Customer Reviews

Accounting: What the Numbers Mean

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

The textbook is just poorly organized and doesn't begin to prepare you to solve the problems that are given at the end of each chapter. While it defines terms well it also leaves out explanations for most practical applications that are tested for in the problems. There is no way to check your actual work, since even the homework manager only provides solutions and not a detailed methodology as to how the answers were arrived at. It is amazing that this has survived to 7 editions without someone organizing the chapters and the material in some more organized fashion. Unrelated concepts are thrown in at the end of chapters with little explanation. If you want to learn accounting terminology this book is okay. If you want to learn how journal entries are actually recorded line by line look somewhere else. The explanation of debits and credits is perfunctory. This is not written as an entry level accounting text for non accountants.

I am having to use this book for an Accounting Grad class and it is perhaps one of the worst txt books I have ever laid my eyes on! Wordy doesn't begin to describe how bad this book is, did this go through an editor or straight to press? It just goes on and on and on throwing in examples that come later in the chapter, the examples are poor never follwing a simple path, and the questions at the end of each section are as bad as the book. This book reminds me of someone who decides to teach you something off of the top of their head, they didn't bother to make any notes or set a goal for how they wanted to approach the subject. Avoid at all costs!!!

As a first timer to accounting I htought the book should have better explained the basics instead of rushing into so much complicated material. I feel in order to be able to understand this book I should have taken a basic accounting class first.

I have enjoyed using this textbook because it explains all the accounting terminology in real simple terms. It is geared toward the non accountant professional who needs a basic understanding of how to read the financial statements reported by companies. The textbook also comes with a website with tools that could be used in addition to the exercises provided at the end of each chapter. No all the links on the website are free but the ones that are, are really helpful.

Over the last ten years, I've read and studied from a lot of textbooks, as I've earned an undergraduate degree, a master's, and a medical doctorate. Much of the material I've learned has been completely foreign so I've often had to rely on the quality of the text to help get me through. In short, I've studied from A LOT of textbooks in a range of subjects while in college, and this book is by far one of the most difficult I've ever utilized in an attempt to learn a new subject. It is extremely difficult to fluently read and the concepts are explained in terms that are much too complex, making the acquisition of information therein very difficult. I can research a topic on the web and its explanation is much easier to understand while still getting across the same point. What I find most frustrating; however, are the exercises and problems at the end of the chapters. More often than not, a workable methodology for their solutions cannot be found in the text or online on the supplemental "Homework Manager." Often, to answer a question I either go completely on what I THINK the answer might be or research it on the web, as this book in no way prepares one to thoroughly answer most of the questions. I'm finding myself getting decent grades on the assignments, but at the end of the day I have no idea what I'm doing or how to replicate my work from one week to the next because I'm arriving at my answers in such a piecemeal fashion, i.e. part of the solution online, part from the text, part from other students, and part from guesswork. Although the book's topics are basic to accounting, it is written in such a way that is not compatible to a student being introduced to the field. I have no idea why my school has chosen to utilize it but I would not recommend it to anyone, other than perhaps maybe an accountant or financial expert who is attempting to enhance their present knowledge level of the subject.
Also, be leery of reviews that praise this book as I have a very hard time believing that anyone could enjoy it as much as a few of the other reviews have indicated. I gave it 2 stars simply because the book does appear to cover all of the essential topics in accounting. It's interesting that all of the three authors are professors, yet the book presents the material in a method that is WAY too complicated and doesn't facilitate learning to the degree it should. Perhaps in the authors' attempts to demonstrate their extensive abilities they overlooked a few essentials, such as the students' abilities and learning needs???

We were required to use this text book for a graduate level accounting class... it is terrible. It has adopted a process of explaining accounting that is nonsense. It would be better to have the financial statements and have them explained in English than this process.

I think this book was too wordy for a text book. I believe this Accounting book should have had more examples and explanations of the examples to be able to work the problems at the end of each chapter. When you are trying to understand what the numbers really mean "which is the name of the book", I think you should go into more detail as to what the numbers really do mean and also how to get those numbers.

I was not impressed with this book. I found it long-winded and text-y. I was expecting an Accounting-for-non-accountants approach but I couldn't have been more wrong. The more I read this book, the more I wanted to buy another book-- Accounting for Dummies. Thank God for my instructor's supplementary materials for without those, I would truly be lost. Her presentations provide more concise, to-the-point information.

If you are a non-accountant like me and you wish to understand accounting by your own terms, this is definitely not the book for you. Their exercises don't even have quick and available answers.

This book lacks effective structure, or comprehensible structure at least, and the writing is both tedious and meandering. Many of the examples are minimally useful and some are only vaguely associated to the concepts they are meant to support. Useless! This book wasted the time I had taken from my family to study accounting. Why would anyone select this text for a graduate level class???

I found this textbook to be very confusing. It doesn't spend enough time elaborating on each topic before it moves on to the next.