A Way to Review the Difficult Basics of Data Modeling, Accrual Accounting, and How They Fit Together

• In Event: Teaching Resources for Financial and Audit

Abstract

Abstract:
If you talk to financial accounting professors you commonly hear that teaching accruals and deferrals is the most difficult part of introductory accounting. If you ask AIS professors who teach database modeling, they will likely tell you that teaching cardinalities is the most difficult part. This paper provides a way of reviewing data modeling and how it relates to accruals and deferrals in financial accounting. Maximum cardinalities are typically stressed more in AIS courses because they provide the information necessary to effectively design the database. Minimum cardinalities focus on the timing of recording economic dualities. These timing differences are the core of the accrual basis of accounting. This paper shows how each part of a duality would be recorded in a database system and a traditional accounting system and the two are summarized to show how they relate to one another. Anecdotal evidence suggests that students understand cardinalities and accruals and deferrals in financial accounting better after reviewing these topics.

Author

• Barbara Waddington Ross, Eastern Michigan University