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Financial Accounting

15 instructional weeks + finals week (Week 1–Week 16) Free sample edition

Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com

This is a complete course: fifteen instructional weeks and a finals week, every student component, built with The Course Maker and ready to import. Weeks are relative (Week 1 to Week 16); you set the dates when you import it. Browse the whole thing below. Click any piece to read it in full, then click back to return here.

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Free sample edition. No instructor, institution, or term identity appears anywhere in this edition, by design. The syllabus carries fill-in slots (instructor name, contact, office hours, institution policies) for the adopting instructor to make it their own. (Original objectives written from the standard Financial Accounting body of knowledge; not copied from any school's course outline.)
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This course is free, complete, and evergreen, and it is yours to keep; free downloads run through June 30, 2028. Students pay $0 for course materials: the readings and videos are links to freely available resources.

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Included in every course

  • ChapterRequired

    Required in every course. Every module presents the same content in three ways — a chapter to read, a slide deck with speaker notes, and captioned videos — so each student can choose how to take it in. The course is designed to reflect UDL's multiple means of representation, and the alignment report describes this to your curriculum committee.

  • Slide deck with speaker notesRequired

    Required in every course. Every module presents the same content in three ways — a slide deck with speaker notes, a chapter to read, and captioned videos — so each student can choose how to take it in. The course is designed to reflect UDL's multiple means of representation, and the alignment report describes this to your curriculum committee.

  • Captioned video linksRequired

    Required in every course. Every module presents the same content in three ways — captioned videos, a chapter to read, and a slide deck with speaker notes — so each student can choose how to take it in. The course is designed to reflect UDL's multiple means of representation, and the alignment report describes this to your curriculum committee. We link videos only when a caption track exists (from the creator or generated automatically), and we never host them.

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The syllabus

Policies, schedule, and grading

Read the full course syllabusPolicies, the week-by-week schedule, grading, and the bring-your-own-AI rules, with fill-in slots for the adopting instructor.→
Weighted gradebook

Assignment groups & weights

Configured in the export — the gradebook is set the moment the course is imported.

Assignment groupWeightNotes
Tutorials & Practice10%
Quizzes10%
Workshops20%
Assignments25%
Discussions15%
Exams20%
Total100%Letter Standard
Objectives & outcomes

What students will be able to do

Objective 1

Explain the purpose of financial accounting, its users, the forms of business organization, the roles of GAAP, the FASB, the SEC, and IFRS, and the ethical principles that guide accountants.

Objective 2

Analyze business transactions with the accounting equation and record them in a journal using double-entry bookkeeping, post them to the ledger, and prepare a trial balance.

Objective 3

Apply accrual accounting: recognize revenue and expenses in the right period, prepare adjusting entries for deferrals and accruals, and prepare an adjusted trial balance.

Objective 4

Complete the accounting cycle: prepare an income statement, a statement of retained earnings, and a classified balance sheet, journalize closing entries, and prepare a post-closing trial balance.

Objective 5

Account for merchandising operations and inventory: record purchases and sales in a perpetual system, compute cost of goods sold and gross profit, and apply FIFO, LIFO, and weighted-average costing and the lower of cost and net realizable value.

Objective 6

Describe internal control and its components, and account for cash, including the bank reconciliation, and for receivables, including the allowance method and notes receivable.

Objective 7

Account for long-lived assets, including cost, depreciation by three methods, and disposal, and for current liabilities, including payroll.

Objective 8

Account for long-term liabilities, including bonds issued at face, at a discount, and at a premium, and for stockholders' equity, including stock issuance, dividends, and treasury stock.

Objective 9

Prepare a statement of cash flows by the indirect method, compute and interpret basic financial ratios, and read a public company's annual report.

SLO A

Recording and reporting — analyze a set of transactions, record them with balanced entries in the correct accounts and periods, and prepare the financial statements that follow from them, stating what each statement shows in one plain sentence.

SLO B

Verification and judgment — check every entry, total, and statement for balance and accuracy, explain how an accounting choice changes the reported figures, and verify any claim about a standard, a tax rate, or a company's figures, including AI output, against an issuing-body source.

How this course is built — read this first

Every teaching module carries the same set, in the order a student meets it: a Start Here overview, the chapter (the primary reading), the lecture (titled “Lecture: <module title>”), the slide deck with speaker notes, readings & resources (links only), the lecture tutorial and practice exercises worked with an AI tutor, the quiz, the discussion and the assignment, and the weekly Accounting Workshop. Exams: the midterm in Week 8 and the final in Week 16, a finals week with no module.

The discussion and the assignment each ship in both formats: the adaptive version is the published, graded item, and its traditional alternative (no AI) is a separate item that ships unpublished beside it. An instructor who prefers the traditional format publishes it and unpublishes or deletes the adaptive one.

What you see here is every student page. The instructor pack (answer keys and worked solutions, rubric calibration, image prompts, audio-brief scripts, and the alignment report) ships only in the download, never on this site.

Adaptive and traditional

Discussions & assignments: both formats in every module

Same learning objective either way; what changes is how the work happens.

Adaptive · published

Work it through with an approved chatbot

The student does the work in a guided conversation with an approved chatbot, using a copy-paste prompt the course provides. For a discussion, the AI is a Socratic partner that challenges their thinking and never writes the post. For an assignment, the AI is a coach: it asks questions, checks the reasoning shown, and waits for the student to revise. The student submits the chat link with the required summary or report.

Traditional alternative (no AI) · unpublished

The familiar way, one click away

The student does the work themselves and submits it, and the instructor grades it against the rubric. No AI required. It ships unpublished, opening with a one-line note to the instructor; publish it instead of the adaptive version if you prefer.

All 16 weeks

Every week, every component

Each week is a heading; every component under it links to the full student page. Week 8 is a teaching module that also carries the midterm bundle; Week 16 is the finals week, with the final exam bundle and no module.

01
Week 1

Accounting and the Business Environment

accounting as an information system; financial vs. managerial accounting; internal and external usersthe forms of business organization, with the IRS's tax-year 2022 counts said in wordsGAAP, the FASB (1973), the SEC (created by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934), and IFRS, compared without rankingthe economic entity assumption and the AICPA's six principles of professional conductthe four financial statements named; the running case introduced: an unnamed bicycle repair and sales shop organized as a corporation
02
Week 2

The Accounting Equation and Transaction Analysis

assets, liabilities, and stockholders' equity definedthe accounting equation: Assets = Liabilities + Stockholders' Equitycommon stock and retained earnings; revenues, expenses, and dividends as the drivers of retained earningstransaction analysis: the running case's twelve Month 1 transactionsthe equation balanced after every transaction
03
Week 3

Recording Transactions: Debits, Credits, and the Trial Balance

the account, the T-account, debits and credits, and normal balancesdouble-entry bookkeeping and Pacioli's Summa (1494)the journal, the chart of accounts, posting, and the general ledgerthe running case's Month 1 journal, ledger, and unadjusted trial balancewhat a trial balance does and does not prove
04
Week 4

Accrual Accounting and Adjusting Entries

cash basis vs. accrual basis; the time period assumptionrevenue recognition and the five steps of ASU 2014-09 (2014)expense recognition (matching)the four kinds of adjustment: prepaid expenses, unearned revenues, accrued revenues, accrued expenses; depreciationthe running case's six month-end adjustments and adjusted trial balance; the qualitative characteristics of useful information
05
Week 5

Completing the Accounting Cycle

the income statement, the statement of retained earnings, and the classified balance sheet, in that ordercurrent and long-term classificationsclosing entries and the Income Summary account; temporary and permanent accountsthe post-closing trial balancethe steps of the accounting cycle, from transaction to closed books
06
Week 6

Merchandising Operations

the merchandising operating cycle; perpetual and periodic systemsrecording purchases: credit terms (2/10, n/30), purchase discounts, and freight under FOB shipping point and FOB destinationrecording sales and cost of goods sold; returns and allowances in wordsgross profit and the multi-step income statementthe shop's first bicycle purchase and sale
07
Week 7

Inventory Costing

specific identification, FIFO, LIFO, and weighted averagethe helmet layers costed three wayseffects of each method when costs rise; consistency and disclosureIFRS does not allow LIFO (as the SEC stated in 2008)the lower of cost and net realizable value (ASU 2015-11); inventory errors in words
08
Week 8 Midterm

Midterm Review & Exam

cumulative review of Weeks 1 to 7 organized by the one distinction each topic asks for: asset vs. expense, liability vs. expense, debit vs. credit, cash vs. accrual, deferral vs. accrual, revenue vs. cash received, temporary vs. permanent account, perpetual vs. periodic, FIFO vs. LIFOlight new material on internal control: COSO's five components and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002)the midterm exam

The midterm exam bundle

09
Week 9

Cash and the Bank Reconciliation

control activities applied to cash, in six of the Green Book's common categories: access restrictions to and accountability for resources and records; segregation of duties; control activities over information processing; physical control activities over vulnerable assets; control activities over complete, accurate, and timely recording of valid transactions; and management of human capitalcash receipts and payments controls; the petty cash fundthe bank statement and the shop's bank reconciliationthe entries a reconciliation requires; the transposition errorcash and cash equivalents on the balance sheet
10
Week 10

Receivables

accounts and notes receivablethe direct write-off method vs. the allowance methodestimating uncollectibles with an aging schedule; bad debt expensewriting off an account; net realizable valuenotes receivable and simple interest
11
Week 11

Long-Lived Assets

what goes into an asset's coststraight-line, units-of-production, and double-declining-balance depreciation for the shop's vanbook value and the disposal of an asset: gain or lossintangible assets and amortization; natural resources and depletion, in wordsdepreciation as cost allocation, not valuation or cash
12
Week 12

Current Liabilities and Payroll

current liabilities: accounts payable, notes payable, sales taxes payable, unearned revenue, current portion of long-term debtpayroll: gross pay, the FLSA overtime rule, and the 2026 Social Security and Medicare rates and wage basewithholdings and net pay; the employer's payroll taxesthe mechanic's weekly paycheckcontingent liabilities, in words
13
Week 13

Long-Term Liabilities

bond terms: face value, stated rate, market rate, maturitybonds issued at face, at a discount, and at a premiuminterest expense and amortization of a discount or premium (straight-line in the arithmetic; the effective-interest method in words)installment notes in wordsdebt on the balance sheet
14
Week 14

Stockholders' Equity

the corporate form (C and S corporations); authorized, issued, and outstanding shares; par valueissuing common stock: Common Stock and Additional Paid-in Capital; preferred stockcash dividends and their three dates; stock dividends and splits in wordstreasury stock at costretained earnings, the equity section, and basic earnings per share
15
Week 15

The Statement of Cash Flows, Analysis, and the Course Synthesis

operating, investing, and financing activitiesthe indirect method for operating activitiesfinancial ratios: current ratio, debt to total assets, gross margin, profit marginreading a public company's 10-K on EDGARthe course synthesis: the running case from its first month to its second year