Introduction to Finance & Accounting

This specialization provides an introduction to corporate finance and accounting, emphasizing their application to a wide variety of real-world situations spanning personal finance, corporate decision-making, financial intermediation, and how accounting standards and managerial incentives affect the financial reporting process.

It begins with concepts and applications like time value of money, risk-return tradeoff, retirement savings, mortgage financing, auto leasing, asset valuation, and many others. The specialization uses Excel to make the experience more hands-on and help learners understand the concepts more directly. From valuing claims and making financing decisions, to elements of a basic financial model, the coursework provides a solid foundation to corporate finance.

The specialization then moves to financial accounting, enabling learners to read financial statements and to understand the language and grammar of accounting. The coursework introduces bookkeeping fundamentals, accrual accounting, cash flow analysis, among much else! Finally, using the foundational knowledge of accounting, the specialization teaches learners how to understand and analyze key information that companies provide in their statements, including types of assets and liabilities and longer-term investments and debts, and finally the difference between tax reporting and financial reporting.

This specialization uses a series of homework, quizzes and an optional Excel spreadsheet to help learners gain a more comprehensive understanding of essential concepts of corporate finance and accounting. The coursework introduces bookkeeping fundamentals, accrual accounting, cash flow analysis, and more! From valuing claims and making financing decisions, to elements of a basic financial model, the coursework provides a solid foundation to corporate finance.