Financial Accounting: Advanced Topics (Coursera)

Financial Accounting: Advanced Topics (Coursera)

In this course, you will explore advanced topics in financial accounting. You will start your journey with accounting for assets with more than one-year life. You will learn in detail how firms account for fixed assets. You will then move to financing of assets and discuss accounting for liabilities. The course will continue with an in-depth exploration of shareholders’ equity. Finally, you will critically evaluate preparation, components, and analysis of cash flows statement.

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Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:
• Account for fixed assets
• Understand accounting for liabilities
• Evaluate shareholders’ equity section of a balance sheet
• Understand preparation and information provided by cash flows statement
This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price.
Course 2 of 7 in the Financial Management Specialization

Syllabus

WEEK 1
Course Orientation
You will become familiar with the course, your classmates, and our learning environment. The orientation will also help you obtain the technical skills required for the course.
Module 1: Long-Term Assets
Long-term assets, assets that can be converted into cash in a time period of more than one year, constitute a large portion of a balance sheet for a lot of public companies. Understanding accounting for long-term assets will help you uncover how these accounts change over time, their valuation, and their usefulness in managerial decision making.

WEEK 2
Liabilities
One of the major sources of financing for many firms is liabilities. Firms routinely finance their operations through various liabilities including accounts payables, bank loans, and bonds. Accounting for liabilities will help you understand how liabilities are created, how they are valued, how they inform about a firm’s liquidity position.

WEEK 3
Shareholders’ Equity
One of the major sources of financing for many firms is contributions from shareholders. The shareholders’ equity section of a balance sheet shows details of investments of shareholders. Accounting for shareholders’ equity will help you understand the amount of shareholder investment, the number of shares issued in return by the firm for shareholders, the amount of earnings earned by the firm but not distributed to shareholders, and information about the amount of shares repurchased by the firm from the stock market.

WEEK 4
Cash Flows Statement
One of the major financial statements is cash flows statement. This statement describes in detail how cash changes for a firm over a certain period. Cash flows statement provides valuable information about liquidity position of a firm, cash consequences of managerial operating and investing decisions, as well as earnings quality of a firm.

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