About the class - general

Understanding American financial accounting (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles - GAAP) is very useful in international business. These days there is a lot of work on global standards, so we are also going to focus much of our discussion time on IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) as well.

In the first half of the semester we will learn the fundamentals - debits and credits, financial statement formats, inventory methods, and common allocations.

In the second half we will look to more advanced topics, such as bonds payable, cash flows, pensions, income tax and financial statement analysis.

class style

Generally I introduce a theme, go over the fundamental theory, and we work out some example problems. There is often a lot of Q&A during the class. Another aspect of class is that we discuss current business cases, and how accounting issues are involved. It is a lot more interesting than it may sound!

Text

If you want to use a book, then any introductory financial accounting text that you are comfortable with is okay by me. If you do not want to use a book that is OK too.

The book I recommend for serious study is Porter and Norton, Financial Accounting (now the 3rd edition, from Pearson). A reasonably priced, but old, edition is available at amazon.co.jp. New textbooks in the USA cost the equivalent of ¥20,000 these days, for comparison!

Still, any textbook or a study guide, should be useful. I would suggest that you get a book in English so that you can more easily "think in English" about Accounting. But please note that you can get a lot out of class without a textbook. Email me if you have any questions about the class. Thank you!