Threshold Concepts in the Preparation of Consolidated Financial Statements

ABSTRACT Consolidated financial statements are important because they offer investors, regulators and other stakeholders a comprehensive view of both the financial position and the results of a group of entities. Accounting students struggle to fully grasp the concepts required to understand this topic, while educators find it challenging to teach effectively. By adopting a threshold concept lens to address the problem of teaching a complex accounting topic, this paper describes the methodology followed to establish disciplinary threshold concepts in the preparation of consolidated financial statements. We progressively mapped the student perspective to perspectives from educators and professional accountants. Professionals and educators were purposively sampled to ensure they had prior experience in the preparation and teaching of consolidated financial statements. Including industry perspective results is a more robust identification process of threshold concepts. Four threshold concepts are identified: the identification of assets and liabilities; control; consolidation; and the economic entity.