Post a Comment