This text can make you a better teacher . We realize this is a bold claim and do not expect you to accept it on face value. Indeed, we encourage you to read this preface and to evaluate our concepts-based teaching approach on the basis of your own reasoning and personal experience. We are confident that you will agree that it is a better approach for teaching introductory financial accounting. We value your time and promise that this preface will be a worthwhile read regardless of whether you decide to adopt our text.

We do not aim to radically transform accounting education, but instead to make it more effective. Indeed, we prefer to think of ourselves as innovative traditionalists. Students who use this text follow a different path toward the accomplishment of a conventional set of learning objectives. However, the path is easier to walk; and students complete the journey with a far greater understanding of accounting.

Traditional texts focus on detailed recording procedures, expecting the big picture to ultimately dawn on students. Unfortunately, those detailed procedures frequently become a road block that many students never successfully navigate. Indeed, most students get lost in the maze of particulars and resort to memorization in order to survive the course. Consequently, they leave knowing little more than they knew when they entered the course. Virtually everyone who has taught intermediate accounting can validate this fact with their personal experiences. Sadly, those going on to intermediate are the most successful introductory accounting students which leaves us with the disturbing question, what have the less successful students learned?

In contrast to traditional textbooks, this is a concepts-based text that focuses on the big picture. Recording procedures and other details are presented after a conceptual foundation has been established. This approach enables students to understand rather than memorize. Just as a stable house rests on a solid foundation, technical competence and decision making skills must be supported by a strong conceptual framework.

What exactly do we mean by a concepts-based textbook? We mean the text stresses the relationships between business events and financial statements. The primary objective is to develop students who can explain how any given business event affects the income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows. Do assets increase, decrease, or remain unchanged? What effect does the event have on liabilities, equity, revenue, expense, gains, losses, net income, and dividends? Furthermore, how does the event affect cash flows? In summary, the focus is on learning how business events affect financial statements .

This is not a user or preparer approach. Indeed, the concepts approach serves both users and preparers . In order to function effectively in today's business world both preparers and users must understand event/statement relationships. By teaching concepts, you no longer have to choose between the interests of accounting majors and those of other business students. The concepts-approach serves both groups.

Implementing the concepts approach is surprisingly simple . Instead of teaching students to record transactions in journals or T-accounts, teach them to record transactions directly into financial statements. While this shift is easy for instructors, it represents a dramatic change from how students have traditionally studied accounting. Making a direct connection between business events and financial statements encourages students to analyze conceptual relationships rather than memorize procedures. Early in the course students develop a conceptual framework that supports critical thinking and communication. Students become interested in accounting issues and are motivated to learn.

The results of a concepts-base teaching approach are reflected in higher exam scores and lower drop rates. Even more rewarding are the positive changes in attitude and motivation that result when students truly understand rather than merely memorize.