Best Free MOOCs In Business In January

Understanding Financial Statements: Company Performance

School: University of Illinois

Platform:  Coursera

Registration Link: REGISTER HERE

Start Date: January 1, 2018

Workload: Not available.

Instructor: Kevin Jackson

Credentials: Since 2004, Jackson has taught accounting courses at the University of Illinois to graduate and undergraduate students. Holding a Ph.D. in accounting psychology from the University of Texas, Jackson is renowned as a top teacher, with students ranking him “Excellent” on average from 2005-2014. Before entering academia, Jackson held senior and leadership positions at Ernst & Young, Baker Hughes, and KPMG Peat Marwick. His most recent work has been published by The Accounting Reviewand Contemporary Accounting Research.

Graded: Students can choose to explore course videos, discussions, and ungraded assignments for free, but they won’t be able to submit graded assignments, earn a certificate, or complete a specialization without paying a $79 fee.

Description: Revenues and expenses. Profit and loss. These are the yin and yang of business. To truly understand your organization’s health, you need to be fluent in how to read a profit-and-loss statement. Building off the previous “Company Position” course – which focused on the fundamentals of interpreting balance sheets – “Company Performance” examines income statements. In particular, it covers how it drives decision-making. During the course, students will be exposed to the basic components of an income statement – including how the data is derived and what each component means (and how they interrelate with each other). As part of the course, students will also review and evaluate statements from real companies.

Review: “I would have hated this course but the mentor Mr. Jackson just did the course so well, he should be the one making all the courses that you have under this module. I learned a lot from him and I am able to directly relate his reasoning, his real life considerations to the business I am handling right now, and more than understanding the concepts, I am now inspired to learn more!” For additional reviews, click here.

Additional Background: This course is the second part of a “Fundamentals of Accounting” specialization, a five course series that covers strategy assessment and control, decision making and measurement, and company positioning in financial statements. To learn more about these courses and register for them, click here.