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Accounting Foundations: Bookkeeping

Learn the four key steps in the bookkeeping process: analyzing transactions, recording the effects, summarizing the effects, and preparing financial reports

65,471 students

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This course is provided by LinkedIn Learning with over 27 million learners worldwide.

What you’ll learn

Review of the Financial Statements
Fours steps in the bookkeeping process
The importance of routine bookkeeping
How transactions affect the accounting equation
The general ledger
Posting journal entries to accounts
Analyzing transactions
Computing account balances
Financial statements

Course description

Bookkeeping is about collecting information, recording events, and organizing those records to make better decisions.

Accountants use the financial transactions recorded in ledgers or "books" to create a company's income statement and balance sheet.

In this course, accounting professors Jim and Kay Stice walk you through the four key steps in the bookkeeping process: analyzing transactions, recording the effects, summarizing the effects, and preparing financial reports.

They explain the components of a journal entry—debits and credits—and the essential questions a bookkeeper/accountant asks in reviewing those transactions.

They also explain how accountants translate ledger information into financial statements and the role of computer programs in helping businesses manage their accounts.

Contents

Introduction

  • Introduction to bookkeeping
  • The language of business
  • How can we collect all this information?
  • What you should now

Review of the Financial Statements

  • Introducing financial statements
  • The balance sheet
  • The income statement
  • The statement of cash flows

Fours Steps in the Bookkeeping Process

  • The importance of routine bookkeeping
  • Analyzing transactions
  • The accounting equation
  • Using accounts to categorize transactions
  • Debits and credits
  • Examples of accounts to categorize transactions
  • Including revenues, expenses and dividends
  • Words of caution

How Transactions Affect the Accounting Equation

  • Everything is recorded with debits and credits
  • How do we record the effect of a transaction?
  • Obtaining financing and buying equipment
  • Buying supplies and inventory
  • Providing services
  • Selling inventory and providing services
  • Incurring additional expenses
  • Paying interest and dividends
  • A note on journal entries

The General Ledger

  • The accuracy of debits and credits in the days of real "books"
  • Posting journal entries to accounts

Illustration of the First Three Steps in the Accounting Cycle

  • Strangers and the power of financial statements
  • Analyzing transactions
  • Computing account balances
  • The financial statements

Conclusion

  • Who uses financial statements?
  • The role of computers
  • Where we have been and what is next

About this course

Course content

  • For beginners
  • 1 hour and 39 minutes total length

Course features

  • Earn a certificate
  • Cancel anytime
  • Watch on mobile app