Does financial information confuse you? Do financial statements and accountants send chills up your spine? Do you feel overwhelmed by accountancy? Do you find yourself clueless when presented with a set of financial statements? Do you feel frustrated about not being able to follow a finance related issue during a team meeting at work? Do you ever feel in the dark whenever a finance related topic is discussed with family or friends?
Imagine yourself being able to connect all the dots of financial accountancy and understand the accounting aspect in setting up a business. Visualize yourself speaking the language of finance and finally being taken seriously by others in the business field. Picture a world where your financial vision has been so vastly improved that you can actually read and analyze financial statements and effectively contribute, during work meetings, by asking challenging questions surprising your colleagues!
This course embraces the idea that accounting is the language of business, so unless you hone your financial literacy skills you will not be able to spot current and future opportunities.
This course is for you if:
- you are an entrepreneur, a small business owner or perhaps considering starting your own business
- you occupy a middle management post and need to understand what the organization you work with is trying to achieve
- you are a prospective MBA student who needs to be introduced to accounting before taking on deeper accounting courses
- you want to get your feet wet in accounting and the business world
This course progresses in an entertaining, engaging, and relatable manner. You will not be exposed to complex language or accounting jargon unless really necessary and most of the time metaphors and stories that stir your imagination are used to facilitate understanding and learning. Whilst numbers do have an important role, it is a supporting rather than a leading one. So, through pictures and drawings, I will try to visually stimulate you to understand me better, learn and retain more.
A particular study on learning retention concluded that we retain 11% of what we hear; 30% of what we see, 50% of what we see and hear and 70% of what we do. So, I have included at the end of each section/module a Quiz Challenge that I urge you to take as it will further consolidate your understanding. Please, treat the Quiz Challenge as an integral part of the course.
The learning experience this course offers is scaffolded so that you can build on concepts one at a time and lessons build up on the preceding ones.
At the end of this course, you will amongst other things:
- be in a position to read, understand and analyze financial statements
- be able to tell the difference between profit and cash
- understand why a balance sheet actually balances.
It is not my scope to teach you about trial balance, ledgers or debits and credits. I leave that to the accounting profession. My aim is to help you develop into a more financially intelligent person who is no longer scared of numbers. If you hate mathematics, please be aware that accounting only uses, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and percentage and no complex arithmetic is involved.
We will start off by defining accounting and looking at who the users are. We will proceed to define the accounting equation, which is the foundation stone of accounting. Then, we will be looking at the different forms of business that an individual can set up, at some of the most important accounting rules and at depreciation respectively. In latter sections, we will be looking at the financial statements before proceeding with the analysis of financial statements through accounting ratios in the last section.
In conclusion, even though this course is mainly aimed at improving your financial intelligence in business thus contributing towards enhancing your career, I strongly suggest that you apply what you learn in your personal life too!
Accounting Fundamentals: Read, Understand And Analyze Financial Statements will cover the following topics:
Section 1 - Introduction
Section 2 - Definition Of Accounting
- Definition, Users And Uses Of Accounting
- Financial Vs Management Accounting And A Quiz Challenge
Section 3 - The Accounting Equation
- The Accounting Equation Explained
- Accounting Equation Quiz Challenge
Section 4 - Different Entities
- Different Legal Entities
- Public And Private Companies And A Quiz Challenge
Section 5 - Accounting Concepts
- Accounting Concepts
- Common Concepts Part 1
- Common Concepts Part 2
- Quiz Challenge
Section 6 - Depreciation
- Definition Of Depreciation
- Amortization And Depletion
- Quiz Challenge
Section 7 - The Income Statement
- The Income Statement
- Revenue, Cost Of Revenue, And Gross Profit
- Operating Expenses, Operating Profit, And EBITDA
- Smoothing Earnings
- Quiz Challenge
Section 8 - Statement Of Financial Position
- Statement Of Financial Position
- Components Of A Statement Of Financial Position
- Building The Statement Of Financial Position For Food Wagon Ltd
- Does The Income Statement Affect The Balance Sheet?
- Quiz Challenge
Section 9 - The Cash Flow Statement
- What Is Cash Flow?
- What Are The Typical Cash Inflows And Outflows?
- Categories Of A Cash Flow Statement
- What To Look For When Analyzing A Cash Flow Statement
- Quiz Challenge
Section 10 - Basic Accounting Ratios
- Introduction To Accounting Ratios
- Liquidity Ratios
- Profitability Ratios
- Capital Structure Ratios And Efficiency Ratios
- Basic Stock Market Ratios
- Benchmarking
- Quiz Challenge
