I’ve posted an updated version of the Accountinator spreadsheet. If you already use the existing spreadsheet and get inappropriate “oops” cells, then you may wish to update to this new version. You can copy and paste your existing data into the new version, or copy the “oops” cells in column “A” from the new version […]
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Posts by accountinator
Gift Card Accounting
I recently published this article with my colleagues Drs. Abraham Fried and Aliza Rotenstein about revenue recognition for gift cards in Journal of Accountancy: Lost and found.
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Managing Materiality
Accounting information is material if its omission or misstatement would mislead investors. In other words, if there’s a piece of information that investors need to know, then that information is material – it makes a difference. Information can be material in size or importance. In size, materiality is all about the amount. A large amount of […]
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Understanding confirmatory value
In accounting, information has confirmatory value when it helps users to confirm or adjust prior expectations. But why is confirmatory value an important attribute for accounting information to have? The importance of confirmatory value People read accounting financial statements in order to create predictions about the future. They want to predict future dividends and that the company […]
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Relevance in accounting
Accounting information is relevant (“accounting relevance”) when it is capable of making a difference in a decision. Suppose that you’re trying to decide what to eat for dinner: A hamburger? Or a salad? What information is relevant to your decision? The price of each meal, perhaps. And consider the number of calories, too. Do you have […]
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When does accounting information have “predictive value?”
In accounting, information has predictive value when you can use it to form expectations about the future. Using the future to predict the past How should investors make decisions about loaning money to a company, or investing in its stock? High quality accounting information helps investors to make these decisions. When you think about it, investors really want […]
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What is the economic entity assumption?
The economic entity assumption is one of four assumptions underlying financial statements. It says that you can identify economic activity with a particular unit of accountability. Put another way, the economic entity assumptions says that certain transactions are “inside” a business, while other transactions are “outside” of the business. Suppose that you run a candy […]
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Improve your Excel Skills Now with these 5 Tips
Microsoft’s Excel program has been an integral part of the regular office-goer’s life. One part of Microsoft’s Office Suite – Excel – is an extremely feature-rich software program that has proven itself to be indispensable time and again. Whether it is for drawing up a quick report, chalking up some financial sheets, or even running […]
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Introduction to Excel Part 4 (YouTube): Formatting your Excel Spreadsheet
I’m excited to introduce the fourth video in my series explaining how to use to Excel. Learn to format your cells with different fonts. How to get your cell widths and heights right. And how to format numbers and dates. In 10 minutes you can learn all this, and more. Did I mention it’s free?
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Introduction to Excel Part 3 (YouTube)
This video explains how to use references, operators and formulas in Excel. Look out Francis Ford Coppola: Here’s the whole series, so far: Part 1: http://youtu.be/HPLuvEL3fNw Part 2: http://youtu.be/ckoxo6xCvik Part 3: http://youtu.be/DjOuAO1GDy8
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