Preparing Students for the Intuit Certified Bookkeeping Professional Certification

By Eric Weinstein & Laura Popelka

This article explores the upcoming learning solution Accounting Essentials: Complete Prep for the Intuit Certified Bookkeeping Professional Exam, available for classes in Spring 2023.

Recently Intuit Inc., the corporation behind such familiar names as TurboTax and QuickBooks, in conjunction with Certiport, released the Intuit Certified Bookkeeping Professional certification. The certification covers a range of topics broadly categorized into four main groups. Mastering these topics and obtaining this certification can give students an edge as they compete for coveted employment opportunities in today’s competitive job market by setting them apart from the crowd as someone with specialized skills.

But how can a student best prepare for such a wide-ranging certification exam as this? Labyrinth Learning, an industry-leader in creating intuitive, easy-to-use course solutions, has the answer. The company’s soon-to-be-released learning solution, Accounting Essentials: Complete Prep for the Intuit Certified Bookkeeping Professional Exam, contains everything aspiring bookkeepers need to ace their certification exam. These cutting-edge materials are approved by Intuit and provide unmatched exam preparation.

Let’s take a look at how these materials accomplish the goal.

Mapping to Exam Objectives

Labyrinth’s bookkeeping certification prep solution includes a mapping of the textbook content to the exam objectives. This visual, which shows the connections between what students are learning about in class and what they’ll be tested on if they go for certification, is a valuable study aid that can be used when preparing for the exam.

This is an example of the mapping of the Intuit Certified Bookkeeping Professional Certification Exam objective (left) to the location in the course content that objective is covered (right). Students can quickly jump to the desired chapter content as they study. You can access a full version of the map to the exam objectives (PDF).

The chapter-level assessment tests and final exam questions are also mapped to learning solution content and exam objectives to further aid and support students preparing for the certification exam.

But Accounting Essentials provides much more than basic content explanations and mappings. The course includes eight learning content chapters and one project chapter that can be used as a capstone to verify full comprehension of the certification exam material.

Unparalleled Learning Content

Aimed at serving future bookkeepers, this certification prep textbook is optimized for students with little or no prior accounting knowledge and uses Labyrinth’s proven step-by-step approach to teach introductory accounting concepts and how to complete key financial statements.

Key to this are several factors:

Case in Point Examples to Illustrate Concepts

Within each chapter is an array of resources to assist students in mastering the material. Accompanying each main discussion, for example, is a Case in Point section that includes examples and full explanations to illustrate implementation of the concept.

All Case in Point sections relate to the fictional case study company Nathan’s Donut School and owner Nathaniel H. Spencer. Following this new company owner as he gets acclimated to the accounting needs of his small business helps students retain learning by connecting concepts to the real world.

Case in Point sections are not hands-on assignments and there’s nothing active for the students to do or submit for these, but they are a critical course element and effective teaching tool. In this example, students work with journal entries as the critical topic of debits and credits is reinforced. Each “step” is a different transaction (scenario) in which students are shown the journal entry that results from a given transaction as well as notes on how and why the entry is created as it is.

Commentary can also expand upon a discussion point, offer a tip or best practice, and generally give students context so they aren’t just memorizing a few facts. They’re absorbing concepts.

The particulars of a Case in Point section change depending on the concept being introduced and all are designed to extend upon and illustrate the discussions that precede them using real-world examples, compelling visuals where helpful, and other features.

Other Ways to Support Learning

Each chapter also contains one or more A Closer Look sections. In these sections a topic is expanded upon so students can gain a more complete understanding of how it’s employed in the real world. Topics include alternatives to using the T-account, less common depreciation methods and financial ratios, and a variety of other topics.

**A Closer Look** sections provide context for the student, which in turn allows for a more complete understanding and internalization of the content.

Multimedia content includes supplementary videos and animations to support and enliven discussions and to reach learners of all types. Students may access multimedia from within their ebooks and/or eLab.

Ask Yourself

A key to effective learning is to confirm understanding along the way. To support students, each main discussion section features an Ask Yourself question. Positioned just before the Case in Point example, these anchor questions give students the opportunity to stop and check in with themselves before moving on. These are no-pressure questions. Answers and feedback provided!

End-of-Chapter Content

The end-of-chapter content is even more robust, with no fewer than four sections of materials to ensure that students are given all the tools necessary to succeed in both the classroom and when seeking certification.

Self-Assessment

After the last concept section and Case in Point example, students encounter the Self-Assessment. This twenty-question quiz helps students confirm their understanding of the material presented in the chapter and pinpoint areas of weakness. As with Ask Yourself, answers and feedback are provided so students can use these sections as learning tools.

Questions are succinct, relevant, and answerable within the learning content. Students who complete the Self-Assessment quiz for a chapter will be well prepared for the active Practice Set working sections to come.

Putting It Together

Next comes the comprehensive chapter review in Putting It Together. These sections are similar to Case in Point in that they are examples, but where Case in Point takes the chapter discussion section by section, in Putting It Together, students see the chapter’s accounting work illustrated “soup to nuts” in one section.

This encompassing example illustrates for students how the chapter’s topics fit together and can be applied in a real-world scenario. This feature is unique to Labyrinth’s Accounting Essentials bookkeeping certification learning solution.

It’s a fantastic study aid in that it provides a complete roadmap that can be used as a model for the Practice Sets to help guarantee student success.

Providing aggregated examples that pull together all chapter topics into one scenario to be looked at collectively is a key component of this course. It’s important that students know how to execute individual accounting-based tasks, and it’s also important that they have a complete understanding of how to use these tasks together to complete a larger goal.

Practice Sets

Within the main course content are two Practice Set sections (A and B) per chapter, with a third (C) available online and within the instructor support resources. Each Practice Set section provides a wide variety of exercises, offering educators and students alike flexibility in the types of problems that will be most beneficial.

To some degree, every student learns at a different pace and in a different way. Offering variety in these assignments helps ensure that all students are presented with opportunities to show mastery of the material and just how much they can do.

Practice Set B in each chapter provides essentially the same set of assignments from Practice Set A, with modification made to company names, dates, amounts, etc. This is a key component within this learning solution, as repetition of this course material is vital to student success. And this is why even a third set (Practice Set C) is provided within the online materials. All Practice Sets can be completed online with automatic grading and feedback provided.

As you can see, the structure of the learning solution is designed to ensure full comprehension of the course material. But what specifically will the students be learning?

Topic Coverage

We’ve already mentioned the broad categories that are used for the Intuit Certified Bookkeeping Professional exam. To achieve the goal of covering all topics within these categories, Accounting Essentials starts in Chapter 1 by examining the accounting equation, the accounting cycle, and the process used to evaluate transactions. Chapter 2 provides a broad view of each step within the accounting cycle. This is a novel approach designed to give the student a better understanding of the complete cycle before looking more closely at each individual component.

Chapter 3 moves on to journal entries, T-accounts, special journals, and subsidiary ledgers. Chapter 4 introduces the trial balance, adjusting entries, reversing entries, and multiple depreciation methods. Chapter 5 examines the four financial statements and closing entries.

Chapter 6 reviews petty cash, bank reconciliations, computerized accounting systems, and accounting for payroll. Chapter 7 then considers vertical analyses, horizontal analyses, and financial ratios. Chapter 8 provides a comprehensive project covering the bulk of the material in the first seven chapters.

Lastly, another unique feature of this course is coverage of merchandising businesses and the elements that impact them, such as inventory valuation methods, as discussed in Chapter 9. This allows the student to learn each element of the accounting cycle in the context of a more basic service business, and then to expand on this knowledge in the final chapter and after the project.

Automated Grading & Instructor Support

Of course, Labyrinth Learning also recognizes the need to simplify the lives of educators. As the number of courses offered and associated number of course modalities has grown in recent years, the life of the educator has become much more difficult. With so many competing responsibilities, it can be difficult to spend sufficient time on each element of the course. By offering Accounting Essentials in an online course format (using Labyrinth eLab) and providing automated grading for assignments and assessments, Labyrinth Learning has addressed this issue.

eLab learning and assessment content includes features such as test banks, practice set assignments, and certification exam prep – all automatically graded and with feedback for students.

Further, an array of instructor support materials streamlines course preparation and frees up vital time that is better spent teaching rather than preparing and grading. Offerings include solution material, lecture notes, chapter overviews, course setup notes, a sample syllabus, and much more.

Wrapping It Up

Labyrinth Learning is proud to have crafted these materials that offer outstanding preparation for the Intuit Certified Professional Bookkeepers exam. We look forward to sharing in the successes of students who achieve certification using these materials and hope that you will consider how they can be beneficial in your classroom.

Educators can request a review copy of Accounting Essentials: Complete Prep for the Intuit Certified Bookkeeping Professional Exam, available for classes in Spring 2023.