Teaching Accountancy: Traditional or Successive Balances?

Abstract

This article aims to answer the following question: how to teach introductory accounting in a more integrated manner than the traditional one? Therefore, we work with the following proposition: in teaching accounting for the first time to students of Accounting, or other related business areas, the use of a methodology that blends the Traditional and Successive Balances can demonstrate to students the relationship between ledgers and financial statements. Thus, accounting can be taught in a more integrated way than the traditional one. The results might reveal that the presented model mixing the traditional and successive balances to teach introductory accounting. The teaching of dynamic patrimonial content (successive balance sheets) and bookkeeping (ledgers) in an integrated manner were used as an example, at the same time. Thus, the students had a vision of the relationship capable of generating useful information for decision making.