Chevron Left
Back to Accounting: Principles of Financial Accounting

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Accounting: Principles of Financial Accounting by IESE Business School

4.8
stars
3,096 ratings

About the Course

Financial Accounting is often called the language of business; it is the language that managers use to communicate the firm's financial and economic information to external parties such as shareholders and creditors. Nobody working in business can afford financial illiteracy. Whether you run your own business, work as a manager or are just starting your career, you want to understand financial information and be able to interact with accountants, controllers, and financial managers. You want to talk business! This course will provide you with the accounting language's essentials. Upon completion, you should be able to read and interpret financial statements for business diagnosis and decision-making. More importantly, you will possess the conceptual base to keep learning more sophisticated accounting and finance on your own. Do not forget that, as with any other language, becoming proficient with accounting requires constant practice....

Top reviews

DN

Aug 17, 2020

All topics covered in this course were explained well and shown how to implement, highly recommended for beginners and individuals who would like to brush up on their accounting knowledge foundations.

JS

Nov 17, 2020

It's so amazing learning on this course, the discussions and activities are the best. The method of delivering the lesson using practical example helped me learn it more and effectively. Thank you!

Filter by:

26 - 50 of 885 Reviews for Accounting: Principles of Financial Accounting

By Daniel S R

May 29, 2019

Short and straight to the point. I learned the foundations of accounting in an easy way.

By Ravi M

Oct 3, 2016

I thoroughly enjoyed the course and greatly benefitted from its content. As a fresh MBA admit coming from scientific background, I was looking for a course that would cover the basics of Financial accounting, the so-called language of business. Marc Badia's Principles of Financial Accounting was the answer to it. After having had following the course, and of course passing it, I have gained a thorough understanding of the basic concepts of Accounting that I am now using in the Accounting class of IESE Business School.

By Clarence A

Nov 8, 2020

I failed my accounting class in college. Two of them. Mostly because both professors really didn't know how to illustrate concepts in bite-sized pieces that demonstrate why and where money moves in a company. However, Professor Badia did it so well that I was wondering while taking the course why I failed accounting if it could be explained in such an easy way that almost everyone could understand. I really enjoyed taking this course and it made me feel like not all is lost even if I had a hard time in accounting previously. It's all about DOUBLE-ENTRY ACCOUNTS!!! Also as a point of improvement, maybe we can add more practice problems to help refine the concepts that were taught. They don't have to be complex, just enough to prepare user to understand the concepts prior to the quizzes and get them in a more accounting-centered mindset.

By Rosita D

Jun 26, 2020

I wish I paid attention to the reviews- he is very hard for me to understand, so I will be ver confused on the ending of this course- I will be taking other courses from American universities.

By Orrin T

Sep 5, 2020

Very difficult to understand the teacher and often the tests use different terminology from those in used in the course.

By Roger A V

Oct 2, 2016

Amazing course for those with no background in accounting. Being very dynamic, with a good pace and easy to follow, you will realize in a few weeks that your learning curve has an exponential growth. With this course you will be able to understand and make decisions of real companies from real financial statements. It is absolutely recommendable for those, like me, who have just started an MBA, or for those who are interested in learning the basics of accounting, getting ready to cover more advanced topics.

By Mario J R M

Apr 3, 2018

Thank God, I knew my profession in coursera, "Project Management", I am studying to professionalize and manage to structure my professional career.

for me it is very important Operational Finance and transcendental Accounting, I would like to achieve specialization and if possible a master's degree.

of the Operational Finance course, I liked the accounting structures, accounting sheets.

By Alexis M

Jun 3, 2018

I audited this class to see how I would respond to this style of learning. I was very impressed with the content and explanation on the topic via the online video lessons. The little quizzes that popped up every so often after learning about the content were easy to understand and reinforced the lesson well. I liked the use of the stories to represent and explain the lesson as well. The only part I found a little dense was the reading assignment and examples of balance sheets. The verbiage was still pretty technical for a beginner in accounting, and the balance sheets were extensive to decipher and navigate as a beginner. I think it would have helped to have links in the balance sheet to click on so you could see an explanation as it related to the lesson for the user. Overall though, the content and format is excellent and I will be signing up for Coursera.

By Dingfei Z

Aug 18, 2017

All is great except the last part. You didn't really teach in detail for how to interpret a company's financial statements. I had to watch the last 4 or 5 videos over and over again and do some research on my own. For example, you can calculate the ROS or ROE; but what should that be to be considered "VERY profitable"? You can calculate the days of sales in inventory, but how long should that be to be considered as "good"? How much cash do you need to be considered as having a "good" liquidity? These terms are very vague. I understand that you have no problem making such judgements, since you are experienced. But I'm not. So I just can't tell these things without having a precise criteria. And many other things were vague as well. I feel like the course ended abruptly. Maybe this course needs a Week 5. So 4 stars for 4 weeks.

By Jeremiah R

Sep 22, 2021

As astudent I had the opportunity to sit alongside my father whilest doing the course a few times as he is an accountant, He kept complimenting this system claiming that it had been broken down and simplified much more than when he did his studies.

I enjoyed this section and look forward to continuing this course.

By Mike M

Aug 7, 2020

The personality of the instructor is great, and it's clear he knows what he's talking about; however,he has a very strong Spanish accent, making things difficult to understand—and the transcripts are not that accurate.

Additionally the course spends zero time covering glossary terms—which is important since many terms have multiple counterparts that mean the same, depending on which culture you're employed.

By Lindsay N B

May 19, 2016

Quite confusing if you do not have a background already in accounting. The information in the course content does not match up with the quizzes. Great experience but a little lacking on the details needed to pass the quizzes each week....especially week

By Kellyanne J

Dec 2, 2020

Harder than I anticipated

By Alessandro P

Sep 17, 2020

I am a beginner in Accountancy (Just knew basic concepts such as accrual, double entry, accounting equation, matching principle and so forth). I studied roughly 15+ hours per week to complete the full course a week in advance.

The course is intensive, excellent and pitched at a relatively high level. You can stay sure that, by the end, you will grasp all basic concepts and more.

The instructor, Dr. Marc Badia, explains difficult concepts in a clear and understandable way, and helpful - academic - PDFs comes straight from the IESE.

If possible, I may suggest to IESE adding a mock exam for the final quiz of week 4 and some extra problems to practice during each week. Many thanks

Alessandro

By Kerdia J

Oct 9, 2020

This course was great and it achieved its objective in me being able to read and interpret financial data from a company to make sound business decisions, by the end of it. It was challenging at times, this being my first time studying Accounts, but that is a good thing because accounting requires you to think, be alert and you need lots of practice to get the hang of it. I am thankful to Coursera and the Professor for making this course available to me; that now I finally have some accounting knowledge, which is valuable in any sector/role or part of life. One thing the Professor iterated in the lessons, that I may never forget is "Liquidity does not always equal profitability" 😊

By Donna R J C

Nov 15, 2020

I am not an accounting major nor working in any field related to accounting. I had a class long time ago that discussed the financial statements but I sucked at that class and almost failed. Up until I took this course, I was very confused on how to understand these statements. I felt the need to take this class because I am starting to invest in some businesses and want to be involved. Thank you Prof. Badia and team for making the topics easy to understand. I could say this course is life changing for me. If I had more time, I would have taken a few more courses.

By stephen b

Jun 16, 2020

I decided to take this course as part of the Foundations of Management Specialisation. I thought I made a great decision to listen thoroughly despite being an accounting graduate who specialises in technological risks related to end-to-end accounting processes. Prof. Marc's lectures are easy to follow and very engaging. I love that he also put up an actual example of how accounting works in an actual scenario. To those who need to learn the basics of accounting, this is the course for you. A lot better than reading a textbook!

By Arnob G

Apr 22, 2020

This course has been thoroughly engaging, despite the fact that I do not come from a finance/commerce background. It was a great place to start, working on some really interesting problems.

The quizzes were really challenging, and were very successful in raising the bar of difficulty with each passing week. By the end of the course, solving a quiz actually felt like an achievement and hence the overall experience felt really educational, as well as exciting. Definitely recommended.

By Siddhant S G

Jul 29, 2020

I was mainly looking for a review over the concepts I had studied through college but what I got in return was so much more than I was expecting. I got to properly learn how accounting can be useful in financial decisions and not just for keeping check of a company's balance sheet. The course is amazing and easy to watch and enjoyable to participatein. Thanks to IESE as well Marc sir for providing students with such an exemplary course.

By Farhim F

Jun 13, 2020

As a student of science and engineering, you're rarely, if not ever, asked to take accounting.

But it turns out to be greatly useful, specially if you're interested in investing, business or managing your personal finance. It's called the language of business for a reason.

IESE Business School and prof Marc Badia does a fantastic job of introducing you to the principles in a practical manner. Definitely recommended.

By Chaitali K

Oct 18, 2020

This course is so well planned that non commerce background students can understand the basic concepts along with how they are practically used in business. Students if pay demanded attention to the syllabus given , which made available in easy form, and solve the quizzes with critical thinking especially the last quiz surely can understand financial accounting. This course proves to be really very helpful.

By Vincent S L

Jun 17, 2020

Overall this course is amazing even though it's a little different for the basic concept in our country's teaching, I am currently an incoming 3rd year student of BS Accountancy in the Philippines but I've learned a lot of new ideas and how to approach the Financial Statements as well as The Professor Marc Badia is just amazing in explaining the concept and terms. Thank You for this opportunity.

By Casandra D

Aug 31, 2020

The last time I did accounting was at High School. With the great demand that businesses now have in this field, I decided to learn something new. This past four weeks have been enlightening and have really allowed me to think. Thanks professor for your insightful examples and course material. Thanks to my peers as well for your reviews which contributed to my success of this class.

By Harsh T

Jul 4, 2020

Best course in Accounting for beginners. It starts from A to B then c ... till Y and then Z. Instructor's way of teaching and going to Zara collections and Cristina's book shop is a type of practical experience in the real world. He is awesome Professor who takes care of explanation of every minute concept while teaching. Be positive and start the course with its first video.

By Harsh S

Oct 19, 2020

Prof. Mark Badia is an excellent Tutor. Covered all the basics of the Accounting. I learnt what a balance sheet is, and also the income statement and cash flow statement. Everything was easily understood except the cash flow statement, it was just a bit hard to catch and memorize. Other than that everything was good and professional. Provided notes were also a help to learn.