Accounting for Governmental and Nonprofit Entities [Hardcover]

Earl Wilson (Author), Jacqueline Reck (Author), Susan Kattelus (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0073379603 | ISBN-13: 978-0073379609 | Publication Date: March 9, 2009 | Edition: 15

The 15th edition of Accounting for Governmental and Nonprofit Entities is a comprehensive governmental and not-for-profit accounting text that balances concepts and procedures written by accounting professors engaged with professional for students who will be auditing and working in public and not-for-profit sector entities. This market leading text brings instructors and students a comprehensive knowledge of the specialized accounting and financial reporting practices of governmental and not-for-profit organization, and how those organizations can better meet the information needs of a diverse set of financial statement users and decision makers. With the extensive experience of the current author team comes along a relevant and accurate new edition as well as instructor tools.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 800 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Irwin; 15 edition (March 9, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0073379603
• ISBN-13: 978-0073379609
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Business & Investing > Industries & Professions > Nonprofit Organizations & Charities
  • #73 in Books > Business & Investing > Accounting

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Accounting for Governmental & Nonprofit Entities, April 14, 2008

By 

J. Grau (US) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Accounting for Governmental and Nonprofit Entities with City of Smithville CD-ROM (Hardcover)

This is a horrible book! Do not buy it. It is a student's nightmare. If you want to learn about government and nonprofit accounting, you're NOT going to gain much, if any, knowledge from this book. The authors do not use plain language, but talk back on themselves in sentences so that the flow of thought is interrupted and you must eliminate words in order to continue the flow, or switch thoughts entirely and then switch back-many times the subject of the sentence is completely lost and never finished. Many unnecessary comments, such as "need not be discussed here" and "as one would expect" plus excessive references to other chapters and Illustrations that are useless. Very limited on examples; I found it necessary to search the internet for the answers to the questions at the end of the chapters because the questions are not worded in relation to the information stated in the chapter, and the problems utilized account names never discussed in the book.

If you have a strong foundation in government or nonprofit accounting, then this book might be useful as a reference. For a student just learning about the systems, it is pretty worthless.

Professors, I beg that you use the feedback from students to develop a book from which we can actually learn these procedures. I never looked forward to an accounting class more than this one, and I'm so disappointed and feel like I've wasted my money. I know that the professors have the knowledge to teach the information in a way that we understand, so just put that into hardcopy and produce a proper book for students!

For an online class using this book, don't waste your time or money.

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Puke! This book is awful! :-(, April 29, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Accounting for Governmental and Nonprofit Entities with City of Smithville Package (Hardcover)

Please, no one buy this book... it will torture you like nothing else can. This book actually deserves -5 stars for how terribly written it is. The authors seem to repeat the same sentences in 5 or 6 different ways. It is poorly organized, it doesn't seem to have any real objective... a little bit of this here and a little bit of that there. Also, it is completely black and white with absolutely no pictures and very few illustrations... it will be of absolutely no help to a visual learner.

I needed this book for a governmental accounting course in college and when my bookstore wouldn't buy it back from me I wept tears. Luckily, my governmental accounting professor was really good otherwise there is no way I would have learned anything from this course. If you can possibly find some other book or maybe a newer edition would be better. The only somewhat helpful thing about this book was the City of Smithville project (CD-ROM) but even that had problems. It had a lot of technical difficulties and if you messed up an entry you pretty much had to start the project all over again. If you are doing City of Smithville, beware!

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This Book is Horrible, June 17, 2006

By 

J. A. Feldman "lalalandvisitor" (Connecticut) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Accounting for Governmental and Nonprofit Entities w/ City of Smithville (Hardcover)

This book is poorly written. Unless you know Non-profit accounting, it is not written so that you will learn anything. I'm assuming professors use this book because of the Smithville case and for no other reason. Honestly, I do not feel the Smithville case goes along with the book very well. The authors should have exchanged notes a little more. Unless it is required or you are already working in non-profit accounting, I would not buy this book.