Earlier this month, a team of four accountancy students won second place at the annual KPMG/Seattle University Financial Accounting Case Competition. Ten universities competed in this year’s event, and the Boise State team edged out several large schools (including the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, and others) on its way to winning second place. Team members included Abbie Belthoff, Jakub Bollant, Vinny Gwinn, and Jessika Rouse.
This two-day event, which is in its eighth year and held on the Seattle University campus, brings four-person student teams together from universities all across the northwest region. The teams are given a financial accounting case and then, in three hours, must research the FASB Accounting Standards Codification and other sources, determine a solution, and develop a PowerPoint presentation. The topic of this year’s case involved issues related to lease accounting and the associated deferred tax consequences.
“Our students were amazing, and they did a wonderful job presenting their solution,” said faculty advisor Troy Hyatt. In fact, Troy says that after our team presented its solution to the panel of KPMG judges, he heard one of the judges comment to another judge, “They just knocked it out of the park!”
Abbie Belthoff, one of the team members, commented, “Having the opportunity to travel to Seattle and compete against some of the best business schools in the Northwest was a real honor for all of us. We enjoyed the unique opportunity of being able to apply concepts we’ve learned here at Boise State to a real-world situation. It was a fast-paced, high-pressure situation, but our team rose to the occasion and we are so proud of our second place finish.”