Business A312 and A540

Intermediate Financial Accounting II

Fall Semester, 2015
Instructor:
Office:
Office Phone:

Andrea Astill
5th Floor Accounting Suite
855- 7355

E-mail:

aastill@indiana.edu (PLEASE REFERENCE A312 IN SUBJECT LINE!!)

Please feel free to ask questions using e-mail anytime. Keep in mind that some
questions are easily and quickly addressed through an email forum, while others are
best handled one-on-one (e.g. very general how do I account for____, or I dont
understand____ questions require more than a simple email).

Class Hours:

A312 Section# 8948:

A312 Section# 2597:
A540 Section# 33721:

MW
MW
MW

4:00 - 5:15 in HH3034

5:30 - 6:45 in HH3034
4:00 - 5:15 in HH3034

Office Hours:
Office hours by appointment. Coordinated help sessions TBD.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Required Materials
Intermediate Accounting, by Kieso, Weygandt, and Warfield, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 15th Edition. (You
should have already purchased this book for use in A311.)

A312 Course Packet Notes. The course packet can be purchased at the campus bookstores and
contains our discussion notes for class. You will need to bring these notes with you to class each day.

Financial Calculator. You must have a basic financial calculator for this class and be proficient with
its operation. It will be necessary for present and future value calculations. Any computing device
beyond this is strictly prohibited (both during class and exams). For those of you who have yet to
purchase a financial calculator, my suggestion is the Texas Instruments BA II Plus model, or the HP
model used in ICore.

Useful Websites
Securities and Exchange Commission www.sec.gov
Financial Accounting Standards Board www.fasb.org
International Accounting Standards
www.iasb.org
FASB Codification Database
http://aaahq.org/ascLogin.cfm#
(2015 Login Info: User Name: AAA51326; Password: xN3RN3E, jHNq29Q beginning in Sept.)

Prerequisites
Before enrolling in this class, you must complete the following courses in Accounting: A100, A201,
A202, and A311. Please note, however, that having taken the prerequisite courses is not sufficient. A good
working knowledge of these concepts is necessary to succeed in this course. I will assume that all students have
a solid foundation in basic accounting and the material covered in A311.
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Course objectives
This course covers some of the more difficult accounting topics, and requires a much deeper level of
understanding than many of the previous accounting topics. Many students find this course to be more
challenging and time consuming than A311. Students should be prepared for the advanced nature of this course
and schedule their time accordingly. Upon successful completion of A312, students should be able to analyze
economic events and transactions in order to prepare accounting entries and financial statements using
appropriate accounting concepts, principles, and techniques. More specifically, students should be able to
account for transactions related to: cash flows, deferred taxes, long-term debt, leases, pensions, stockholders
equity, and be able to appropriately prepare and disclose earnings per share.
Skill Development:
Technical Competence: Technical expertise in accounting is necessary for success as an accounting
professional. It is what makes accounting professionals unique, just as technical expertise in medicine or law
differentiates physicians and attorneys. Technical expertise does not mean that you are a walking encyclopedia
of the authoritative literature. Rather, it means that you can analyze business transactions, assess the underlying
economics of the transaction, and rely on your understanding of accounting theories to develop a rationale for the
appropriate accounting treatment that will reflect the appropriate financial impact. You also need to understand
when (and why) generally accepted accounting principles may deviate from standard accounting practices.
Analytical and Problem Solving Abilities: A necessary addendum to technical competence is the
ability to think critically about an issue. It is important to challenge a new transaction or unusual event to reach
your own professional judgment about the substance and economic effect of the transaction (for both reporting
and evaluative purposes). To successfully accomplish these goals, you need to understand the nature and specific
transactions of a business, managements incentives, and how the underlying theoretical issues should be
translated and applied to the problem.
Written and Oral Communication: When you complete your education, you will possess more
technical knowledge about accounting than the vast majority of people in this country. Learning the appropriate
vernacular of the accounting profession will be critical. Even if you possess technical and analytic skills needed
for solving problems, you will only be successful in the profession if you can clearly express your conclusions
and basis for conclusions to your clients, management, or investors. Therefore, one of your primary
responsibilities will be to communicate to these individuals in a clear and precise manner. All assignments,
quizzes, exams, and other communication will require you to clearly and effectively communicate your
responses (this includes following required presentation formats for such items as financial statements and
journal entries). Be aware, I will not expend undue effort trying to interpret messy or illegible writing,
incorrectly formatted JEs, or poorly prepared financial statements. Neatness counts!
These skill development and course curriculum objectives support learning goals 3, 5, 6, 8, and 10 of the
Undergraduate Program Learning Goals. A complete listing of the learning goals for the Program can be found
in the Appendix to this syllabus.
Note from the Accounting Department to students planning to take the CPA exam after graduation:
Indiana University students who wish to become licensed CPAs will need to take the Uniform CPA
Examination after graduation. Although the CPA exam is a uniform nationally administered exam, the
educational requirements needed to sit for the exam vary from state to state. Most states, including Indiana,
require 150 hours of college credit to sit for the exam. In addition, each state requires a certain number of
accounting and other business credits. Indiana Universitys undergraduate accounting degree requirements
satisfies the accounting and other business credit requirements mandated by the Indiana Professional Licensing
Agency. Since these requirements are subject to change, students are encouraged to research these
requirements along with the requirements mandated by other states. Several states require additional
accounting hours and some states require specific courses that are not included in IUBs required curriculum. It
is each students responsibility to research these exam requirements. Further information is available at
www.nasba.org, www.cpa-exam.org, and by telephone at 1-800-cpa-exam.
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Grades
The following table summarizes grade requirements and allocations.
Requirement
Details
Exam 1
Friday, Sept 18, 6-9:00 pm
Exam 2
Wed, October 28, 6-9:00 pm
Final exam
Thursday, December 17, 2:45-5:45 pm
Quizzes
(tentative schedule below)
Professionalism
(Refer to discussion below)
Question of the Day
Bonus Points
Total

Points
100
100
100
50
~20 (ish)
350

**Absolute last day to drop without requiring the Deans approval October 25!!
Exams:
All exams are outside of class at the indicated times. Check your schedules and plan accordingly!!!
Requests for alternate exam times will only be considered if a legitimate conflict exists for the regularly
scheduled exam time. Please be aware that alternate exams are costly. They require an inordinate amount of
time and effort to coordinate. In order to discourage the costly consumption of my time, there will be a costly
consequence imposed for making such requests. Specifically, all alternate exams will be rescheduled at a cost
of 5% of the exam grade. All exams are closed book. Each exam will intentionally test only material covered
since the previous exam. Exams are comprehensive, however, to the extent that an understanding of the current
material is contingent on your comprehension of previously covered material.
A written request for re-grading may be submitted to me within one week after the exam is returned. A
request for re-grading consists of a brief note clearly explaining why your answer deserves more credit than it
received.1 Re-grading requests involving obvious clerical errors need only identify the item involved and the
number of points in question. Keep in mind, I reserve the right to re-grade other questions on resubmitted
exams as well. Oral requests or pre-requests for reviewing/re-grading materials will not be entertained.
Professionalism and Participation:
Due to the difficulty of the material, your comprehension of the topics will be improved by combining
lectures with discussion forums. Learning is greatly enhanced when all class members participate and act in a
professional manner. Thus, in this class professionalism is a graded requirement. You will be assessed on
regular attendance, promptness, preparedness, participation in discussions, and respect for others (this
includes showing others the respect of turning off your cell phones during class and exam times).
You will record your own attendance and preparedness by signing in on the sign in sheet prior to the
start of class.2 I will remove the sign in sheet as class begins. Both tardiness and absentee regularities will
reduce your professionalism score. If you come in after the sheet has been put away (promptness), you may
come up after class and sign in as a late attendee.3 Take caution I rely on the attendance sheets (and periodic
confirmatory head counts) to determine who is in attendance. Thus, if you fail to sign in even if you were in
attendance it will be marked as an absence because it is unverifiable after the fact.
1

The term deserves refers to responses that were addressed under a particular understanding based on supportive text
(from the notes/textbook/other reliable source). It does not refer to critiques of the point allocation system established for
the particular question/problem. Point allocations for particular problems/errors are consistent across students and
22
If you miss a class and you believe that the circumstances dictate an excused absence, you must bring in any relevant
documentation within 2 class periods. DO NOT wait until the end of the semester to provide such documentation doing
so will ensure that the absence is recorded as unexcused. Please note: the provision of documentation does not ensure that
the absence will be excused. This determination is up to my discretion and will be based on the specific circumstances.
3

Chronic lateness is unacceptable since it is a distraction to me and to your classmates.

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To be prepared, you should have read the assigned materials prior to class meetings. You should be able
to offer responses to questions when called upon and keep pace with demonstrations and problem assignments
during class. Note: signing in as prepared for the day while demonstrating you are clearly not prepared will
reflect poorly on your professionalism grade as it demonstrates that you are unprepared as well as dishonest.
To participate, you should be involved in class discussions in a productive manner (please keep in mind
that participating in discussions is very different than speaking out in ways that hinder class progression), and
offer unsolicited, insightful questions or discussion points. In general, I will expect you to behave as
professional business persons while interacting with other students and myself both in and out of the
classroom. When in doubt, consider how your actions/inactions would be viewed in the corporate world (i.e.
what impact would chronic lateness/absence, off-point commentary, or the inattention and distraction of a
phone call/text message during a board meeting have on your job security??).
Quizzes:
Quizzes are designed to exercise the basic skills you have learned in a particular (difficult) subject area
before moving on to some of the more rigorous material for that topic. Your performance on the quiz will
demonstrate that you have learned the fundamentals and are ready to continue to build upon the material.
Questions of the Day:
Questions of the day are optional, extra-credit opportunities that are intended to give you encouragement
toward being prepared for the following class session. For questions to be hand delivered at the start of class:
questions turned in after class begins will not be graded, even if (1) the bus was late, (2) you couldnt get up in
time, or (3) space aliens have abducted you. For questions to be submitted via Oncourse: adjustments will not
be made for (1) computer crashes, (2) Oncourse outages, (3) kitty typing out the incorrect answer on your
laptop, or (4) your widgetfahoozelhasit explodes setting the kitchen on fire! In other words, these are BONUS
points. If they become too laborious for me to track and manage itll simply be bye bye bonus.
Homework:
Although homework will not be graded, it is absolutely essential to doing well on exams. This is not a
memorize and dump course where you can do well by cramming a few days before exams without doing the
readings and homework. Moreover, your choice of A311 and A312, rather than A310, is an indicator of your
career aspirations. Putting in the daily effort toward understanding the material fosters a better understanding of
the concepts and greater long-term retention. Failure to complete the homework will almost certainly guarantee
a poor grade on the exams.
ALL assigned textbook problems should be completed. The solutions for these problems will be
available via Oncourse. Instructor-created problems are designed to test a more comprehensive
understanding of the material. Solutions for these problems can be found under the Resource tab on Oncourse
once the completion date has passed. I strongly encourage you to complete these homeworks without the aid of
the solution doing so will offer you a barometer of how well you could perform on the exams.
Fairness and Grading
I often get requests to consider special circumstances when assigning grades, such as the need to obtain a
certain grade for job considerations, or for admissions into competitive academic programs. You are ultimately
responsible for the grade you in earn in the course. On any given exam, some students will fail, and other
students will do very well. If all students do poorly on an exam, then the exam/course average may be adjusted
(or curved) appropriately.4 If you do poorly on an exam where most others have passed, and some have done
very well, no adjustments to the overall average will be made - your ONLY option for an improved course
grade in this circumstance is to redouble your study efforts in attempt to raise your score for the next exam. If
4

I strongly caution you not to place your faith in the curve. Having taught this course for many years, I have developed
a sense for student capacities and general abilities on each of the three exams. By semester end, class averages rarely
demand that I implement a curve.
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you have special circumstances that warrant considerations (such as extended time on exams), you may wish to
visit the Office of Disability Services to obtain permissions for special services.
The Department of Accounting and Information Systems has established recommended ranges for the average
(mean) grade in each of its courses. The recommended range for the average grade in A312 is 2.5 3.0.
Although my final GPA breakpoints are subject to change, the following figures may be used as a guideline to
determine your final course grades:
Points

Percentage

Grade

> 325
315325
304315
294304
280294
269280
259269
245259
234245
224234
210<224
210

94%+
90-93%
87-89%
84-86%
80-83%
77-79%
74-76%

A
AB+
B
BC+
C
(C and above is considered a passing grade)
CD+
D
DF

70-73%
67-69%
64-66%
60-63%
< 60%

Student honor code

Any perceived violations of the Student Honor Code are taken very seriously in this class. Please feel free to
contact me concerning any problems of this nature. All student-reported incidents of academic misconduct will
be considered with care and any whistleblower information kept completely confidential. Any observed
indications of misconduct during an exam must be reported to the dean of students and will be cause for
action.
Be advised that, while exam integrity is paramount, other citations of academic misconduct will also be
considered cause for action. Additional examples of academic misconduct (e.g. unauthorized assistance or use
of external aids/materials not specifically authorized by the instructor for use with in-class and/or take-home
assignments) can be reviewed at http://kelley.iu.edu/Ugrad/Academics/HonorCode/page39065.html.

**NOTE**
Portions of this course may be subject to electronic monitoring. Video cameras will be used to monitor the
room during student assessment activities, including but not limited to exams, tests, and quizzes. Video
recordings may be used to investigate or support disciplinary action. All access to and use of video equipment
and recordings will follow applicable IU policies.

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Tentative Assignment Schedule*

*Please remember that this syllabus is ever evolving depending on a number of factors including class needs.
Should I determine that changes are needed, a new a new/revised schedule will be provided.
Week

Date

Aug 24 (M)

Introduction and review of prerequisite Financial Accounting curriculum

Aug 26 (W)

Cash Flow Statement

Ch. 23

E23-13, E23-14

2
2

Aug 31 (M)
Sep 2 (W)

Cash Flow Statement

Income Taxes

Ch. 23
Ch. 19

CF-1
CA19-3

Sep 7 (M)

Labor Day No Class

3
4

Sep 9 (W)
Sep 14 (M)

Income Taxes
Income Taxes

Ch. 19
Ch. 19

E19-8, TAX-1
TAX-2, TAX-3

Sep 16 (W)

Finishing Touches / Exam 1 Review

EXAM

Sep 18 (F)

Exam 1: 6:00-9:00 p.m. - Room to be announced

Sep 21 (M)

- Exam Comp Day -

Long-term Liabilities Bonds

Ch. 14

E14-3, E14-10

Sep 23 (W)
(M)J3
Sep 28(T)
(M)

Long-term Liabilities Bonds

Ch. 14

BOND-1

Sep 30 (W)

Long-term Liabilities Bonds

Ch. 14

P14-5, P14-6

7
7
8

Oct 5 (M)
Oct 7 (W)
Oct 12 (M)

Liab.s/Leases
Leases: Operating vs. Capital
Leases QUIZ!

Ch. 21
Ch. 21

P21-2, LSE-1
P21-4

Oct 14 (W)

Leases: BPOs and GRVs

Ch. 21

LSE-2, E21-8

Oct 19 (M)

Leases: BPOs and GRVs

Ch. 21

P21-14, LSE-3

9
10
EXAM

Oct 21 (W)
Oct 26 (M)
Oct 28 (W)

Leases: Sales-Type Capital Lease

Ch. 21
LSE-4, E21-7, P21-1&3
Finishing Touches / Exam 2 Review
Exam 2: 6:00-9:00 p.m. - Room to be announced

11

Nov 2 (M)

Pensions

Ch. 20

CA20-1, PEN-1, PEN-2

11
12

Nov 4 (W)
Nov 9 (M)

Pensions QUIZ!
Pensions

Ch. 20
Ch. 20

PEN-3, PEN-7
PEN-4

12

Nov 11 (W)

Pensions

Ch. 20

PEN-5, PEN-6

13

Nov 16 (M)

Pensions

13
14
14

Nov 18 (W)
Nov 23 (M)
Nov 25 (W)

SE Contr. Cap. & RE

Thanksgiving Break No Class!
Thanksgiving Break No Class!

Ch. 15

P15-3

15
15
16
16

Nov 30 (M)
Dec 2 (W)
Dec 7 (M)
Dec 9 (W)

SE CC & RE
Stockholders Equity EPS
Stockholders Equity EPS
Finishing Touches / Exam 3 Review

Ch. 15
Ch. 16
Ch. 16

P15-5, E15-22
EPS-1
EPS-2, EPS-3

EXAM

Dec 17 (H)

DEPARTMENTAL Final Exam: 2:45pm-5:45pm - Room TBA

A312/A540 Fall 2015

Topic

Reading

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Assignment

vi

APPENDIX A
Undergraduate Program Learning Goals
Learning Goal 1: An Integrative Point of View
Graduates of the Kelley School of Business Undergraduate Program will be able to evaluate and make business decisions
from an integrative point of view, one that reflects an understanding of mutually interdependent relationships among
competitive and environmental conditions, organizational resources, and the major functional areas of a business
enterprise.
Learning Goal 2: Ethical Reasoning
Graduates of the Kelley School of Business Undergraduate Program will be able to recognize ethical issues, demonstrate
familiarity with alternative frameworks for ethical reasoning, and discern tradeoffs and implications of employing different
ethical frames of reference when making business decisions.
Learning Goals 3: Critical Thinking & Decision Making
Graduates of the Kelley School of Business Undergraduate Program will be able to use a variety of research
methodologies to identify and critically evaluate implications of business decisions for organizational stakeholders (e.g.,
customers, colleagues, employees, stockholders, suppliers, foreign governments, communities, cultures, regulatory
agencies) and the natural environment.
Learning Goal 4: Communication
Graduates of the Kelley School of Business Undergraduate Program will be able to communicate effectively in a wide
variety of business settings (e.g., live, virtual, synchronous and asynchronous), employing multiple mediums of
communications (e.g., written, oral and visual).
Learning Goal 5: Quantitative Analysis and Modeling
Graduates of the Kelley School of Business Undergraduate Program will be able systematically apply tools of quantitative
analysis and modeling to make recommendations and business decisions.
Learning Goals 6: Team Membership & Leadership
Graduates of the Kelley School of Business Undergraduate Program will be able to collaborate productively with others,
functioning effectively as both members and leaders of teams.
Learning Goal 7: Respect, Inclusiveness & Valuing People
Graduates of the Kelley School of Business Undergraduate Program will be able to create and sustain personal and work
environments that are respectful and inclusive, valuing the contributions of all persons.
Learning Goal 8: Personal and Professional Development
Graduates of the Kelley School of Business Undergraduate Program will be prepared to become the authors of their
own futures, make informed and deliberate choices about personal and professional development, assume responsibility
for their decisions, take pride in excellence, contribute to community, and demonstrate college-level mastery of the skills
needed for pursuing and managing a career as a business professional.
Learning Goal 9: Global Awareness
Graduates of the Kelley School of Business Undergraduate Program will be conversant with major economic, social,
political, and technological trends and conditions influencing foreign investment and development of the global economy
and demonstrate an understanding of the cultural, interpersonal and analytical competencies required for engaging in
global business activities.
Learning Goal 10: Innovation and Creativity
Graduates of the Kelley School of Business Undergraduate Program will know how to respond to the need for innovation
or creativity by engaging in ongoing learning, broadening their points of view, exploring cross-contextual links, and
consulting
with
others.

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