About Prof. Nurnberg's accounting assignment using FARS (or equivalent databases)

Accountancy professor Hugo Nurnberg distributed a two- part assignment to his upper level accounting class this week in which they are to use the Financial Accounting Standard Poor's FARS CD (available at the reference desk) or the RIA Checkpoint or CCH Accounting Research Manager databases.

I have discovered that the 2007 FARS CD has not yet arrived (it was released later than usual) so I would encourage you to suggest to the students to search RIA Checkpoint or CCH Accounting Research Manager. I don't know if the answer to the assignment is so timely that the 2006 FARS CD would not have the most up-to-date information that would be correct, but the RIA Checkpoint and CCH Accounting Research Manager are updated daily.

Prof. Nurnberg put on his Blackboard site the tutorials and handouts that have been developed to help students search this literature. If the students have not yet looked at these handouts before they try to search, please suggest that they do so. (One student told me that she didn't think it mattered what she searched. I learned she had not looked at the handouts, and I encouraged her to do so.)

Prof. Nurnberg encourages the students to consult background information, such as the Miller GAAP Guide. On Lexis-Nexis this is now referred to GAAP Levels A, B, C, D. The easiest way to locate it is to search "GAAP" in Sources, and look for it. Some of the interpretative literature on CCH's Accounting Research Manager is labeled "Miller Interpretations," which I am assuming is based on the Miller GAAP Guide, although I couldn't find anything in the database stating that.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks, Rita