Month: February 2014

There were a couple of issues with the initial spring 2014 LFV-U flash card download file. These have been resolved.

Today I made available the first in a series of updates to the LFV-U flash cards. You can download the flash cards in the Supplementary Materials section of the online seminar. This first update covers all of Section A and has roughly 200 flash cards. The other sections will follow shortly.

I feel that this new flash card design is a signficant improvement over the previous flash cards we offered in the LFV-U online seminar. We’ve re-written all of the cards to make it even easier to focus on the most important concepts, keywords, and formulas from each reading on the syllabus.

We’re also now offering the flash cards in two formats for more flexibility. Please see the “read me” file included with the flash card download file for more detail on the formats and how to use them.

We are continuing to explore other formats for the flash cards as well, so I would appreciate any feedback you have on this new design so we can continue evolving the online seminar to meet your needs.

In the previous blog post, I mentioned that I added some additional content to the study manual corresponding to “part 2” of the GAAP Ch. 7 lesson. All of this “part 2” material is borderline superfluous to the syllabus because the calculations are primarily based material in  Section 3.11 of GAAP Ch. 3. Section 3.11 is definitely not on the syllabus according to the latest published LFV-U syllabus.

However, I’ve chosen to leave these illustrative calculations in the online seminar because I think they will help make the concept of SIAs and SILs under SOP 03-1 clearer in your mind for the exam—because it’s quite possible that you would have to describe those given that they make brief appearances in GAAP Ch. 7, which is entirely on the syllabus.

So to recap: I don’t think you’ll have to do the kind of detailed sales inducement calculations you’ll see in part 2 of the GAAP Ch. 7 lesson, but to the extent that the examples help crystallize SOP 03-1 concepts in your mind, they will be helpful on exam day.

GAAP Ch. 7 is covered in 2 parts in the online seminar (A.3.7.a and A.3.7.b). Previously, the instructor’s notes for part 2 were missing, but you can now find those included in the PDF download for part 1 of that lesson (A.3.7.a).

I also added several pages to the end of the GAAP Ch. 7 material in the Section A detailed study manual that correspond to part 2. Please see the detailed study manual revision history file for additional details.

The original copy of the LFV-U Section D detailed study manual was based on an older copy that did not have the content for LFV-815 in it. This has all been fixed now. The content for LFV-815 has been added back and now occupies pp. 43–48. 

The LFV-U condensed outline has been fully updated for spring 2014. 

The last of the video lessons for the spring 2014 exam have been added to the online seminar. This final update includes 3 new videos covering both the FASB Exposure Daft (LFV-817) and the PwC Practical Guide (LFV-132). These two study notes have so much in common, I decided to blend them in the video lessons. I also added an illustrative example to reinforce how the mechanics of the BBA margin would work under the FASB ED.

Note that this update resulted in a slight renumbering of the items in section E.1, so I updated the study schedule spreadsheet accordingly with details on how things changed.

Next in line for updating are the condensed outline and flash cards (in that order). My original ETA for those items was February 28, but they should be done well before that. I recommend using the condensed outline and flash cards after you’ve been through the entire syllabus at least once.