Principles of Accounting Volume 1 Financial Accounting

Reviewed by Dianne Poulos, Adjunct Professor, Bunker Hill Community College on 6/30/20

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

The textbook provides a thorough overview of the accounting system. It delves quite a bit into the "why" of accounting which is sometimes glossed over in favor of mechanics in other texts.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

No errors were encountered in my review.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The life examples are drawn from companies which are relevant and understandable to students today.

Clarity rating: 4

Looking at this from the context of a non-native English speaker, some of the language or vocabulary would be difficult to comprehend. Words such as ancillary even though explained later, might turn off a reader who already struggles with the language.

Consistency rating: 5

There is much consistency between the chapters in terms of how they are structured. Terminology is consistent as well.

Modularity rating: 5

Each chapter is broken into smaller, easily digested sections. Although chapters 1-5 must be presented in sequential order since we are discussing a sequence of events in an accounting cycle, the others can easily be moved around in terms of order presented.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The illustrations are particularly helpful. Also, really liked how debits and credits are brought into the discussion of the accounting equation early. Other texts have the instructor teaching to the equation and then introducing the concept of debits and credits. This creates a lot of confusion in some of the students.

Interface rating: 5

Interface was great.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

No grammatical errors detected.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I did not detect any. However, as a straight, white woman, I might not be as sensitive to the issues.

Comments

This is a good, solid textbook. There are many exercises and problems for students to use in the application of the material. The "Think it Through" sections in the chapter will provide some good fodder for discussion. I'm always looking for a way to not be lecturing but discussing. These open framework hypotheticals do the trick. Real life examples are presented in a way that most students have encountered in their life. This has been the way I've been teaching and this book will be a good resource to further enhance my lectures.

Reviewed by William Holmes, Instructor, LSUE on 4/15/20

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

The text covers all the important aspects that should be covered in the introduction to financial accounting. The text covers an overview of accounting information systems which I have not seen in textbooks I've used. It looks like the content is solid and comprehensive.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The information contained in the book is accurate and inline with what would be expected from an introduction to financial accounting textbook.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The topics covered in the book are relevant. I've used two textbooks for my course in the last five years and the information is comparable.

Clarity rating: 5

The book is clearly written.

Consistency rating: 5

The book is consistent.

Modularity rating: 5

The book is split into appropriate parts. This book did introduce financial statements and how to prepare them early than other books I've reviewed; however, I see how this can assist the student in understanding how financial statements are useful in business and how they can be used before getting into the weeds of details on analyzing accounts. As noted, I like the fact they are introducing accounting information systems which is an important topic.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

Please refer to the previous comment, the book is well organized and consistent with other books that I have reviewed on the subject matter.

Interface rating: 5

The book interfaced well. There did not appear to be any problem with navigation or other displays such as charts and graphs.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

No grammatical errors were noted.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

This text is straight forward and focused on the subject of financial accounting. It was no insensitive in any way.

Comments

After reviewing the book, and the accompanying resources I will consider adopting it for use in my classes. If not as a primary resource, I will recommend the source as an additional reading option for my students.

Reviewed by Darin Bell, Business Instructor, Treasure Valley Community College on 1/4/20

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

This textbook has all of the content that I cover with the publisher textbook that I have used for the past 6 years.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

I have not used this test yet for an actual course but in my initial review I did not find any errors in the text.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

This text includes some very relevant information about careers in accounting. I did not see a tie-in with data analysis which would have been nice but there are other ways to integrate this in to a course.

Clarity rating: 5

This textbook uses of T-accounts and diagrams to make the concepts become clearer for students. For a fee there are also videos through the OpenStax app.

Consistency rating: 5

This text is written in a single voice and allows for consistency through out the entire textbook. The types of graphics and the language that provides structure is also the same throughout the entire book.

Modularity rating: 5

Each chapter has subunits and it would be possible to remove or skip some of the units and there learning objectives because they are all numbered and ordered.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

This text lays out the basic accounting foundation in the first five chapters. The publisher book I have used does it in 4 chapters. Having more chapters is a plus especially if your student struggle with the basic concepts. I wish that the chapters on merchandising and inventory were back-to-back. I will flip these when I use the book in my class to provide more continuity for these concepts. All of the other chapters are in a logical order.

Interface rating: 5

There are many format options that are common to OpenStax textbooks that make this book a very accessible and usable book.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

In my limited review I did not find any grammatical errors. I have not used this text yet in a course. Upon using it in a course I suspect any errors will surface.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I did not find any culturally insensitive or offensive content in this textbook.

Comments

I am excited to use this textbook in my courses this next year. I plan on creating my own videos and exam problems to expand the course. I will also create a Canvas course that I am will to share.

Reviewed by Andrew Hartzler, Professor of Accounting, Goshen College on 7/15/19

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

This book is perhaps the most comprehensive text I have seen for financial accounting. For those who are familiar with Financial Accounting, the index and glossary are sufficiently detailed. The fact that the text is so comprehensive is both a positive and a negative. It is positive in the sense that it has essentially every topic that you may want to cover in an introductory course. For newer instructors however it may be a bit daunting to distill the content down to what is most essential to cover in an introductory course. The text has some content that is more relevant to courses such as Accounting Information Systems, Financial Management, and Intermediate Accounting. An experienced instructor can recognize this and use the necessary elements for a principles course whereas for a new instructor the content is too extensive to cover in a single semester long course and would potentially overwhelm them. If an instructor's principles course contained only students who quickly and easily understood accounting concepts, then it would be possible to touch on such a wide variety of concepts in an introductory course. However, most principles courses contain business majors and other non-accounting majors who would struggle with the pace required to cover so much material.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

I noticed a few typo-graphical errors but overall the text is well-written and accurate. I noticed no specific bias in the writing or examples.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Basic accounting concepts have not changed for a long time. For that reason, open source texts such as this one should be more widely used. The small incremental changes made in the basic structure of accounting do not warrant the frequent new editions that publishers try to push through. The only elements that would need to be updated may be the dates after a period of time so that they are more current and perhaps a few of the examples. The basic accounting elements however will not become obsolete and will remain relevant for the foreseeable future.

Clarity rating: 4

This text is very well-written. It contains excellent explanations of concepts such as the differences/similarities between revenue and gains. The primary issue I see with the text (as with other financial accounting texts) is how quickly it assumes students understand concepts of revenues/expenses, the function of accounts, and cash vs. accrual accounting. For those very familiar with accounting, the ordering of the concepts in financial accounting textbooks seems to make sense. However, if one takes a step back and thinks about what students might be struggling with, one can quickly see how fast these texts expect students to make leaps in their understanding. An example of this (which is common to most financial accounting texts) is the introduction of financial statements in chapter two before students fully grasp what the elements reflected on the financial statements represent. It is critical to spend enough time with students making sure that they understand how the basic accounting system works (revenues, expenses, accounts, cash and accrual basis) before they can make full use of the subsequent accounting concepts that are presented.

Consistency rating: 5

The structure of the book is consistent throughout.

Modularity rating: 5

The text is sufficiently modular in format to be easily reorganized and realigned.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The topics follow a clear, logical order. The only exceptions are chapters 1 and 2. Chapter 1 presents a broad overview of accounting which is common in financial accounting texts. What is included is fairly logical, but I find that topics such as retail businesses vs. service businesses and the difference between lenders/creditors/stockholders are more meaningfully included later in the text when the instructor is dealing directly with the accounting elements that illustrate the differences between these topics. As I mentioned previously, chapter 2 makes the assumption that students already grasp at this early stage what revenues and expenses are and the differences between cash and accrual accounting.

Interface rating: 5

The interface is clean and easy to follow.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I noticed a few typo-graphical errors but overall the text is well-written grammatically.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I did not notice any cultural insensitivity. I noted a variety of inclusive examples.