Financial Accounting Principles

Be it a Fortune 500 company, a startup, or a nonprofit, having a solid understanding of financial accounting principles is essential for making critical business decisions. Offered in collaboration with HBX, a digital learning initiative from the faculty at Harvard Business School, this course covers concepts such as profit and revenue, assets and liabilities, and students learn how to prepare and analyze financial statements. The course covers important accounting principles, such as how to record transactions using journal entries; how to post transactions to accounts; and how to prepare a trial balance, balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement. Other topics covered include analyzing financial statements, and forecasting and valuation. Students emerge with a deeper understanding of the financial accounting methodology and its application in a number of business scenarios. Learning materials and interaction take place primarily within the online HBX learning environment. Although the professor does not have direct real-time interaction with students, he has developed short video lectures, cases, exercises, and other interactive learning elements to create a highly engaging educational experience. Participants typically learn as much (if not more) from thoughtful participation and from peers in this active learning ecosystem as they do from faculty content. Students who have previously enrolled in MGMT S-10 or HBX CORe, and either passed or failed, are not eligible to enroll in this course. They will be dropped from the course. Students cannot count this course toward the HBX noncredit CORe or the HBX Financial Accounting Certificate. Students can count ECON S-1900 or MGMT S-1000, but not both, toward an Extension School degree.