Class, comparing the Nike revenue changes the interest of fans (including me) of Nike. I just went to the Nike.com website to the Contact area and called. I was on hold for less than a minute waiting for an agent with whom to speak. I asked if the gift cards had an expiration date. The gift cards do not have an expiration date. Last session, I taught the ACG6816 research course. One student did her research on revenue recognition with gift cards as her example. Part of her research was to do survey using the free version ofSurveyMonkey.com. One of her multiple-choice questions addressed if the respondents' gift cards had expiration dates. Some did have an expiration date and some did not.

I remember when most gift cards had expiration date. Well .... a number of States enacted laws saying that expired gift cards represented unclaimed assets that have to be passed on to the State. So the company had to send the cash to the State. The company would debit Gift Card Payable and credit Cash to record a decrease in each of these accounts for their financial records.

The State laws motivated many organizations to make gift cards with no expiration date. What do you think of this?