My Answers --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm

Bob Jensen's advice to new faculty --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm

Large International Accounting Firm History --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_auditors

Free online textbooks and tutorials (including video tutorials) in accounting, economics, statistics, and other disciplines --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks

For Example Here Are Some Free Video Tutorials
Free Accounting Video (YouTube) Tutorials
May 27, 2008 message from Crosson, Susan [susan.crosson@SFCC.EDU]

FASB's Accounting Standards Codification --- http://asc.fasb.org/home

FASB Master Glossary --- http://asc.fasb.org/glossary&letter=D

The FASB's Derivatives and Hedging Glossary (in the Accounting Standards Codification Database) ---
http://asc.fasb.org/subtopic&trid=2229141&nav_type=left_nav

I'm sharing some old (well relatively old) accounting theory quiz and exam material that I added to a folder at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/Calgary/CD/

Wikipedia has a rather nice summary of accounting software at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_software
Bob Jensen’s accounting software bookmarks are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#AccountingSoftware

Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance, economics, and statistics --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Scroll down to Accounting

Free CPA Review Course --- http://cpareviewforfree.com/

July 22, 2008 message from Dan Stone, Univ. of Kentucky [dstone@UKY.EDU]

Regarding the free CPA Review Course --- http://cpareviewforfree.com/ 

1. Should I recommend this site as a CPA prep resource for students? What are the time &/or financial costs to students?

2. What's their business model?

Thanks,

Dan S.

July 22, 2008 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Dan,

Answer to Question 2
This appears to be pretty much a public service site run by three old guys interested in helping people study for the CPA exam --- http://cpareviewforfree.com/about.cfm 
My hat is off to them if there is no hidden agenda. If there is a hidden agenda, I can't find it.

It's possible that one or more of them might be engaged privately or by a firm to conduct workshops on CPA Exam Review, but the site does not advertise this nor does it even mention that any of the three old guys are interested in conducting this added custom service for a fee.

Answer to Question 1
The Becker Course is expensive, live (with lots of video onsite), and great for kicking butts of students prone to procrastinating --- who tend to find excuses for delaying studying on their own.

The above free CPA Exam review site seems to be great for students who are organized with their study time and self-motivated (read that driven).

To be honest, the free CPA review site is all that I would've needed because all I did was devote five hours religiously each week for about five months of my senior year in college to studying old CPA exam questions and answers. Back in 1960 in Colorado we could take the exam before we graduated in the undergraduate program.

I passed the exam the first time that way, but I worked with a good friend (call him Don) in the Ernst and Ernst office who had to take the CPA exam four times to pass all the parts. I worked part-time for E&E whereas he worked full time. He also had a wife and two young babies. I was a ski bum on weekends but studied by tail off five days a week for my courses, my CPA Exam review, and my E&E job in the afternoons.

I think Don did not pass the CPA exam because he always found reasons or excuses to procrastinate studying for the exam. No Becker kick-butt course was available in those days!

I went on to Stanford and became a low-paid accounting professor. Don stayed with E&E and eventually became the high paid managing partner of the Denver Office. Go figure. The CPA exam is just one stepping stone to success.

Of course, I've never regretted taking the road less traveled in those days. It was a great life being on the faculty of four universities over 40 years. Spending five years full time getting a PhD was enlightening and agonizing since it was an accounting PhD with no accounting courses. It might've had some accounting courses if I wasn't already a CPA and an MBA when I moved to Palo Alto. I became one of the early accountics research professors at the beginning of the perfect storm --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm
In retrospect it was much easier to publish accountics research than accounting research without equations.

Bob Jensen

Financial Executives International (FEI) free television --- http://www.financialexecutives.org/eweb/startpage.aspx?site=_fei

Personal Finance Helpers (more than ever, the public is worried about personal investment and savings)
From Smart Stops on the Web, Journal of Accountancy, July 2008

KEEPING IT SIMPLE www.bargaineering.com/articles This Smart Stop’s author puts together a “Blueprint for Financial Prosperity,” working and blogging through the complexities of personal finance. Articles include “Speed Up or Shift Up: Thinking About Your Income Path” and “Do You Have an Opportunity Fund?” Also find tax and investing coverage, plus reviews of financial planning and wealth management books. Every month, the author plays “Devil’s Advocate,” where he examines the other side of “mainstream” or “common sense” personal finance ideas. Recent “Advocate” posts include “Don’t Budget to the Penny” and “Don’t Just Buy Index Funds.” THIS WEEK IN PERSONAL FINANCE www.carnivalofpersonalfinance.com The Carnival of Personal Finance touts itself as “a traveling weekly showcase of the best blog articles on the topic.” The carnival is hosted by a different guest blogger each week. In every edition, you’ll find links to the guest editor’s picks of the week, typically highlighting five to 10 posts from various sources, which feature expert advice on professional sites or regular-Joe experiences on personal sites. You can submit your own post for consideration, view the schedule of upcoming hosts or just browse the wealth of archived articles. The AICPA maintains a financial literacy site at http://www.aicpa.org/financialliteracy/FeedThePig/ Bob Jensen's personal finance helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#InvestmentHelpers

The AICPA maintains a helper site for guidance on the replacement of FASB/SEC standards with IASB international standards --- http://www.ifrs.com/
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#MethodsForSetting
And see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#FASBvsIASB

I do not forward advertising requests form commercial vendors unless I feel that my "audience" would appreciate hearing about particular new products and services. This one is very important to some accounting researchers.

April 30, 2008 message from Tom Hardy [thardy@ivesinc.com]

Dear Professor Jensen,

I am writing to let you know about two new research modules available with the AuditAnalytics.com SEC research database. Specifically, our Litigation Module now tracks all material federal litigation involving Russell 3000 companies and all federal litigation involving the top 100 audit firms. This module contains over 12,500 cases in the database. It includes all securities class actions and SEC litigation filed since the year 2000.

In the next few months we also will be making available as an add-on our Advanced Restatement Data to include:

Net Income Effect*

Net Effect on Stockholders Equity*

First Announcement Date*

First Magnitude Announcement Date* All related filings to each restatement*

*Data analysis for these fields restricted to NYSE, Nasdaq and AMEX public companies and is currently populated from 2003 to present.

FIN 48 Revisions (All SEC registrants for fiscal years beginning after Dec 15th, 2006) SAB 108 Revisions (All SEC registrants for fiscal year ends after Nov 15th, 2006)

As the leader in Audit Industry Research, AuditAnalytics.com provides detailed information on over 20,000 publicly registered companies and over 1,500 accounting firms. Our database enables you, your students and faculty to quickly search and analyze reported:

- SOX 404 Internal Controls and SOX 302 Disclosure Controls

- Restatements

- Directory and Officer Changes

- Late filers (Form NT)

- Auditor fees, changes, and opinions

- Governance information (Non-historical)

I sincerely believe that you would find our online service to be a valuable resource for your academic research. We are currently offering special academic and educational subscription pricing for the service and I would be happy to discuss this further at your convenience. Please let me know if there is a good time for us to speak and if you would like any additional information or an online demonstration of the AuditAnalytics.com service.

Best Regards,

Tom

PS. Please feel free to ask me about AuditAnalytics.com availability via the WRDS Database http://wrds.wharton.upenn.edu/

Tom Hardy
IVES Group, Inc.
9 Main Street, Suite 2F
Sutton, MA 01590
Phone: (508) 476-7007 ext. 228
e-mail: thardy@ivesinc.com
www.auditanalytics.com - Independent Research Provider to the Accounting, Insurance, Research and Investment Communities

April 30, 2008 reply from Todd Pullen [btpull@COMCAST.NET]

Does anyone have a recommendation on a good site for financial reports?

I have found that some of the free sites such a Google Finance and Marketwatch are not that accurate or their data is outdated.

April 30, 2008 reply from Edith Orenstein [eorenstein@FINANCIALEXECUTIVES.ORG]

I recently had demo of CCH Accounting Research Manager (ARM) and it seemed to have a pretty good search capability for recent filings.

April 30, 2008 reply from W. O. Mills, III C.P.A., C.A., P.F.S [wom@WOMILLS.COM]

I am not sure of what you might be looking for exactly...but perhaps Edgars would be of some benefit to you.

http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml 

April 30, 2008 reply from David Albrecht [albrecht@PROFALBRECHT.COM]

I use several. Usually I go directly to a company's web site.

If I'm simply shopping for something to use in class I go to
http://www.annualreportservice.com/

April 30, 2008 reply from Bob Jensen

And don't forget to try the wonderful new TryXBRL service (free for now) and the new Financial Explorer service from the SEC

"TryXBRL.org Launched," SmartPros, March 28, 2008 ---  http://accounting.smartpros.com/x61325.xml

A new Web site, TryXBRL.com, allows free access to view and analyze complete XBRL-tagged financial statements for over 12,000 publicly traded corporations.

After registering on the portal, TryXBRL.org, corporate finance professionals can educate themselves about the XBRL tagging process and view their own historical financial information in XBRL format. Investors and analysts can experience how XBRL reduces the complexity and costs associated with analyzing performance data.

The site is a collaboration of EDGAR Online Inc., a business and financial information provider, and R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, a print services company.

"Our goal has been to deliver solutions that do not require technical expertise or excessive time commitments by corporations wishing to take part in the SEC Voluntary Program or to familiarize themselves with XBRL," said Philip Moyer, President and CEO of EDGAR Online, Inc. "We are providing open access to our vast XBRL database through a solution that enables corporations to begin filing XBRL content with the SEC in as little as a few hours."

RR Donnelley and EDGAR Online have collaborated to deliver XBRL filing solutions to corporations since 2005.

Once again that site is at http://www.tryxbrl.org/

April 1, 2008 reply from Amy Dunbar [Amy.Dunbar@BUSINESS.UCONN.EDU]

I just tried the site. Wow. Very powerful. I confirmed the numbers for one company to make sure I knew what I was seeing. It pulled the 2007 four quarter numbers for my selected company and then the 4th qtr numbers for the three peer companies and my selected company. I'm not sure where that 12,000 publicly traded corporations is coming from. They must mean filings, not corporations. I found the following table for March/June 2005 in Appendix F. http://www.sec.gov/info/smallbus/acspc/acspc-finalreport.pdf  If you include pink sheet companies, the data for which are not publicly available (at least to my knowledge), the total climbs to 13,094. Does anyone have a source for more recent numbers of publicly traded corporations?

Listing Venue Number of Companies Listed NYSE 2,553 AMEX 747 NASDAQ National Market 2,580 NASDAQ Capital Market1 593 OTC Bulletin Board 2,955 Total 9,428

The table (I only show part of it) has the following footnote explanation: Source: Public data includes 13,094 companies from the Center for Research in Securities Prices at the University of Chicago for NYSE and AMEX companies as of March 31, 2005 and from NASDAQ for NASDAQ and OTC Bulletin Board companies and from Datastream Advance for Pink Sheets companies as of June 10, 2005. This table was compiled by members of the staff of the SEC's Office of Economic Analysis and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Commission, the Commissioners, or other members of the Commission staff.

Amy Dunbar UConn

 Bob Jensen's threads on XBRL are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XBRLandOLAP.htm

---

"SEC unveils 'Financial Explorer' investor tool using XBRL," AccountingWeb, February 20, 2008 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=104665

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox has announced the launch of the "Financial Explorer" on the SEC Web site to help investors quickly and easily analyze the financial results of public companies. Financial Explorer paints the picture of corporate financial performance with diagrams and charts, using financial information provided to the SEC as "interactive data" in eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL).

At the click of a mouse, Financial Explorer lets investors automatically generate financial ratios,

graphs, and charts depicting important information from financial statements. Information including earnings, expenses, cash flows, assets, and liabilities can be analyzed and compared across competing public companies. The software takes the work out of manipulating the data by entirely eliminating tasks such as copying and pasting rows of revenues and expenses into a spreadsheet. That frees investors to focus on their investments' financial results through visual representations that make the numbers easier to understand. Investors can use Financial Explorer by visiting www.sec.gov/xbrl .

"XBRL is fast becoming the universal language for the exchange of business information and it is the future of financial reporting," said Cox. "With Financial Explorer or another XBRL viewer, investors will be able to quickly make sense of financial statements. In the near future, potentially millions of people will be able to analyze and compare financial statements and make better-informed investment decisions. That's a big benefit to ordinary investors."

David Blaszkowsky, Director of the SEC's Office of Interactive Disclosure, encouraged investors to try out the new software. "Financial Explorer will help investors analyze investment choices much quicker. I encourage both companies and investors to visit the SEC Web site, try the software, and get a first-hand glimpse of the future of financial analysis, especially for the retail investor."

Financial Explorer is open source, meaning that its source code is free to the public, and technology and financial experts can update and enhance the software. As interactive data becomes more commonplace, investors, analysts, and others working in the financial industry may develop hundreds of Web-based applications that help investors garner insights about financial results through creative ways of analyzing and presenting the information.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
The Financial Explorer link --- http://209.234.225.154/viewer/home/
Note the "Take a Tour" option.

Bob Jensen's videos (created before the SEC created the Financial Explorer) are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/Tutorials/
When I can find some time, I'll create a Financial Explorer update video.

Bob Jensen's threads on XBRL are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XBRLandOLAP.htm

Accounting Educators should pay more attention to the following blog that seeks out weaknesses in company filings of 10Q (and other reports) with the SEC

10Q Detective blog by David Phillips --- http://10qdetective.blogspot.com/

Investors often overlook SEC filings, and it is the job of the 10Q Detective to dig through businesses’ 8-K and 10-Q SEC filings, looking for financial statement ‘soft spots,' (depreciation policies, warranty reserves, and restructuring charges, etc.) that may materially impact Quality of Earnings

Bob Jensen's threads on creative accounting are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/AccountingTricks.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on the roles of listservs and blogs --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListservRoles.htm

Global Perspectives on Accounting Education --- http://gpae.bryant.edu/%7Egpae/content.htm

July 2, 2008 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Amy and Jagdish,

Most faculty can view free electronic versions of hundreds of newspapers, including the WSJ, if their campus libraries subscribe to electronic databases that most colleges now make available to students, faculty, and retired faculty. But it’s a bit of a pain in the tail to go to a database in this manner every instant you want to see a WSJ article.

WSJ deals for professors (free) and students (at greatly discounted prices)  are described at http://info.wsj.com/college/
There’s a catch since professors receiving free subscriptions must sign up the WSJ to students or set up an arrangement with bookstores.

The WSJ now has two types of “introductory-offer” subscriptions:

$79 for the electronic (online) subscription for one year
$99 for the hard copy by mail and the electronic (online) subscription for a year   
Thus getting the hard copy six days a week in the mail costs an added 6.4 pennies per day.

Renewal of a subscription is higher priced, and I was told on the phone when I renewed that I could not get the electronic version without also paying for a hard copy subscription. I don’t know how you renewed for an electronic version only. Actually the pricing difference is probably so nominal that the only things to suffer from the hard copy add on are my mail delivery woman (Mary Bless Her Heart) and the trees in Maine where Dow Jones has a long-term newsprint contract with the St Regis Paper Company or whoever owns St Regis now).

At the WSJ home Website I cannot find any mention of how to get a free electronic subscription to the WSJ. This is sad since one of Rupert Murdach’s promises when he bought the WSJ was that the electronic versions would be free in much the same convenient manner that current editions of the NYT are free.

 However, there is away for persistent freebie searchers to view the WSJ for free. The “Unknown Professor” of the Financial Rounds blog showed how he manages to view online versions free: I did not check to see if his methods still work.

 

Saturday, April 05, 2008 --- http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/

Get The Wall Street Journal Online For Free

Either on the blog or in class, I refer to articles in the Wall Street Journal a lot. Unfortunately, the person I'm talking to often doesn't have a subscription. Fear no more - it turns out there's a way to get all the content on the WSJ Online for free. Here's how it works: If you click on a link to the WSJ's "protected" content through a non"portal" site, you get sent to a limited version of the full article. To get the whole thing, you have to log in.

But if you click on a link to that same article in Google News or Digg, you can access the full story for free. Here's how to use this approach:

• Many (not all, but many) of the articles are available through Google News. If you know the title of the article, go there and search for it. If it's available, you'll get the full article. Unfortunately, not all articles are available through this avenue.
• If you're a FireFox user, there's another way. First, install the add-on refspoof. Then, when going to the WSJ online, use www.digg.com as the spoofed address. This makes it look to the WSJ site like you're coming from Digg. I've downloaded it, and it's easy to use.
• If you're an Internet Explorer user, QuickSpoof and Spooph provide the same spoofing functionality.

 

Sources for Teaching Cases --- http://aib.msu.edu/resources/casedepositories.asp

Note that AccountingWeb now has a "Student Zone" at http://www.accountingweb.com/news/student_channel.html
There's also a "Lecture Hall" at http://www.accountingweb.com/lecture_hall/index.html
A useful set of accounting links is provided at http://www.accountingweb.com/links/index.html
I added these to my bookmarks at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm

Bob Jensen's letter to Kate http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2007NotableLiteratureAward.htm

An Analysis of the Contributions of The Accounting Review Across 80 Years: 1926-2005 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm
Co-authored with Jean Heck and forthcoming in the December 2007 edition of the Accounting Historians Journal.

I sent out an "Appeal" for accounting educators, researchers, and practitioners to actively support what I call The Accounting Review (TAR) Diversity Initiative as initiated by last year's American Accounting Association President Judy Rayburn --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR.htm

Privatization, Commercialization, Media Rankings, and Other Problems of Higher Education,
Including Selling Out Education Quality to Athletic Spectaculars ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

PwC's Website for College and University Faculty --- Click Here

Accounting Professional Site Links 
The CPA Team http://www.cpateam.com/  

An E-ssential Site --- http://www.el.com/
CPAs, financial analysts, small business owners, and tax professionals not only can find links to many Web sites in their fields here, but also can use Essential Link’s home page to access online calculators, clocks, e-mail services, encyclopedias and dictionaries. Users can find links to online news, newspaper and television network Web sites in the Headlines area, as well as links to Internet search engines..

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for accounting educators --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm

Bob Jensen's Archives of New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookurl.htm

Bob Jensen's Tidbits Blog --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm

Bob Jensen's Updates on Fraud --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Links to Documents on Fraud --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm

Bob Jensen's Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob.htm

Bob Jensen's Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob.htm

Bob Jensen's links to free electronic literature, including free online textbooks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

Bob Jensen's links to free online video, music, and other audio --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Music.htm

Bob Jensen's documents on accounting theory are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory.htm 

Bob Jensen's links to free course materials from major universities --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

Bob Jensen's links to online education and training alternatives around the world --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm

Bob Jensen's links to electronic business, including computing and networking security, are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce.htm

Bob Jensen's links to education technology and controversies --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm