Merle Hopkins, BUAD 250a Syllabus, Page 1 of 10
BUAD 250a:
Core Concepts of
Accounting Information
Dr. Merle Hopkins
Spring 2006
Class Meeting Times:
Section 14520 MW2 SAL 101 2.00-3.50 pm
Professor Office Location: B4a [Basement of ACC]
Professor Office Telephone: (213) 740-4857
Instructional Assistant [IA]
Office Location:
B4 [Basement of ACC]
TAs Office Phone:
(213) 821-5932
Professor E-Mail Address: mwh@marshall.usc.edu
TAs will monitor BUAD250a@marshall.usc.edu when available during office hours.
Professor Office Hours:
Mondays
8:00 am to 9:45 am
Wednesdays
Noon to 1:30 pm
And by appointment
USC Information Line (213) 740-2311 or listen to 91.5 KUSC Radio
To report USC Emergencies: (213) 740-4321
USC Emergency Information Hotline (213) 740-9233
Prerequisites: None
Co-Requisite: Econ 203
Course Materials
Required:
1.
Adding Value with Financial Accounting Exercises, Merle W. Hopkins,
Thomson Learning, 2005.*
2.
Financial Accounting by Stice & Stice, South-Western Publishers, 2006
Edition* (custom bound with paperback cover).
*Available in the USC Bookstore in a shrink-wrapped package. Additionally, there is
a Study Guide: Study Guide for Core Concepts of Accounting Information, Merle W.
Hopkins, 2005. This can be obtained from the instructor as a word document without
charge. Students may print this if desired at their own expense, or the instructor can
have this printed at a special low university rate of 2.25 cents per page in 2005-06
(about $4.50).
Optional materials: Business periodical to stay abreast of current business developments.
Merle Hopkins, BUAD 250a Syllabus, Page 2 of 10
Course Objectives
Accounting has often been called the ‘language of business’. Core Concepts of
Accounting Information should help you to begin to understand and communicate in
this language. The course should also help you gain an appreciation for the uses of
accounting information and limitations inherent in that accounting information. Very few
people achieve serous levels of success in business without a fundamental understanding
of accounting principles and concepts. Finally, this course should help you learn about
the nature and responsibilities of careers in the accounting profession.
Upon completion of Core Concepts of Accounting Information, you should:
1.
Have a general understanding of the role of the accounting profession in our
economic society, including: (a) an awareness of the process of regulation
and self-regulation of the profession (including the accounting standard
setting process) in the United States, and (b) the increasing
internationalization of accounting.
2.
Have a basic understanding of how accounting is used in business, including
an appreciation of the role of financial and managerial accounting, systems,
tax and auditing.
3.
Have an introductory knowledge of how to use the available tools in
accounting – including such tools as the professional literature, research
literature, – to help clarify accounting concepts and issues, analyze options,
and make business decisions or solve problems.
4.
Grasp the importance of ethics and values in your career.
Course Overview
Core Concepts of Accounting Information acknowledges there are five functional
areas of accounting: financial accounting, managerial accounting, taxation, systems and
auditing. BUAD 250a is a financial accounting course. The other four functional areas
of accounting are mentioned when appropriate to establish that accounting extends
beyond financial accounting. These functional areas are viewed from the perspectives of
managers, preparers and users of accounting information.
Following is a brief overview of the course content.
I.
Financial Accounting: This involves the study of the concepts,
standards, and procedures that comprise generally accepted
accounting principles [GAAP]. GAAP covers the external reporting
process and includes the rules for the preparation of the basic financial
statements. These financial statements have a wide audience of users
including present and potential investors, management, labor unions,
Merle Hopkins, BUAD 250a Syllabus, Page 3 of 10
employees, creditors and governmental entities among others. The
financial accounting section will cover these topics.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
II.
An overview of the financial reporting process including the
objectives of financial reporting.
The underlying concepts, principles and conventions
governing the financial reporting process. This will include
developing your ability to apply these concepts, principles
and conventions in a wide variety of situations.
The accounting cycle involves analyzing, recording and
summarizing an entity’s transactions in the books and records
of an organization in order to prepare financial statements as
well as other financial information. The financial statements
include classified balance sheets, multiple step income
statements and statements of cash flow.
Revenue and expense recognition will be developed in some
detail because these rules govern revenues and expenses
appearing in a particular year’s income statement.
Revenue recognition criteria will be examined to better
appreciate how and when revenues appear in an income
statement. Uncollectible Accounts Receivable will be a part
of this coverage as well as related topics.
Inventories and Cost of Goods Sold will be explored because
of their significance in balance sheets and income statements.
Understanding financial statements of many firms will
require knowledge of accounting methods for Inventories.
Operating assets (property, plant, and equipment) present
significant accounting issues because of their size in most
enterprises. The variety of acceptable accounting methods
for operating assets makes this topic important.
Inter-corporate and other investments can pose material
accounting issues within the investors’ balance sheets.
Managers and other financial statement users need an
appreciation for the impacts caused by the variety accounting
methods for investments.
The accounting and financial statement issues related to
capital sources, debt and equity, will be developed
appropriately.
Management Accounting: This is the primary topical coverage in
BUAD 250b [the sister course to BUAD 250a]. In these areas of
accounting, students’ skills are developed leading to better business
decisions through the use of accounting information. These skills will
enhance a student’s capability of progressing into senior management
positions [or becoming a better entrepreneur].
Merle Hopkins, BUAD 250a Syllabus, Page 4 of 10
III.
Auditing: We will develop an awareness of the need for independent
reviews of accounting records and financial statements in order to
promote the reliability of the information contained in the published
information. Financial statements are the responsibility of the upper
management of the firm and are prepared by the firm’s accounting
personnel. Independent auditors may review these financial
statements to enhance the reliability of the information in the financial
statements. Sometimes, these independent audits are required by
securities regulations. Additionally, banks and creditors may require
independent audits of the financial statements of firms as part of the
lender’s decision-making process.
IV.
Taxation: This will involve an introduction to this functional area
within the accounting profession. Taxable income and financial
accounting income will be compared in the context of the goals and
rules for each area. Recognition of revenues and expenses differs
between financial statements and tax returns. These differences pose
challenges to users of financial statements and will be examined in this
course (current and deferred tax expense).
V.
Accounting Systems: This is a brief orientation to the value available
to management, enterprises, and individuals through an understanding
and use of accounting systems.
Statement for Students with Disabilities
Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to
register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of
verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the
letter is delivered to the instructor as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in
STU 301 and is open 8:30 am – 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday. The phone number
for DSP is 213-740-0776.
“Blue sheets’ should be given to the instructor for any quiz/exam for which the student
intends to utilize the testing services facilities to ensure timely delivery of the quiz/exam
to STU 301. DSP has implemented an advance deadline for the submission of paperwork
to them to ‘reserve’ a spot for the student to take the exam. Plan ahead.
Merle Hopkins, BUAD 250a Syllabus, Page 5 of 10
Course Format
The course has two meetings per week each lasting 110 minutes. The class meetings will
involve lectures and discussions of class assignments. Your performance over the entire
semester will depend on the preparation you have done before class, what you do during
the lecture sessions and review/study that you do after the lectures have ended.
Review the schedule portion of the syllabus to make sure that you have read the
appropriate material for each class session. This will add value to your learning in the
lecture and may shorten the total amount of time necessary to perform well in the course.
Also, ensure you have appropriate resource materials available for each class meeting.
You have enrolled in one of the lab sessions to be held on Fridays. Your attendance at
the lab sessions will be optional. Instructional assistants [IAs] will administer the labs.
On a space available basis, you may attend lab sessions other than the one for which you
are enrolled.
The instructor and the IAs will hold office hours each week. These hours are available to
you. A schedule of office hours by IAs will be available early in the semester. Make a
point to resolve any questions about the course or course content with the instructor or
one of the IAs. The instructor and the IAs can be a valuable source of information and
you are encouraged to meet with them on a regular basis. Timely resolution of
problems/questions should enhance your performance on the quizzes and exams.
A typical week’s assignments will include background reading assignments and
completion of assigned homework problems. I will utilize many handouts for use in class
and/or as homework assignments. These are available to you as part of Adding Value
with Financial Accounting Exercises. I may supplement these with additional handouts
as needed. These will be important in your learning.
Working in Groups
You may wish to create informal groups to discuss class topics and/or homework
assignments. This can be very helpful for the learning that will need to occur.
Grading
Final course grades will be assigned depending upon cumulative course points
accumulated by you and all of the other students in the mega sections. Grading will be
done on a curve that is responsive to the mean and median points accumulated by all the
students completing the course. I have no preconception of the number of points needed
to earn a particular letter grade. I will attempt to create exams where the mean score will
be in the 70%-75% range. The average student completing the course likely will receive
a B-/B [2.85/4.0].
Merle Hopkins, BUAD 250a Syllabus, Page 6 of 10
Points will be allocated as follows:
Mid-term I
Mid-term II
Final exam
Homework & Quizzes
Total Course Points
300 points
300 points
300 points
100 points
1,000 points
The exams will be made up of problems/exercises of a computational nature. Some
problems may involve matching or true-false responses. There may be some discussion
questions included on any of the exams. Announcements will be made in the lecture
sessions related to the nature of the questions/problems on a specific exam. Your
preparation on a daily basis throughout the semester should enable you to complete the
exams in the time allotted. You will be expected to have learned the material thoroughly
enough to efficiently adapt to different assumptions or formats.
The final exam will not be cumulative over the entire semester. The final exam will
generally cover material discussed in class after the second mid-term. A word of caution
is appropriate: accounting is cumulative. The ideas and concepts developed early in
the course often become the basis for topics introduced later. The nature of the
accounting material in this class does not suggest that you pin your hopes for a good
grade on a strong ‘second half performance’. Second-half ‘comebacks’ are more
common on the football field [and more spectacular].
The course schedule contains homework assignments that are to be ready to be turned in
at the start of class on the assigned dates. For example, Session 2 on Wednesday,
January 11, the homework listed in the syllabus consists of one exercise [22200] from
Adding Value with Financial Accounting Exercises. This exercise is subject to collection
at the start of those classes. [These exercises are NOT assigned for the subsequent class.]
If collected, the homework assignments will be due at the start of each class session
unless otherwise announced by me. Homework collection will potentially depend on two
tosses of a coin. I will toss a coin and ask the first volunteer to call ‘heads’ or ‘tails’. If
the first volunteer correctly calls the toss, homework will not be collected and the ‘game’
is over for that day. If the first volunteer incorrectly calls the toss, a second volunteer
will make a call for the second coin toss. If the second volunteer correctly calls the
second toss homework will not be collected. If the second volunteer incorrectly calls the
toss, I will immediately collect the homework listed in the syllabus for the day. Advice:
your homework assignment should be on a separate sheet of paper other than the
handout(s) assigned for that day. You might answer the homework in your workbook
and then copy it for handing in or merely record your answers on a separate sheet of
paper.
Homework, when collected, will be evaluated for apparent effort to obtain an answer.
Each homework assignment will count 5 homework points, if collected. Each student is
subject to homework collection risk in the mega section for which the student is enrolled.
Exceptions are to be discussed in advance with the instructor. Homework will not be
reviewed for correct answers. Homework is part of the learning process. To encourage
Merle Hopkins, BUAD 250a Syllabus, Page 7 of 10
that your learning occur on a continuous basis, there is homework component in the
grade determination process.
Quizzes, when given, will count for two homework assignments (10 homework points).
Quizzes may be announced or unannounced. [In the past, all quizzes have been
previously announced.] The lowest quiz grade will be dropped. I do not offer ‘makeupup’ quizzes. Instead, the missed quiz will become the quiz score that is dropped.
The 100 course points assigned for quizzes and homework will be allocated on a
proportionate basis. For example, if there are 4 quizzes at 10 points each and 8
homework assignments collected at 5 points each, there would be a maximum of 70
points for the student. [(3 x 10) + (8 x 5) = 70]. If a student has earned 35 of these points
out of the maximum 70 points, that student will be awarded 50% of the 100 course points
available for homework/quizzes.
Exam Schedule
Mid-term I
Mid-term II
Final Exam
Friday, February 17, 2006 3-5 pm [Location TBA]
Friday, March 31, 2006, 3-5 pm [Location TBA]
Wednesday, May 10, 2006, 4.30-6.30pm [Location TBA]
Students occasionally have bona fide reasons for not being able to take the midterms on
Fridays at the times indicated above. Students wishing to discuss alternate exam times
must see the instructor in his office hours prior to the exam dates.
Regrading Exams
Regrading for partial credit will not be possible. In order to allow you to discover your
own mistakes and make the appropriate corrections before turning the exam in, I am
planning these steps:
1. The exams will be written with the intention that prepared students can finish in
1.5 hours. This will provide prepared students with sufficient time to review the
exam within the two-hour period. This self-review will enable prepared students
to correct relatively minor mistakes and avoid significant point loss as a result.
2. Exam questions will be structured to be relatively non-cumulative. This will
reduce the likelihood that mistakes made by students and uncorrected will
penalize students’ scores repeatedly through a problem.
Students will be able to review the exams for the purpose of determining whether
mistakes have been made in the grading process.
Merle Hopkins, BUAD 250a Syllabus, Page 8 of 10
Exam Reviews
Reviews of testable materials prior to exams have been scheduled for Sunday, February
12, from 10am-2pm [Midterm 1] and for Sunday, March 26, from 10am-2pm [Mid-term
2] and for Saturday, May 6, from 10am-2pm for the final exam. Locations will be
announced. Additionally, administrative assistants will likely hold a single four-hour
review at a time that has not been scheduled yet.
Make-Up Exam Policy
Mid-term exams should only be missed in extreme situations that, in the opinion of the
instructor, constitute a true emergency. Any such situation must be supported by
documentation deemed adequate by the instructor. If circumstances permit, the
instructor’s prior approval is required. If an exam is missed without prior approval of the
instructor and that approval is not obtained subsequently, the student will receive a score
of zero for the missed exam. The instructor reserves the right to choose between two
options if a student misses a mid-term for an instructor-approved reason: (a) to
administer the mid-term on a make-up basis or (b) to have the subsequent mid-term exam
and/or the final exam score serve as a relative proxy for the missed exam score. [In
option (b), the student’s subsequent exam scores relative to the mean scores, would be
used as the student’s score on the missed exam. If a student scored 10% higher than the
mean on the subsequent exam(s), the student would get a score on the missed mid-term
exam that was 10% higher than the mean had been for the missed mid-term exam.]
Final exams must be taken by the student at the designated time and place unless an
‘incomplete’ [IN] contract has been previously approved according to Leventhal School
of Accounting regulations or an adequately documented situation necessitates the exam
to be completed later in the university’s final exam period. The instructor alone shall
decide whether the situation warrants postponing the exam within the final exam period.
Advance requests by individuals for exceptions involving the time and/or place of a
student’s final within the university’s scheduled finals period will be evaluated by the
instructor on a case-by-case basis.
Incompletes
Please review the Leventhal School of Accounting standards for receiving and clearing
an ‘IN’ at the end of this syllabus. Note that only the Dean of the Leventhal School of
Accounting, not your instructor, may approve an incomplete [IN] based on these policies.
Drops and Adds
If any of your friends are thinking of adding this course, please let them now in order that
they might adjust their schedules accordingly.
If you are thinking about dropping the course, please note the drop dates listed on the last
page of this syllabus. If you decide to drop the course, please let your instructor know
immediately [email please] because others may be waiting to add.
Merle Hopkins, BUAD 250a Syllabus, Page 9 of 10
Academic Integrity
Ethics and values are very important in accounting and in the business world. We will
consider ethical issues in accounting throughout this course. Ethics and values are also
important in education. The instructor will assume that you are an ethical person, unless
there is evidence to the contrary. To help you fulfill your ethical responsibilities as a
student, the ethical standards for BUAD 250a are listed below.
Examinations are to be exclusive work of the individual student. If any class resources
are to be used by students there will have been a prior announcement authorizing such
use. Absent such authorization, no class resources are to be available to the student
during the exam. Students shall not seek to obtain assistance from any other student
during the exam nor shall any student provide assistance in any form to a fellow student
during the exam.
If you know that another student is violating [or has violated] these standards, it is your
responsibility to inform the instructor or an IA immediately if the violation is occurring
during an exam. Student academic integrity enhances the moral environment of this
university. Each of us has an obligation to seek an environment where results are
established on the basis of individual efforts and abilities. If you become aware of a
violation or a potential violation you have an obligation to take some action. Failure to
do anything about a possible violation places you in a situation where you are aiding and
abetting the violation [despite the lack of any improvement in your own grade].
Policies Regarding Returned Graded Work
Returned paperwork, unclaimed by the student, will be discarded after 4 weeks. After
attempting to return grades exams, quizzes and homework in the classrooms, these
materials will be available in the IA office for students with picture IDs to establish
identities.
Policies on Reviewing Returned Exams
When mid-term exams are returned to students, an announcement will be made in class
regarding the deadline for reviewing the exam with the instructor during scheduled office
hours or by appointment. [This announcement will also be made via email.] The student
has the responsibility to obtain that deadline information if the student did not hear the
announcement in class. Before the expiration of that deadline and if a student has been
unable to meet with the instructor during office hours or by appointment, a written
extension may be requested by a student before or after class. If granted, the request will
be for as many days as the instructor feels are warranted in the circumstances and will
apply only to those students whose requests for extension have been granted.
Merle Hopkins, BUAD 250a Syllabus, Page 10 of 10
Leventhal School of Accounting Grading and Academic Standards
A summary of the most important grading and academic standards of the Leventhal
School of Accounting is attached to this syllabus. These pages contain information on
grading matters such as the rules for ‘incompletes’ and information about the grade
requirements for accounting majors.
If you are interested in becoming an accounting major you are required to earn a
combined average grade of B [3.0] or better in BUAD 250a and BUAD 250b with no
individual grade lower than a B- [2.7]. For a complete discussion see Grade Point
Average Prerequisite in the section for the undergraduate degree for the Elaine and
Kenneth Leventhal School of Accounting in the USC Catalog. See also the section on
Repeat Course Work.
Advice for Achieving Success in this Course During this Semester
Make plans now to commit the appropriate resources [chiefly your time, attention and
energy] to learning accounting well enough to allow you to be successful after your
‘student days’ have ended. An important by-product is a better grade in this course that
may be important someday to a recruiter/employer or to a graduate school to which you
might be applying. Most of you will discover that you will work harder than you initially
expect in this class, that you will learn more than you initially expect, and that you’ll
enjoy the class more than you initially expect. There is more enjoyment associated with
earning an A [4.0] than with earning a C [2.0]. 
Success is available to all in this course. Earn it!