Introduction to Financial Accounting
Beginner 14 hours English Verified CertificateFREE
What you'll learn
Read and analyse financial statements (income, balance sheet, cash flow)
Apply double-entry bookkeeping and journal entries
Use accruals to match revenue and expenses
Analyse working capital, fixed assets and debt
Compute key ratios: ROA, ROE, current, debt-to-equity
Understand quality of earnings and red flags
Read a real 10-K filing with confidence
This course includes
14h
On-demand video
30+
Readings & practice
8
Graded assessments
Optional
Verified certificate
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Syllabus· 5 courses · 16+ lessons
- Why accounting matters
- Assets = Liabilities + Equity
- Balance sheet basics
- Double-entry bookkeeping
- Journal, ledger and trial balance
- Walkthrough: building a balance sheet
- Revenue recognition
- Expense matching
- Adjusting entries
- Operating, investing, financing activities
- Direct vs indirect method
- Linking the three statements
- Profitability ratios
- Liquidity and solvency ratios
- Earnings manipulation red flags
- Reading a real 10-K
Instructor
BB
Brian J. Bushee
The Geoffrey T. Boisi Professor of Accounting, The Wharton School
700K learners4 courses 4.8 instructor rating
Brian Bushee is the Geoffrey T. Boisi Professor of Accounting at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is one of the most-watched accounting instructors online — his Coursera/edX accounting courses have run since 2013 and his Wharton MOOC was the original "Introduction to Financial Accounting" from Penn.
Requirements
- High school maths
- Curiosity about how companies report performance
- No prior business or finance background
- About 3–4 hours per week for 4–5 weeks
Who this course is for
- MBA applicants and business school prospects
- Engineers and PMs wanting to read financial statements
- Investors and analysts new to public-company filings
- Founders building startups
About this provider
eX
edX
University-backed online learning platform · 142M learners · 7,000+ courses
4.6 trust score·Refund within 14 days
Frequently asked questions
Brian Bushee's Wharton course is widely considered the best free accounting MOOC online — rigorous, practical and updated. Yale's Financial Markets (Shiller) is a complement, not a substitute.
For MBA prep or career switchers — yes, Wharton is a strong brand. For personal learning audit it for free; you get all videos and readings.
Yes — the final module specifically walks through a real 10-K (Apple in recent versions). You will not be a CPA but you will understand what every line means.
This is undergrad-level financial accounting. CPA prep (Becker, Roger) is graduate-level and exam-focused. Take this first to know if accounting is for you.
Audit this same course — it is free for content. Or try MIT OpenCourseWare's Financial Accounting (Sloan), also free, more rigorous, less polished.