Through this course, you will start by addressing the two “big questions” of accounting: “What do I have?” and “How did I do over time?” You will see how the two key financial statements – the balance sheet and the income statement - are designed to answer these questions and then move on to consider how individual transactions aggregate to make up these financial statements. After developing a broad understanding of accounting and financial statements, you will begin to develop a more nuanced understanding of individual components of doing business, such as making a sale or building inventory. By considering many of the more common actions of a company, you will build your understanding of accounting, and explore these concepts by applying them across various types of transactions. Once you understand these individual concepts better, you will be ready to return to the overall financial statements and use them as informational tools, including building ratios. You can do this course standalone or to qualify for the residential component of the Finance for Strategic Decision-Making Executive Education program. For more information, see the FAQ below.
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Programme du cours : ce que vous apprendrez dans ce cours
Why Do We Have Accounting and How Can You Make it Work for You?
Every organized society needs information about its activities and accomplishments. Accounting was created to fulfill this need. In this module we will explore how accounting was designed to meet the needs of decision makers and what this means to you as a user of accounting information. We will discuss the concept behind accrual accounting including introducing the two primary accrual accounting financial statements - the balance sheet and income statement. This module will discuss the purpose and goal of those financial statements, but we will save your experience in creating those statements until module two. In lesson two of this module, we will explore some basic bookkeeping tools that will get you ready to create a set of financial statements. The material in this module is likely to take less than a week, but we will make up for it in module two.
The Accounting Cycle and Bookkeeping: Foundational Tools for a Deeper Understanding
In this module we will create a set of accrual accounting financial statements. We will use that experience to walk you through the accounting cycle - which is the process by which accounting captures and aggregates all of the transactions in the period into a set of financial statements. We will examine each step in the accounting cycle using a comprehensive example of a start up wholesale book retailer. You will learn how the steps combine to create the statements. In addition to the comprehensive example we will do together, there will be plenty of chances to practice each step yourself. This module ends with a chance for you to build your own set of financial statements for a start up company. Fair warning: in my opinion this is the least exciting material covered in any accounting class (including this one). It is the basic bookkeeping process, not the interesting part of building an understanding of the business. But just as you need to learn basic addition and subtraction before you can master the math to design a beautiful building, you also need to learn basic bookkeeping as a foundation for the more interesting accounting.
Revenue, Accounts Receivable, Inventory and Cost of Goods Sold
In the last module we took an overview perspective to get a sense of the structure of financial statements. For the next three modules we are going to delve into the details of specific items on the accrual financial statements. We will work through the most common items on the balance sheet and income statement to develop an understanding of those items. While we will consider specific items, we will also be building a thought process that we can apply to any future accounting items - even if they are topics that we do not cover in this course. That will allow you to confidently use accounting for years to come, regardless of changes in items or in the specific accounting rules. There are two lessons in this module. The first will cover revenue and the related balance sheet item of accounts receivable. The second lesson will cover costs of goods sold and inventory. We will cover the conceptual economics of each, discuss the current accounting rules and end with a video that applies our bookkeeping tools. The readings for each lesson provide more details.
Long-Lived Assets
As firms operate, they often use long-lived assets to execute their business models. Some of these assets are tangible, such as factories or computers. Others are intangible, such as trademarks and brands. In either case, managers face the issue of determining how much of these items were used in each period as well as the related question of how much remains. In this module, we will examine the economics of such transactions as well how accountants reflect them on financial statements. This module will also cover the most nebulous of intangible assets - goodwill.
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Principaux examens pour Accounting for Decision Making
With no prior knowledge of accounting it's surprising how easy it is to progress through the course. professor Miller has an amazing ability to explain new concepts in an easy to understand manner!
Awesome course, engaging, and very good professor (he should team up with engineers!)
Enseignant
Greg Miller
ProfessorÀ propos de Université du Michigan
Foire Aux Questions
Quand aurai-je accès aux vidéos de cours et aux devoirs ?
Une fois que vous êtes inscrit(e) pour un Certificat, vous pouvez accéder à toutes les vidéos de cours, et à tous les quiz et exercices de programmation (le cas échéant). Vous pouvez soumettre des devoirs à examiner par vos pairs et en examiner vous-même uniquement après le début de votre session. Si vous préférez explorer le cours sans l'acheter, vous ne serez peut-être pas en mesure d'accéder à certains devoirs.
À quoi ai-je droit si j'achète le Certificat ?
Lorsque vous achetez un Certificat, vous bénéficiez d'un accès à tout le contenu du cours, y compris les devoirs notés. Lorsque vous avez terminé et réussi le cours, votre Certificat électronique est ajouté à votre page Accomplissements. À partir de cette page, vous pouvez imprimer votre Certificat ou l'ajouter à votre profil LinkedIn. Si vous souhaitez seulement lire et visualiser le contenu du cours, vous pouvez accéder gratuitement au cours en tant qu'auditeur libre.
Quelle est la politique de remboursement ?
Une aide financière est-elle possible ?
What are the various ways in which I can take this course?
You can do this course standalone or to qualify for the residential component of the Finance for Strategic Decision-Making Executive Education program.
Q. What is the Finance for Strategic Decision-Making Executive Education program?
The Finance for Strategic Decision-Making Executive Education program is a hybrid learning opportunity consisting of two digital courses in Accounting and Finance and a companion in-person experience working hands-on with the faculty and your classmates with data and real world problems to identify solutions and opportunities. With this new blended learning program, Michigan Ross is the 1st to combine the ease of access via digital learning with a unique, in-person direct application experience, all with the rigor expected from a globally top ranked business school. You will have to earn a verified certificate in the course to be eligible for the face-to-face program at the Ross School of Business. To learn more, visit http://michiganross.umich.edu/financestrategy.
Why is the pricing of the verified certificates different from the Finance course?
The pricing of the verified certificate is different depending on whether the course is stand alone, as is the case with the Accounting course, or if the course is part of a Specialization, as is the Finance course. All specializations are offered on a monthly subscription model.
For the Finance for Strategic Decision-Making Executive Education program, do I need to to take the courses in any particular order?
While the online courses can be taken in any order, generally completion of the Accounting course is recommended before the Finance portion as the application of concepts of Accounting are helpful to completing the Finance course.
What would I gain from taking the Strategic Decision-Making Executive Education program?
You will gain:
-An understanding of the structure of accounting information that is used to make decisions
-Comfort in using financial statement information to analyze a situation.
-The ability to synthesize information from various sources to develop a deeper understanding of a situation
-The skills to analyze financial ratios as well as creating ratios and metric that are custom to the issue you are studying
-A deep understanding of analytical and financial frameworks to make value-enhancing decisions
-The ability to conduct detailed and rigorous valuation analyses of both projects and companies
-Comfort in understanding the financial analyses conducted by colleagues in your organization in proposals and critiques
D'autres questions ? Visitez le Centre d'Aide pour les Etudiants.
