Course Description
Concepts of accounting, the basic structure of financial statements, the interpretation of corporate annual reports and limitations of such reports.
Athena Title
Financial Accounting
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This class is designed for the first year MBA student who has little or no prior experience with accounting course work and it is intended to provide a general understanding of the basic accounting information needed to make economic decisions about businesses. We will cover the fundamental procedures used to record, analyze, summarize, and report accounting information. Concepts of accounting, the format and content of financial statements, and interpretation of corporate annual reports will be covered. In addition to the general conventions that underlie all accounting information, we will delve more deeply into many of the more important specific accounting areas, such as accounts receivable and payable, inventories, property and equipment, and revenues and expenses. The course emphasizes financial accounting. Management accounting is covered in a subsequent class. The class is not designed to make you an expert accountant. But it should enable you to make intelligent use of accounting information and to be able to raise appropriate questions about the information developed by the accounting experts in your company.
Topical Outline
1. Accounting: The Language of Business 2. Measuring Income to Assess Performance 3. Recording Transactions 4. Accrual Accounting and Financial Statements 5. Statement of Cash Flows 6. Accounting for Sales 7. Inventories and Cost of Goods Sold 8. Long-Lived Assets 9. Liabilities and Interest 10. Stockholders' Equity 11. Intercorporate Investments and Consolidations 12. Financial Statement Analysis
Syllabus