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Introduction to Finance and 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.

Status: Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP)
Status: Finance
BeginnerSpecialization

Top reviews across Introduction to Finance and Accounting

NK

Reviewed Jan 23, 2021

Helpful course with clear lectures by Dr. Wachter. The quizzes were a bit frustrating in their specific formatting requirements.

LI

Reviewed Apr 6, 2020

It is a decent course with a great introduction to Corporate Finance. However, it would have been even better if it had a Final Exam in the end where it would recapitulate everything learned thus far.

EK

Reviewed Sep 27, 2017

Loved this course! Because it was via videos, you could pause and digest the material at your own speed. More challenging content than I expected so felt I learned a lot. Will take another course!

JB

Reviewed Jan 19, 2020

Good stuff - well presented. I probably could start over again to reinforce what I learned. I do wish there were some updates to reflect changes in accounting rules.

GI

Reviewed May 10, 2023

The materials and notes are great, esp for me that has no skill and knowledge about finance. The language and delivery are easy to digest. thanks.

HH

Reviewed Jul 16, 2023

Instruction is phenomenal. However, I believe more practice sets would be helpful; and quizzes for weeks 3 and 4 are far too easy and encompass maybe 10% of the instruction for those weeks.

TA

Reviewed Jun 3, 2019

The teacher is really enthusiastic about his material, his lessons seem to cover the major notions around the topic and the overall technical quality of this course can't be critized. Thanks again :)

CL

Reviewed Sep 14, 2019

Learned a lot from this course. Every video I watched at least 3 times until I passed the final exam. I enjoyed this course. Would recommend.

AK

Reviewed Sep 6, 2021

this is an excellent course. i personally suggest everyone to go through this course once on starting career in finance

AA

Reviewed Aug 26, 2017

Great course lectures and pacing! I'd just really like to know the right solutions for the questions i got wrong. That will help sharpen concepts. Great if there's a way to share that. Thanks,Archana

BA

Reviewed Feb 3, 2018

great course simple to understand and very entertaining. i really like the idea of the virtual students they add a nice touch to the course and the instructions and provide good questions and answers

PM

Reviewed Jul 29, 2020

More advanced content, and a perfect complementary course with the Introduction to Financial Accounting. I highly recomment this course.

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Matthew
Course: Fundamentals of Finance
2.0
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Daniel
Course: Fundamentals of Finance
1.0
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Course: Fundamentals of Finance
1.0
Reviewed Jan 11, 2021Course: Fundamentals of Finance
Cailean
Course: Fundamentals of Finance
1.0
Reviewed Nov 10, 2020Course: Fundamentals of Finance
Darshan
Course: Fundamentals of Finance
3.0
Reviewed May 24, 2020Course: Fundamentals of Finance
Steven
Course: Fundamentals of Finance
1.0
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Stephen
Course: Fundamentals of Finance
1.0
Reviewed Apr 11, 2021Course: Fundamentals of Finance
JL
Course: Fundamentals of Finance
1.0
Reviewed Aug 29, 2020Course: Fundamentals of Finance
Kenneth
Course: Fundamentals of Finance
2.0
Reviewed Dec 16, 2020Course: Fundamentals of Finance
Mikhail
Course: Fundamentals of Finance
1.0
Reviewed Apr 9, 2021Course: Fundamentals of Finance
Michael
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2.0
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Kashyap
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1.0
Reviewed May 31, 2021Course: Fundamentals of Finance
Supanan
Course: Fundamentals of Finance
3.0
Reviewed Sep 7, 2020Course: Fundamentals of Finance
Tracey
Course: Fundamentals of Finance
2.0
Reviewed Feb 19, 2021Course: Fundamentals of Finance
Layle
Course: Fundamentals of Finance
1.0
Reviewed Apr 25, 2021Course: Fundamentals of Finance
Kay
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1.0
Reviewed Apr 11, 2021Course: Fundamentals of Finance
Dr.
Course: Fundamentals of Finance
4.0
Reviewed Dec 3, 2020Course: Fundamentals of Finance
SUNNY
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5.0
Reviewed Aug 22, 2021Course: Fundamentals of Finance
Ummehani
Course: Fundamentals of Finance
3.0
Reviewed Oct 24, 2020Course: Fundamentals of Finance
Dimitris
Course: Fundamentals of Finance
5.0
Reviewed Jan 19, 2021Course: Fundamentals of Finance