OVERVIEW
This book is intended for use by both undergraduate and graduate business students. Although it may well be used by accounting majors, it does not presume any prior knowledge of accounting, and covers all relevant topics that management students should study. Financial accounting is omnipresent in all aspects of management, and thus an appreciation of its uses and limitations is indispensable to all business majors – whether they become the presidents of their own companies, professional accountants, politicians or government officers. This book is not intended to show the details of the bookkeeping process, but to enable students to understand the basic concepts and principles of financial accounting and to use this knowledge in all realms of business administration.
The raison d’être of this book is the demand of the graduates. Upon graduation from universities where the medium of instruction is the English language, and where – almost exclusively – textbooks from the English-speaking world are used in courses, they have expressed their frustration about the lack of a textbook in English that discusses the Turkish accounting system. Thus, this book reflects the current International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and Turkish Accounting Standards (TAS).
Although the main purpose of this book is to provide students with the basic concepts and fundamentals of financial accounting, it also serves to endow them with the insight necessary to read, understand and analyze financial statements. We hope that students will also benefit from the introductory sections on subjects such as Inflation Accounting and Foreign Currency Transactions, as these are issues that are very relevant to the Turkish economy.
The text is organized into three parts. Part I introduces the student to the accounting environment, and discusses the need for studying financial accounting. In Part II, the student learns the basic mechanics of record keeping and the reporting of financial statement information. Specifically, these chapters introduce the generally accepted accounting principles and their applications in recording and reporting economic transactions. All chapters have been revised, to reflect the current developments in IFRS to the extent necessary. Part III presents a synthesis of the topics covered in parts I and II, through financial statement analysis and special topics in accounting.
At the end of each chapter, Turkish translations of accounting terminology are provided, reflecting the key terms used in the chapter.
We have provided review problems for each chapter, with their solutions. In this fourth edition, we have increased the number of self-study exercises and problems at the end of each chapter. The web site for the book provides power-point presentations of each chapter, at www.siho-accounting.com. Supplementary material includes a solutions manual and test bank, which are available to instructors upon request.
Of course, there is no limit on improvement, and therefore there is always room for revisions. We look forward to your comments and suggestions, to improve the text in subsequent editions. As in earlier editions, the text is a joint effort, and each chapter has been edited and amended by both of the authors.
We would like to extend our thanks to Anjariitta Rantanen, LLM, who helped us in developing the forms of organizations in Chapter 12; and İbrahim Kara,YMM who help us with tax related issues in Turkey. We also acknowledge the efforts of our colleagues, who have contributed through their valuable feedback. Our thanks go to Suavi Sari and his team at Gazi Kitabevi, for their essential support.
Last but not least, we would like to express our greatest appreciation to Aimée Lindenmayer Ay, who meticulously read, critiqued and edited the whole text in terms of language, flow and style.
F.N.Can Şımga-Muğan
Nazlı Hoşal-Akman
September 2010