Objectives

The overall aims of this course include the following:

a-     To provide a basic understanding of the economics of business; for example

                                i.      how cash flows through a business;

                                ii.      what are the resources of an entity;

                                iii.      how are those resources funded;

                                iv.      what are the different sources of funding;

                                v.      short-term liquidity and working capital management

b-    To introduce the role of accounting and how accounting captures information about the economics of an entity. For example:

1. accounting provides information about: financial resources and obligations (via the balance sheet), financial performance (via the income statement), and about the cash flows (and their different types) via the cash flow statements)
2. Who wants to know?
3. Develop an understanding of the ‘language’ of accounting (i.e., accounting uses everyday terms with specialist meanings; alternate names exist for the same items)
4. What are the components (elements) of the information in accounting – i.e., assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, expenses

c-     What are the key questions in financial reporting?

1.  i.e., What is a ‘transaction’?; Definitions; Recognition; Measurement; and Disclosure
   · Introduce students to the reality that alternative but legitimate differences can exist about how the key questions above are answered and the resulting impact upon financial statements
2. What are the reasons for diversity in accounting practice?

d-    To enable students to prepare their own basic financial statements

1. Transactions analysis;
2. making choices.

e-     To enable students to understand the ‘story’ told by financial statements and the implications for the story when different choices are made:

1. Develop skills in financial statement analysis throughout the course material; focus students’ understanding on the inter-connectivity and causality between the different components of financial information
2. Provide a detailed focus on the use of accounting for decision making by parties both external and internal to an organization
3. Basic internal decision making applications – e.g., cost behavior, cost-volume-profit analysis, product costing

To assist to develop an ‘intuition’ about the impact of transactions on an entity’s financial condition, performance, and cash flows.