Introduction to Financial Accounting

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Overview

Master the technical skills needed to analyze financial statements and disclosures for use in financial analysis, and learn how accounting standards and managerial incentives affect the financial reporting process. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to read the three most common financial statements: the income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows. Then you can apply these skills to a real-world business challenge as part of the Wharton Business Foundations Specialization.

Syllabus

Week 1: Introduction and Balance Sheet
-To learn a foreign language like Accounting, you need quite a bit of practice in the basic foundations (grammar, syntax, idioms, etc.). This material is absolutely essential for being able to read and to understand books written in the language (in our case, financial statements.). This week, we will start building these foundations. We will start with an overview of financial reporting. What types of reports are required? Who makes the rules? Who enforces the rules? Then, we will cover the balance sheet equation and define/discuss Assets, Liabilities, and Stockholders' Equity. We will introduce debit-credit bookkeeping and do lots of practice in translating transactions into debits and credits. Finally, we will introduce a case of a start-up company to provide you insights into all of the steps necessary to go from recording the first transactions of a new business all the way through its first set of financial statements.

Week 2: Accrual Accounting and the Income Statement
-We will start with a discussion of Accrual Accounting and how it affects the recognition of the Income Statement accounts: Revenues and Expenses. Then, we will cover adjusting entries, which are needed to prepare our internal books for the upcoming financial statements. Finally, we will discuss closing entries and the preparation of the Balance Sheet and Income Statement. At each stage, we will continue to work on the case of our start-up company. If you are not sick and tired of journal entries by the end of this week, then I have not done my job!

Week 3: Cash Flows
-Cash is King! We will start with the classification of cash flows into operating, investing, and financing activities. Then, we will work on preparing and analyzing the Statement of Cash Flows. We will wrap up the case on the start-up company by preparing and analyzing its Statement of Cash Flows. Finally, we will discuss the differences between Earnings, Cash from Operations, EBITDA, and Free Cash Flow.

Week 4: Ratio Analysis and Final Exam
-We will have our final exam this week. Because of the exam, I will cover Ratio Analysis, which will not involve any "new" material. While we will define and discuss a number of ratios, they will all basically involve dividing one accounting number by another. But, the analysis of what those ratios mean will involve a deep understanding of Balance Sheet and Income Statement accounts. Thus, the Ratio Analysis videos will help provide a nice review of the material, which will help you prepare for the exam. However, there will be no questions about ratio analysis on the exam. The only thing left to do after this exam is to impress your family, friends, and co-workers with your vast knowledge of Financial Accounting!

Taught by

Brian J Bushee

Reviews for Coursera's Introduction to Financial Accounting

4.5 Based on 48 reviews

5 stars 75%
4 stars 17%
3 star 0%
2 star 2%
1 stars 6%

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Reviews for Coursera's Introduction to Financial Accounting
4.5 Based on 48 reviews

Skill D

5.0 5 years ago

Skill completed this course and found the course difficulty to be hard.

It turned out to be one of the best courses I’ve taken so far on any platform, for several reasons. First, the weekly videos were just hokey enough to be entertaining in a way that sort of hid all the math we were doing. Math is not so complicated, but I never enjoyed it for sport. A memory still lingers of dropping out of my first college math course because the inaugural week had me napping by each class’ end. The idea of staring at numbers on financial sheets was NOT immediately appealing. However, the videos were filmed with a cast of virtual students, each with their own personalities an…

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Anonymous

5.0 4 years ago

Anonymous completed this course.

A wonderful course, excellently delivered. Professor Bushee has clearly invested a significant amount of time developing the course, and it shows from the first video to the last. As a novice to financial accounting, I was impressed with the way the Professor acknowledged difficult concepts and questions, in a way that had clearly been developed from teaching the course to classes over many years. Indeed, throughout the four weeks, the lessons provided an impressive illusion of interactivity, with lots of checkpoints and plenaries to test understanding. The course was also pitched effectively as it felt challenging throughout, yet effort to understand the material paid off. I would recommend this course to anyone looking to gain an introduction or refresher into the world of accounting.

10 people found
this review helpful

Cratecruncher C

by Cratecruncher completed this course, spending 5 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be medium.

I signed up for this thinking I'd get a refresher but soon realized the instructor, Brian Bushee, is a gifted teacher. He has a way of explaining things that drill right to heart of confusion for students and makes things perfectly clear using examples, problems, and snarky cartoon students that ask just the right question. He also knows how to have fun and can even sing (but not very well). I found myself looking forward to learning the next part of each video. He's really THAT GOOD!

I took a financial accounting class 20 years ago when I was working on my MBA and never really understood the Cash Flow Statement. After this class I not only know what it is, I now realize it's the most important for discovering how a business is functioning. I plan to take the second half of the course next.

9 people found
this review helpful

Jayanta D

by Jayanta is taking this course right now.

I am doing an MBA right now and taking this course to help me. This is an exceptional course and I am in the 7th week now. Professor Bushee is very thorough and great at explaining things. I am on the signature track. I will pay a $1000 for this course if I could get university credits on this one.

Ana A

Ana completed this course.

The class is great for sure, yet quite challenging because there is a lot of material covered in a short amount of time. However, you get to learn a lot about accounting. The professor is bit dorky in a funny and entertaining way. It is one of the best classes I have ever taken from Coursera.

6 people found
this review helpful

1.0 3 years ago

Anonymous is taking this course right now.

This class specifies no prior knowledge required. This is clearly not the case. Taking with zero background knowledge of the finance world and have never felt this overwhelmed by a course that is supposed to be logical and isn't.

5.0 2 years ago

This is a great course. I have no background in accouting and start to sweat at the thought of doing math, but this course kept me interested and motivated. Prof Bushee has a gift for making things interesting and explaning things plainly. I enjoyed the "hokey" bits of the class. Definitely worth the $80.

Swap S

4.0 5 years ago

Swap completed this course, spending 5 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be hard.

Best course from Wharton MBA Foundation series. I agree that the course based on American accounting system, hence not useful for the other country learners. But the introduction of Financial basics in the MOOC is simplified and useful to capture. Thanks

2 people found
this review helpful

I concurr with almost everything is said before. This course is extremely useful. I found it specially interesting for non-US people who work at a multinational companies because Brian Bushee presents a great overview of the accounting practices in the United States.

1 person found
this review helpful

5.0 6 years ago

An excelent class. I'm a graduate student also bearing a Master of Finance in my country, but neither in my carrer in Accounting nor in my master degree I received some of the thems covered in Professor Brian Bushee class.

Anonymous C

by Anonymous completed this course, spending 6 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be hard.

Definitely a useful course to help wrap your brain around the tough subject of financial accounting. The professor uses virtual students who ask questions to keep the class going. I wish he would do other subjects.

I am only at 3rd week of course but I already know that this is great course!!! :)

Course is systematic and professor explain things perfectly.

5.0 3 years ago

Excellent class, just the right mix of theory and practice, with good dose of humor thrown in. Gives good foundation start. Very glad I took it. Thanks prof Bushee

Vijayakumar N

by Vijayakumar completed this course, spending 5 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be hard.

Introduction to Financial Accounting is an excellent course that teaches accounting to any one who is totally new to the subject. Prof Brian Bushee has no doubt taken a lot of pains in preparing the high quality study materials. His teaching style is excellent and one needs to do this course to learn how good an online course can be. The course has a lot of peculiarities as compared to most other MOOCs. Tests and home works are of a very high standard that checks your conceptual knowledge. There is activeparticipation in the forums and Prof Bushee interacts a lot with the students in the forums. I would recommend this course to anyone who wants to learn financial accounting, even if he knows nothing about the subject.

Michael W

by Michael completed this course, spending 3 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be medium.

The course material was well prepared. The use of the animated virtual students was entertaining and helpful. The use of 3M as a real company example was also very instructive for participants. Instructor has a great presentation style and good sense of humor - great representative for the accounting profession. The concepts are well explained. I enjoyed the refresher course. I would highly recommend the course.

Collins U

5.0 a month ago

Collins is taking this course right now, spending 1 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be medium.

I'm from Nigeria and I wanted to learn more about accounting and it's concepts this online class gave me the opportunity to explore my accounting skills and also enlighten me on more concepts. Thank you class central

Mohamud A

by Mohamud completed this course, spending 6 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be medium.

It's good! I interested because every person likes to study and reach his/her achievement.

some of my friends advised me to study in order to get suitable work for earning to my life.

Kellyyanem K

5.0 3 weeks ago

Kellyyanem is taking this course right now, spending 2 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be very easy.

My review is that I want to learn that course accounting because I love that course even though I did not attended any any university yet but I want to learn.

Udbhav J

by Udbhav completed this course, spending 6 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be medium.

Excellent course especially for complete beginners who have no knowledge of the subject. Professor Brian was very humourous and lucid in all his explanations.

Yassarielys Y

5.0 9 months ago

Yassarielys completed this course.

No tengo empleo quiera poder tener la oportunidad para poder mejorar mi currículum y así poder tener un empleo y salir adelante y seguir estudiando

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Introduction to Financial Accounting

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Reviews for Coursera's Introduction to Financial Accounting
4.5 Based on 48 reviews

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