Understanding Financial Statements - Company Position

Overview

This Understanding Financial Statements - Company Position  offered by Coursera in partnership with University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign is designed to provide a basic understanding of financial statements with an emphasis on the balance sheet. However, to understand accounting driven financial statements, it is important to recognize that accounting is less about counting and more about measuring. “What is it that is being measured?” Well, as the course unfolds, you will learn about the three measurement questions and how the balance sheet helps to answer the first two of these questions. 

By touring a real company and interviewing real business people, the course describes the basic content of financial statements in a simple yet relevant context. The goal of the course is to leave a lasting impression about what balance sheet consists of and what it reveals. The next course in the Fundamentals of Accounting Specialization completes the conversation by addressing the remaining measurement question.

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Describe the purpose of a balance sheet.

• Define the three components of a balance sheet.

• Recognize and understand the meaning of several items typically presented on a balance sheet. 

• Explain the broader purpose of financial statements and the role of accounting in producing the financial statements.

• Read and, to some extent, interpret real-world balance sheets.