Introduction to Financial Accounting: The Accounting Cycle

In this course, we will review the accounting cycle to gain an understanding of how the financial statements are formed (i.e., Income Statement, Statement of Retained Earnings, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement). By the end of this course, each viewer will be able to do the following: 1) understand what is on each of the four primary financial statements, 2) understand how the four primary financial statements relate to one another, 2) record transactions by making general journal entries, by using the debits and credits, 3) understand how the journal entries affect the financial statements, 4) post journal entries to the general ledger (T-accounts), 5) solve for missing numbers in the t-accounts, 6) generally understand how the subsidiary ledger works, 7) create an unadjusted trial balance, 8) perform and understand adjusting entries at the end of the accounting period, 9) create an adjusted trial balance, 10) create the four primary financial statements from scratch, 11) perform closing entries at the end of the accounting period, 12) create a post closing trial balance. The course will be helpful for students taking any introductory accounting course as well as those who are trying to gain a basic understanding of how the four primary financial statements are formed.