Introduction to Financial Accounting

University of Pennsylvania and Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania via Coursera

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Overview

Class Central Tips

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

Charts

#3 in Subjects / Business / Accounting

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Reviews

4.5 rating, based on 65 reviews

Start your review of Introduction to Financial Accounting

Anonymous

Anonymous is taking this course right now.

I found it a little misleading saying that I could "Audit" the course for free. I enrolled and when I got to the end of the 1st section and took the test before moving on, I was informed that I would need to pay for the course in order to have my test...

I found it a little misleading saying that I could "Audit" the course for free. I enrolled and when I got to the end of the 1st section and took the test before moving on, I was informed that I would need to pay for the course in order to have my test graded or even to find out if I was correct or not. Wow! Talk about bait and switch! Sadly, I will not move any further in the course as it is impossible without knowing what concepts I remembered correctly or not. I guess it is free after all but still, say it at the beginning or give us an option to check our answers.
But the course is done well by the Professor and he does change it up a bit to keep you engaged. Well done Professor Bushee! I would have given you 5 *'s for the course itself.
Skill A Day
1040

Skill A Day 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...

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 and bad jokes. Their interjections helped break up the number crunching and tie concepts back to past ones. Even though their tone was a little silly, it was appropriately so. Clearly Professor Bushee had spent quite a bit of time developing each video, and it really worked.

By following a real example throughout the course, I was able to get a better connection between abstract concepts we learned and the places they appear in the real world. So useful. The last lecture of each week took a look at 3M (you know, Scotch Tape and Post-Its?) and its publicly available financial statements
Anonymous

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...

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.
Cratecruncher
21

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,...

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.
Jayanta Das
22

Jayanta Das 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.
Vijayakumar Menon N
201

Vijayakumar Menon N 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.
Kyomugisha Leticia
1

Kyomugisha Leticia is taking this course right now.

This is a very wonderful course that i have been able to understand the hard concepts that I never thought I would understand, if actually found it fun and very interesting and in all honesty,I am so moved by the essence at which this amazing course is to the business world for it indeed is the language of the business and also the rate at which it will enable me to accomplish my dreams as youth and also the positive big change it will bring about in these fast growing and developing world economies and the whole world as well.It has surely been a heartfelt experience and will be forever a remembrance.
Ana
13

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.
Anonymous

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.
Anonymous

Ainda não comecei a fazer o curso, porém tenho muito interesse em aprender sobre o assunto. Tenho uma base de conhecimento sobre, mas me aprofundar é necessário no momento, agregará muito conhecimento para eu utilizar em minha área profissional e pessoal.
Anonymous

Anonymous completed this course.

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.
Samuel Girmay
4

i have a problem , i am unemployed man . so i have no maney .so plise help me.and i in refugie in ethiopea. so help me.
Swap
12

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
Josephy Chilombo
1

Josephy Chilombo completed this course, spending 4 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be hard.

My name is Josephy chilombo I need much time to work on my career so that I will be able to maintain my position. I will be glad to complete my qualification.
Anonymous

Anonymous completed this course.

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.
Anonymous

I specialized in Law during my Bachelor and continued on to a Masters degree in Tax Law. During my years studying Law at University (Netherlands) I never revisited Maths. For some reason I decided to take on a job as a Finance Controller and decided I...

I specialized in Law during my Bachelor and continued on to a Masters degree in Tax Law. During my years studying Law at University (Netherlands) I never revisited Maths. For some reason I decided to take on a job as a Finance Controller and decided I needed to learn some basic accounting, and this course definitely helped!

First of all, due to my background in Taxes I was somewhat familiar with the basics of Business Finance, so that was an advantage when starting this course. I do have to say you HAVE to enjoy doing Maths to certain extent - the bad reviews from people who expected to pass this course without having any knowledge in Maths are unfounded. Why would you take a course in Financial Accounting if you dislike Maths?

Moreover, Prof. Bushee is just a dream, I wish I had Professors like him back at University! I love the fact that he uses artificial Students to make the videos more interactive, and I adore his dorky sense of humor. I would have gladly payed 1,200EUROS for this course. Outstanding!
Bhuvan N
24

Bhuvan N completed this course, spending 2 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be easy.

Professor Brian J. Bushee's teaching is great. I liked the use of virtual students. The par value guy was funny.
Anonymous

Estou a procura de conhecimentos na área contábil pelo motivo que na faculdade não termos uma noção exata do que realmente vamos encontrar fora na prática
Syed Haider Ali Shah

Syed Haider Ali Shah completed this course, spending 21 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be medium.

Respected Sir/Madam
I have done my M.com form University of Malakand Pakistan, it is not a standard university in the world. If i will done the sated course, it will be very useful me for my professional growth and i will try my level best to full fill this course.
Chinthaka Nirmal Priyankara

Chinthaka Nirmal Priyankara is taking this course right now.

I would like to complete the said course with in very short time to enhance the knowledge. Hence, it is believe that all over the word is in difficult situation. Hence, we have to work with our limitations and move with the rest of world is limited.

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Introduction to Financial Accounting