Extensive guide, with exercises, is designed for learning more about the Professional View of the Codification.

• Be certain to  understand the definition of terms--consult the Master Glossary

• Use quotation marks to search for phrases of more than one word, such as "capitalized interest"

• Secondary sources, such as articles and books, may help with understanding the official Codification. See suggestions under Resources to Help Understand the Codification.

Some general tips include:

From the Notification to Constituents:

•  Language changes from the previous standards include:

Entity replaces words such as company, organization, enterprise, firm and preparer.

Intra-entity replaces intercompany

Shall replaces "is" "required to," "must" and similar terms

Would and should are used to represent examples and hypothetical situations

Baruch students and faculty have access to the FASB Codification through two databases:

• FASB Accounting Standards Codification--Professional View--Academic Accounting Access is limited to accountancy students and faculty.  Obtain the login information from your accounting professor.  It can not be obtained in the library.

• CCH Accounting Research Manager, a subscription database that  the Newman Library offers

• Consult these databases for help with accessing and searching the codification. See also videos and tips mentioned in left and right boxes.

   

Free Access from the FASB

• Free access: All members of the public may access the Codification through the FASB Accounting Standards Codification Basic View.

Users must establish individual free accounts. Search features available in the Professional View are not available in the Basic View.

• Search by a known citation in the Codification search box (not available in the Basic View)
• Drill down the seven categories, expand topics and subtopics to find what you need
  
• Enter keyword or keywords in search box (available in the Professional View-Academic Access and CCH Accounting Research Manager)
  
• Select advanced search, which allows the most options (available in the Professional View-Academic Access and CCH Accounting Research Manager)

Additional ways to search in the FASB Accounting Standards Codification Professional View-Academic Access and CCH Accounting Research Manager:

Cross Reference enables you to cross reference between the superceded standards and the Codification. Either: Enter the information about the earlier standard to learn where in the Codification the language is now located, or enter information about the Codification to identify the standards that contain the language referenced in the Codification.  See Cross Reference help and tutorial

Join Sections enables you to select Codification content that spans multiple topics and subtopic. A topic and section must be selected. See Join Sections help and tutorial

The FASB offers tutorials and help on the Codification.

CPA Jeff Sailor has two free tutorials on YouTube

• Part 1 includes Codification structure and how to use it
• Part 2 describes Codification research options

Toerner, M. C. (2009). A guide to using the Accounting Standards Codification. The CPA Journal, 79(2), 20-25. Toerner is a CPA and an accounting professor.

Ford, C.O. and Thomas, C. William. (2008). Test-driving the Codification, Journal of Accountancy. 206(2), 62+.  The authors are CPAs and accounting professors.