Introduction to Accounting Analytics

Catalog description

This course introduces you to the fundamental concepts of financial accounting and shows how they provide inputs to and use cases for business analytics. Financial accounting information is commonly used by investors, regulators, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. Investors include individual shareholders and bondholders, institutional investors (e.g., mutual funds, hedge funds, private equity firms), lenders (e.g., banks), and potential corporate acquirers. Financial accounting information also plays a significant role in managerial performance evaluations and day-to-day business decisions. The focus of this course will be on training you to be a knowledgeable consumer and user of accounting information as a source of both data and questions for business analytics. A firm grasp of the fundamental accounting mechanics and associated data analytics is necessary to become an effective consumer of financial accounting information. Accounting is often described as the “language of business.” Anyone who expects to belong to an organization in which financial information is used to make decisions will benefit from this course. This includes students who plan to start their own companies, or to work in industry, non-profits, governments, and anyone who plans to invest or take an active role in their personal finance and retirement planning.