The book along with the second volume is designed to perform two functions:
1) It functions as a comprehensive yet highly user-friendly step-by-step introduction to financial accounting. The book includes a unique self-study feature that is otherwise available only in expensive textbooks used exclusively for the classroom: the book contains both practice tests and answers and over 800 questions and problems all with fully-available detailed answers included in the book's CD and online for desktop and mobile use (See page xvii: "How to Use This Book".)
2) The book functions as a practical reference for bookkeepers managers owners and investors who need to know proper foundational accounting methods and need to understand / analyze the meaning of financial reports. (Some examples: see pages 364-367 448 658-659 682 713-716). The book also functions as a valuable reference for small business owners attempting to use accounting software but who do not have an accounting background.
Gregory Mostyn CPA MBA is an accounting instructor at Mission College Santa Clara California. He is a member of the American Accounting Association and American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He has extensive experience in accounting curriculum and instructional design and has authored journal articles on the subject. (E.g. see "Cognitive Load Theory: What It Is Why It's Important for Accounting Instruction and Research" Issues in Accounting Education Vol. 27 No. 1 2012). He has applied many of these principles to the development and design of this book.
"Comprehensive graphically pleasing and expertly constructed an outstanding teaching and learning tool. The purpose of the book is clearly to impart the fundamentals of accounting in a highly structured step-by-step manner in which every lesson builds on the one before it. In this regard the book mightily succeeds almost to the extent of replacing the need for a live instructor." - Kirkus Reviews
"Summing up: Recommended. General readers and lower division and technical program students" - Choice S.R. Kahn Univ. of Cincinnati
"Exceptionally well written organized and presented. Basic Accounting: Concepts Principles and Procedures Vols. 1 & 2 is unreservedly recommended for professional community corporate college and university library accounting instructional reference collections and curriculums." - Midwest Book Review James B. Cox
"Basic Accounting is written in a simple clear manner for both slow and fast learners to follow. A step-by-step building block approach is used where one topic fluently builds into the next topic to ensure an incremental learning approach... In summary the two-volume set provides a very economical and complete first-course coverage." - Issues in Accounting Education Journal of the American Accounting Association Kim B. Tan California State University
