This is a course of study that introduces financial accounting and financial reporting for economic entities.
I. The Environment of Accounting
1.00 The Role of Accounting in Society
1.01 Financial Information and Resource Allocation
1.02 Accounting and the Business Entity
1.03 Auditing and Credibility in Reporting
1.04 Structure of the Accounting Profession
1.05 Ethics, Reputation, and Legal Liability in Accounting
1.06 Types of Business Organizations (*)
2.00 Accounting Standards and Regulation Structures
2.01 Financial Statements and Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (*)
2.02 The FASB and Financial Accounting Standards (*)
2.03 Government Oversight of Accounting and Auditing
2.04 IASB and International Financial Reporting Standards (*)
II. The Accounting Model
3.00 The Basic Financial Statements
3.01 Income Statement and Balance Sheet (*)
3.02 Statement of Equity (*)
3.03 Cash Flow Statement (*)
3.04 Other Elements of the Annual Report
4.00 Analysis of Business Activity
4.01 The basic accounting model ("balance sheet equation") (*)
4.02 Income measurement and accrual accounting (*)
4.03 Impact of simple transactions on "balance sheet equation" (*)
4.04 Debits and credits (*)
4.05 Accounting records (journals, ledgers, etc.)
4.06 The accounting cycle (including adjustments) (*)
5.00 Preparation of Financial Statements
5.01 Income statement and balance sheet (*)
5.02 Statement of equity (*)
5.03 Cash flow statement
III. Accounting for Key Domains of Business Activity
6.00 Revenues and Receivables
6.01 Criteria for Revenue Recognition (*)
6.02 Accounting for revenues (*)
6.03 Reporting customer receivables and uncollectables (*)
7.00 Merchandising and Inventory
7.01 Accounting for the cost of purchases and sales of merchandise (*)
7.02 Inventory records (perpetual, periodic)
7.03 Inventory accounting methods (*)
7.04 Lower of cost or market valuation
8.00 Working Capital
8.01 Classification of current assets and current liabilities (*)
8.02 Management of working capital
8.03 Measures of working capital use (current ratio, etc.)
8.04 Internal control of working capital (*)
8.05 Marketable Securities
9.00 Long-Lived Assets
9.01 Acquisition cost (*)
9.02 Depreciation accounting and depreciation methods (*)
9.03 Accounting for disposition of assets
9.04 Capitalization vs. Expensing (*)
9.05 Intangible assets (*)
9.06 Amortization and impairment of intangible assets
9.07 Natural resources and depletion
10.00 Liabilities
10.01 The nature of liabilities (*)
10.02 Types of current liabilities (*)
10.03 Types of long-term liabilities (*)
10.04 Accounting for long-term liabilities
10.05 Present value and effective interest method
11.00 Equity Financing
11.01 Debt vs. equity (*)
11.02 Types of equity (preferred, common) (*)
11.03 Accounting for stock (issuance, dividends) (*)
11.04 Accounting for treasury stock
11.05 Book value vs. market value
11.06 Accumulated other comprehensive income
IV. Using Financial Statements
12.00 Analysis of Financial Statements
12.01 Objectives of financial statement analysis (*)
12.02 Sources of company information
12.03 Calculation and interpretation of financial ratios (*)
13.00 The Annual Report
13.01 Accounting elements of annual report
13.02 Management elements of annual report
13.03 SEC reporting requirements
Topics marked with an asterisk (*) are considered fundamental and essential.
Core Courses are courses that fulfill lower-level requirements and apply to any transfer path major where they appear. Introduction to Financial Accounting is universal course description, which maps to specific courses on SUNY campuses. Approved SUNY Transfer Path Core Courses are guaranteed to transfer to fulfill requirements in the major and/or required cognates (not just as electives) at all SUNY campuses if the course is completed with a grade of C or better.1 You may Search for Core Course equivalents using the Transfer Navigator.
1 While a grade of C or better is guaranteed, campuses can have different policies where they accept a passing grade lower than C. Pass/Fail courses may be accepted at the discretion of the campus, but transfer is not guaranteed.