PRINCIPAL FEATURES

• Isolating Concepts
  How do you promote student understanding of concepts? We believe new concepts should be isolated and introduced individually in decision-making contexts. For example, we do not include a chapter covering cost terminology (usually Chapter 2 in traditional approaches). We believe introducing a plethora of detached cost terms in a single chapter is ineffective. Students have no conceptual framework for the new vocabulary.
• Interrelationships between Concepts
  Although introducing concepts in isolation enhances student comprehension of them, students must ultimately understand how business concepts interrelate. The text is designed to build knowledge progressively, leading students to integrate the concepts they have learned independently. For example, see how the concept of relevance is compared on page 195 of Chapter 5 to the concept of cost behavior (which is explained in Chapter 2) and how the definitions of direct costs are contrasted on page 147 of Chapter 4 with the earlier introduced concepts of cost behavior and cost relevance. Also, chapters 1 through 12 include a comprehensive problem designed to integrate concepts across chapters. The problem builds in each successive with the same company experiencing new conditions that require the application of across chapter concepts.
• Context-Sensitive Nature of Terminology
  Students can be confused when they discover the exact same cost can be classified as fixed, variable, direct, indirect, relevant, or not relevant. For example, the cost of a store manager’s salary is fixed regardless of the number of customers that shop in the store. The cost of store manager salaries, however, is variable relative to the number of stores a company operates. The salary costs are directly traceable to particular stores but not to particular sales made in a store. The salary cost is relevant when deciding whether to eliminate a given store but not relevant to deciding whether to eliminate a department within a store. Students must learn to identify the circumstances that determine the classification of costs. The chapter material, exercises, and problems in this text are designed to encourage students to analyze the decision-making context rather than to memorize definitions. Exercise 2–1A in Chapter 2 illustrates how the text teaches students to interpret different decision-making environments.
• Corporate Governance
  Accountants have always recognized the importance of ethical conduct. However, the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) has signaled the need for educators to expand the subject of ethics to a broader concept of corporate governance. We focus our expanded coverage on four specific areas including:
  • Quality of Earnings--We explain how accountants manipulate financial statements.
  • Standards of Ethical Conduct for Management Accountants--Our coverage focuses on the policies and practices promulgated by the Institute of Management Accountants.
  • The Fraud Triangle--We discuss the three common features of criminal and ethical misconduct including opportunity, pressure and rationalization.
  • Specified Features of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)--We cover four key provisions of SOX that that are applicable to managerial accountants.
  • Corporate governance is introduced in Chapter 1. This chapter includes four exercises, two problems, and one case that relate to the subject. Thereafter a corporate governance case is included in every chapter, thereby enabling continuing coverage of this critically important topic.
• Information Overload
  The table of contents reflects our efforts to address the information overload problem. We believe existing managerial textbooks include significantly more material than can be digested by the typical managerial accounting student. In contrast with traditional texts that normally have between 18 and 20 chapters, we have limited this text to 14 chapters.
• Excel Spreadsheets
  Spreadsheet applications are essential to contemporary accounting practice. Students must recognize the power of spreadsheet software and know how accounting data are presented in spreadsheets. We discuss Microsoft Excel spreadsheet applications where appropriate throughout the text. In most instances, the text illustrates actual spreadsheets. End-of-chapter materials include problems students can complete using spreadsheet software. A sample of the logo used to identify problems suitable for Excel spreadsheet solutions is shown here.
• Real World Examples
  The Edmonds’ text provides a variety of thought-provoking, realworld examples of managerial accounting as an essential part of the management process.
• The Curious Accountant
  Each chapter opens with a short vignette that sets the stage and helps pique student interest. These vignettes pose a question about a real-world accounting issue related to the topic of the chapter. The answer to the question appears in a separate sidebar a few pages further into the chapter.
• Focus on International Issues
  These boxed inserts expose students to international issues in accounting.
• Check Yourself
  These short question/answer features occur at the end of each main topic and ask students to stop and think about the material just covered. The answer follows to provide immediate feedback before students go on to a new topic.
• Reality Bytes
  Real-world applications related to specific chapter topics are introduced through Reality Bytes. Reality Bytes may offer survey results, graphics, quotations from business leaders, and other supplemental topics that enhance opportunities for students to connect the text material to actual accounting practice.
• Chapter Focus Company
  Each chapter introduces important managerial accounting topics within the context of a realistic company. Students see the impact of managerial accounting decisions on the company as they work through the chapter. When the Focus Company is presented in the chapter, its logo is shown so the students see its application to the text topics.
• A Look Back/A Look Forward
  Students need a roadmap to make sense of where the chapter topics fit into the “whole” picture. A Look Back reviews the chapter material and a Look Forward introduces students to what is to come.
• Self-Study Review Problem
  These representative example problems include a detailed, worked-out solution and provide another level of support for students before they work problems on their own. These review problems are included on the Topic Tackler Plus in an animated audio presentation.
• Exercise Series A and B and Problem Series A and B
  There are two sets of problems and exercises, Series A and B. Instructors can assign one set for homework and another set for class work.
• Check figures: The figures provide a quick reference for students to check on their progress in solving the problem. These are included for all problems in Series A.
• Excel: Many exercises and problems can be solved using the Excel™ spreadsheet templates contained on the text’s Online Learning Center. A logo appears in the margins next to these exercises and problems for easy identification.
• Analyze, Think, Communicate (ATC)
  Each chapter includes an innovative section entitled Analyze, Think, Communicate (ATC). This section contains:
  • Writing assignments
  • Group exercises
  • Ethics cases
  • Internet assignments
  • Real Company Examples
  • Mastering Excel and Using Excel: The Excel applications are used to make students comfortable with this analytical tool and to show its use in accounting.