General accounting course

Learn accounting easily. Master debits and credits without mystery and the simple steps leading to the income statement and the balance sheet: journal, posting, accounts, balances, trial balance, adjustments, revenue accounts, capital accounts, etc.

The course also exists in French. Le cours existe aussi en français.

I Introduction

1.	What is a firm?
2.	History of firms
3.	History of accounting

II Example of a small firm

4.	A workshop making toys (1)
5.	A workshop making toys (2)
6.	Production of large quantities of information
7.	First principles taught by the example
8.	Most of the main concepts of accounting are in the toy example

III From single-entry to double-entry accounting

9.	Why single-entry accounting, like in the booklet of our checkbook, is insufficient
10.	A page to record debtors, a page to record creditors: the emergence of double-entry accounting
11.	The basic concept of transaction: the "atom" of activity of a firm
12.	Posting transactions into accounts (1): general principles, the apparent paradox of "value coming in is a debit"
13.	Posting transactions into accounts (2): posting simple transactions, traditional vs real time inventory control

Exercise post yourself the following transaction:

account to debit:				amount :

account to credit:				amount:

(enter numbers without monetary units in the amount boxes)

IV A complete accounting cycle up to the Trial balance

14.	The yearly accounting cycle: journal → accounts → Trial Balance → adjustments → Income Statement & Balance Sheet
15.	Posting a complete cycle of journal entries (1)
16.	Posting a complete cycle of journal entries (2)
17.	Balance of each account and Trial Balance (TB)
18.	Revenue accounts and Capital accounts in the TB

V Adjustments to the Trial balance

19.	Why the TB needs to be adjusted to compute the Income Statement (IS)
20.	Adjustment for inventory
21.	Adjustment for amortization
22.	Provisions for bad or doubtful clients
23.	Prepayments and accruals

VI The Income Statement and the Balance Sheet

24.	From adjusted Trial balance to Income Statement (IS)
25.	From adjusted Trial balance to Balance Sheet (BS)
26.	IS and BS: a higher view

VII General principles of accounting and miscellaneous topics

27.	General rules and guidelines of double-entry accounting
28.	Stock valuation: FIFO, LIFO and other methods
29.	Impact of a series of transactions on the IS and BS: complete exercise
30.	Alternative way to compute the COGS

VIII Money

31.	Money (1): what is money?
32.	Money (2): how to get rich?

IX Accounting over several years

33.	Difference between the first accounting year and the following years
34.	From one BS to the next, and the IS in between
35.	Income tax and dividends
36.	Accounting documents over several years

X A deeper look at the Balance Sheet

37.	Big measures in a balance sheet: equity, debt, capital employed, fixed assets, current assets, working capital
38.	The notion of liquidity
39.	The list of assets is fundamentally heterogeneous

XI Cash flow statement

40.	Cash flow statement (1): what is cash?
41.	Cash flow statement (2): reconciling cash evolution with the main accounting measures

XII Ratios

42.	Return on Capital Employed (ROCE)
43.	Other ratios
44.	Stock management

General accounting course

Table of contents