FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING provides students with an understanding of fundamental concepts necessary to use accounting effectively. Starting with a “macro” view of accounting information, the authors present real financial statements. They establish how a financial statement communicates the financing, investing, and operating activities of a business to users of accounting information. Kimmel, Weygandt and Kieso motivate students by grounding the discussion in the real world, showing them the relevance of the topics covered to their future career.

Using the Decision Toolkit, the authors identify a finite set of tools necessary to make business decisions based on financial information. This toolkit is consistently re-introduced throughout the text, logically sequenced to take full advantage of the tools presented in earlier chapters, and summarized in the final chapter. This thorough integration of the use of financial statements for decision making makes this text one of the most user-oriented currently available.