Overview: Introduction to the General-Purpose Financial Statements (Part B - Balance Sheet Accounts)

Overview: Introduction to the General-Purpose Financial Statements (Part B - Balance Sheet Accounts)

One purpose of this Module is to help you learn the names and definitions of the common asset, liability and equity accounts that we will be using throughout
this course and that you will likely come across in the real world.

The second main purpose of this Module is to teach you how to compute the ending balance of each of these accounts.  In this course we use the three
different computational formats noted below:

1)  Horizontal computation of ending balance:

Beginning + Increases - Decreases = Ending

2) Vertical computation of ending balance:

   Beginning
+ Increases
-  Decreases
= Ending

3) T-account computation of ending balance:
See the colorful T-account diagram below:

 

In this course we will use the T-account format above most frequently because it is a visual representation of what many accountants still use throughout the world as they think through how various transactions will impact their account balances. Accountants use the word "debit" for left and "credit" for right.  Please keep this concept simple in your minds.  Because accounting is the language of business, it has different words for different things.  Debit just happens to be the word for entries on the left, and credit just happens to be the word for entries on the right.

In each of this Module's sub-topics I will name the accounts, define them and show how to compute the given account's ending balance.  You will have lots of opportunities to learn this material as you successfully complete the related quizzes.

To Complete This Module

To complete this module, you will need to study all of the content pages and successfully complete the related topic and module quizzes. To successfully complete quizzes you need to achieve a score of at least 4 out of 5 for topical quizzes and achieve a score of at least 8 out of 10 for the module quiz. You may take and re-take quizzes as many times as necessary to master the material and get your passing score.

To track which content pages you have viewed and which quizzes you have successfully completed, click the "Modules" link on the course menu on the left.  A green check mark will appear to the left of each “Study” page that you have viewed and by each “Quiz” that you have successfully completed in the module. 

I anticipate that this module will take about 2 hours to complete.