Accounting-Statement of Cash Flows
What you'll learn
- Explain the purpose and significance of the statement of cash flows in financial reporting, and how it complements the balance sheet and income statement.
- Identify and describe the key components of a statement of cash flows, including cash flows from operating activities, investing activities, and financing activ
- Demonstrate the step-by-step process of creating a statement of cash flows using accrual accounting concepts, ensuring accuracy and completeness.
- Apply accrual accounting principles to analyze and interpret cash flows, enabling you to make informed financial decisions and assessments.
- Differentiate direct and indirect methods of constructing cash flows from operations section.
- Construct a worksheet as a tool to facilitate the creation of a statement of cash flows, ensuring efficient and error-free preparation.
- Create a statement of cash flows using the indirect method, meticulously documenting the cash flows from operating, investing, and financing activities.
- Develop a statement of cash flows using the direct method, providing a detailed breakdown of cash flows from operating, investing, and financing activities.
- Report non-cash investing and financing activities accurately, capturing their impact on the statement of cash flows.
- Analyze cash flow statements for insights on liquidity, solvency, and cash management.
Requirements
- Basic Understanding of Financial Statements: Familiarity with balance sheets, income statements, and basic financial ratios will provide a solid foundation for learning cash flow statements.
- Knowledge of Accrual Accounting: A basic understanding of accrual accounting principles and concepts will help in comprehending the relationship between accrual-based financial reports and cash flow statements.
- Familiarity with Financial Terminology: Prior exposure to financial terms such as revenue, expenses, assets, liabilities, and equity will facilitate a smoother understanding of the course material.
- Motivation to Learn: A genuine interest in understanding cash flow statements and their significance in financial analysis is essential to fully engage with the course material and achieve the learning objectives.
Description
This comprehensive course focuses on mastering the creation and analysis of the statement of cash flows, a crucial aspect of financial reporting. It delves into the very heart of cash flow statements, illuminating its purpose, uses, and the vital accrual accounting concepts needed for its creation.
Starting with an introduction to cash flow statements, the course equips learners with the skills to understand and construct these statements from accrual financial reports. It systematically breaks down the components of cash flows, including operating, investing, and financing activities, providing a clear thought process for determining where specific cash flows belong.
The course lays out detailed requirements for creating a cash flow statement and imparts practical strategies to minimize errors and optimize time spent on construction. Key differentiating factors between the direct and indirect methods of constructing the cash flows from operations section are thoroughly compared and contrasted, bolstering your understanding of both approaches.
Learners are guided through the step-by-step construction of a cash flow statement using the indirect method, and subsequently, the direct method, offering a hands-on learning experience. Furthermore, it covers the reporting of non-cash investing and financing activities, giving learners a comprehensive view of all aspects of cash flow statements.
The course includes several downloadable resources, including PDF files for offline reference, preformatted Excel practice files for honing skills on Excel basics and adjusting processes, and multiple-choice and short calculation practice questions to help improve test-taking skills. Discussion questions also provide an opportunity for learners to interact with peers, enhancing the learning process by viewing the topic from various perspectives.
The course instructor is a seasoned professional with deep technical experience in accounting concepts and software. As a certified public accountant, chartered global management accountant, and certified post-secondary instructor with a Master's in Taxation and a wealth of curriculum development experience, the instructor brings a blend of practical expertise and teaching acumen to this course.
Whether you're an accounting student, an aspiring accountant, a seasoned professional, or a business owner seeking to understand your company's financial health better, this course offers an in-depth understanding of cash flow statements that will prove invaluable in your journey.
Who this course is for:
- Accounting and Finance Professionals: Accountants, financial analysts, and professionals working in finance roles can deepen their knowledge of cash flow statements, enabling them to perform more accurate financial analysis and make informed business decisions.
- Business Owners and Entrepreneurs: Individuals running their own businesses or involved in entrepreneurial endeavors can benefit from understanding cash flow statements, as it provides insights into their company's liquidity, cash management, and financial health.
- Accounting Students: Undergraduate or graduate students studying accounting or finance can gain a comprehensive understanding of cash flow statements, strengthening their theoretical knowledge and practical application in financial reporting.
- Aspiring Accountants: Those aspiring to pursue a career in accounting or finance can acquire essential skills in cash flow statement analysis, enhancing their marketability and readiness for professional roles.
- Investors and Stakeholders: Investors, shareholders, and other stakeholders interested in evaluating the financial performance and viability of companies will find this course valuable in analyzing cash flow statements for investment and decision-making purposes.
- Lifelong Learners: Curious learners interested in deepening their knowledge of financial statements and gaining insights into the cash flow aspect of business finance will find this course engaging and informative.
Instructor
- 4.4 Instructor Rating
- 51,367 Reviews
- 900,143 Students
- 149 Courses
Through working with students from many different schools, Mr. Steele has learned best practices for helping people understand accounting fast. Learning new skills and finding the best way to share knowledge with people who can benefit from it is a passion of his.
Mr. Steele has experience working as a practicing Certified Public Accountant (CPA), an accounting and business instructor, and curriculum developer. He has enjoyed putting together quality tools to improve learning and has been teaching, making instructional resources, and building curriculum since 2009. He has been a practicing CPA since 2005. Mr. Steele is a practicing CPA, has a Certified Post-Secondary Instructor (CPI) credential, a Master of Science in taxation from Golden Gate University, a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Economics with an emphasis in accounting from The University of California Santa Barbara, and a Global Management Accounting Designation (CGMA) from The American Institute of CPA (AICPA).
Mr. Steele has also authored five books that can be found on Amazon or in audiobook format on Audible. He has developed bestselling courses in accounting topics including financial accounting and QuickBooks accounting software.
In addition to working as an accountant, teaching, and developing courses Mr. Steele has helped create an accounting website at accountinginstruction, a YouTube channel called Accounting Instruction, Help, and How Too, and has developed supplemental resources including a Facebook Page, Twitter Page, and Podcasts that can be found on I-tunes, Stitcher, or Soundcloud. Mr. Steele's teaching philosophy is to make content applicable, understandable, and accessible.
Adult learners are looking for application when they learn new skills. In other words, learners want to be able to apply skills in the real world to help their lives. Mr. Steele’s formal accounting education, practical work experience, and substantial teaching experience allow him to create a curriculum that combines traditional accounting education with practical knowledge and application. He accomplishes the goals of making accounting useful and applicable by combining theory with real-world software like Excel and QuickBooks.
Many courses teach QuickBooks data entry or Excel functions but are not providing the real value learners want. Real value is a result of learning technical skills like applications, in conjunction with specific goals, like accounting goals, including being able to interpret the performance of a business.
Mr. Steele makes knowledge understandable by breaking down complex concepts into smaller units with specific objectives and using step by step learning processes to understand each unit. Many accounting textbooks cram way too much information into a course, making it impossible to understand any unit fully. By breaking the content down into digestible chunks, we can move forward much faster.
Mr. Steele also makes use of color association in both presentations and Excel worksheets, a learning tool often overlooked in the accounting field, but one that can vastly improve the speed and comprehension of learning accounting concepts.
The material is also made understandable through the application of concepts learned. Courses will typically demonstrate the accounting concepts and then provide an Excel worksheet or practice problems to work through the concepts covered. The practice problems will be accompanied by an instructional video to work through the problem in step by step format. Excel worksheets will be preformatted, usually including an answer tab that shows the completed problem, and a practice tab where learners can complete the problem along with a step by step presentation video.
Mr. Steele makes learning accounting accessible by making use of technology and partnering with teaching platforms that have a vision of spreading knowledge like Udemy.