Product Description

For courses in Introductory Accounting.

The leading programmed text in accounting, Essentials of Accounting is a self-teaching, self-paced introduction to financial accounting for active users of business data, rather than preparers of accounting information (bookkeepers).

It presents the ideas and terminology essential to an understanding of balance sheets, income statements, and statements of cash flows. Every frame requires students to solve a problem involving accounting information—e.g., selecting a correct word from two choices, providing an answer, making a journal entry, or preparing a complete balance sheet.

Appropriate for undergraduate and graduate, executive, vocational or management training. It has been successfully used for summer reading by incoming MBA students. May also be used in conjunction with software to provide core material in a computerized accounting course.

An ideal introduction/review, this supplemental text frees up professors from at least five class sessions in a conventional first course in accounting, and is ideal for those entering or in the first weeks of an MBA program.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1031582 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 110 pages

Review

"This book will be of great value to corporate management trainees, as well as to business school students who want to 'hit the ground running.'" — Professor Jonathan B. Schiff, Fairleigh Dickinson University

"We have effectively used Essentials of Accounting in our introductory graduate level course in financial accounting. Dr. Anthony is clearly one of the leading academics in our field and has demonstrated an ability to communicate a difficult body of knowledge to generations of accounting students." — Professor Steven Lilien, Baruch College

"Essentials of Accounting serves as an indispensable tool for teaching and as a guidebook for anyone wanting to understand the foundations of accounting in an easy, highly interactive way. It is simply the best." — Professor Philip DiSalvio, Seton Hall University

From the Back Cover

Concept

This self-paced introduction to financial accounting presents the ideas and terminology essential to an understanding of balance sheets, income statements, and statements of cash flows. This engaging text is aimed at he active user of business data. Essentials of Accounting requires readers to solve accounting problems, based on the authors' belief that this is the most effective way to understand the meaning and use of accounting information.

Thus, every frame requires student involvement-either selecting a correct word from two choices, providing an answer, making a journal entry, or preparing a complete balance sheet.

• Detailed step-by-step approach guarantees mastery of basics.
• Develops essential ideas from basic concepts and defines accounting terms through concise examples.
• Self-contained booklet includes an expanded glossary/index of terms with definitions, exhibits, and post tests with answers for each chapter.

About the Author

Robert N. Anthony is the Ross Graham Walker Professor of Management Control (Emeritus) at Harvard Business School, and a trustee of both Colby College and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. A former President of the American Accounting Association, Dr. Anthony has also been Assistant Secretary of Defense, Controller. He has received awards including "Outstanding Accounting Educator" from the American Accounting Hall of Fame.

Leslie K. Breitner, D.B.A., and Lecturer in Public Policy, teaches financial management, financial statement analysis, and management control for government and nonprofit organizations at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. In addition, Dr. Breitner has developed and taught an online financial management course for a master's program in health care management at Seton Hall University. Prior to coming to the Kennedy School she was a full-time member of the faculty in the Graduate School for Health Studies, Health Care Administration Program at Simmons College. She received her doctorate from the Departments of Accounting and Health Care Management at Boston University's Graduate School of Management.

Customer Reviews

An excellent introduction to the key concepts of financial accounting
The Essentials of Accounting is a good introduction to the basic concepts of financial accounting, presented in an unusual and absorbing format which makes it easy for readers with no existing knowledge of the subject to grasp the fundamentals.

The book consists of approximately 200 pages of prose, outlining various topics, with blanks throughout, which the reader is supposed to complete as they read the text. The correct answers are given at the end of each page. Most of the blanks are for words, but some are for basic calculations. The prose is simple and repetitive, making the book accessible for the most novice of readers. The premise of the book's format is that active reading (i.e., filling-in the blanks), and repetition (i.e., covering the same material at several points in the book) aids retention of the content. Whilst this is certainly true, it does sometimes make the process of reading and completing the blanks sometimes a little laborious. At the end of each chapter there is a brief test, which follows a similar format to the main text. The topics covered include balance sheets, income and cash flow statements, measurement of revenues and expenses and basic analysis of financial statements.

As the title suggests, the Essentials of Accounting is a good primer on the basics of the subject, but no more than this. I read the book as a complete beginner, and found it invaluable in making more advanced texts accessible to me. It is also worth noting that the book is intended for people who review and use financial statements, and not for those who prepare them (although the text does cover the basis processes used in preparing statements).

Overall, this is the best introductory text I have found, and I heartily recommend it. Incidentally, the Essentials of Accounting has been on the reading lists at several top-tier business schools, including Harvard Business School, for several years.

highly recomended
I used this book in a analyst training program in Wall Street. It is an excellent summary of Accounting 001. Clear, short and precise for people who want to grasp relatively quickly the topic.

Excellent book for beginner
This book is perfect for a person who has a general understanding of bookkeeping but wants to know more about accounting. It makes a good review for a person who uses financial statements but does not prepare them. It is a workbook, so the reader answers questions on each page. This encourages retention of information.