Financial Accounting

Catalog description

The goal of this course is to introduce you to the fundamental concepts of financial accounting. Financial accounting information is commonly used by investors, regulators, customers, suppliers, managers, and other interested parties. 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 developing your skills and abilities to be a knowledgeable consumer of accounting information rather than a producer of such information. However, a firm grasp of the fundamental mechanics of financial accounting is necessary to become an effective consumer of this information. Along the way, I will emphasize the uses, limitations, and implications of financial accounting information. Accounting is often described as the language of business. I agree with that observation but, whenever I hear it, I am reminded of a quote by Kingman Brewster, a former president of Yale University, who said, Impenetrable jargon is the hallmark of a profession. Accounting does indeed use specialized language with many technical terms. As working managers and professionals, participants in this program have undoubtedly heard some portion of this language spoken in their organizations on a regular basis yet most participants in this program have never previously studied accounting. Accordingly, another goal of this course is to provide you a robust accounting lexicon that will be the foundation of great confidence in asking probing and insightful questions of the financial experts in your organization.