Week 3 · Readings & resources

Week 3 — Readings & Resources

Financial Accounting Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 3 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 10 items (4 readings and 6 videos). Allow 50–59 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (18–20 min total)

① Debit is left, credit is right

Chapter 3, Section “Read the two sides: debit and credit” · Session 1, Segment 2, “Debit and credit” · Remember: debit and credit name the left and right sides of an account, and the type of account decides which side makes it grow.

Debits and credits explained — The Finance Storyteller — a short sketched explainer that starts from the left-and-right meaning, sorts accounts into the five types and the side each one grows on, then walks journal entries for raising cash from owners, taking a bank loan, a supplier's bill, paying it, and billing a customer. This builds on Week 2's work with the accounting equation. Its closing example of revenue and expenses is the video's own, not a course figure. (video, 5 min) (captions: creator)
Debit vs. credit: a guide to small business accounting — Commerce Bank — a bank's plain-language business article on why a debit in the ledger is not the debit on your bank card, the five account types and which side increases each, short entries for a rent payment and a customer payment, and the mistakes that throw books off, such as posting to the wrong side. Its dollar examples are the article's own; it calls equity owner's equity, while the course's corporation uses Common Stock. (reading, 7–9 min)

② Where the method came from

Chapter 3, Section “Keep debits equal to credits: double-entry bookkeeping” · Session 1, Segment 4, “Double-entry bookkeeping” · Remember: Pacioli's 1494 book described double-entry bookkeeping in print; merchants were already using it.

The Birth of Modern Business: Luca Pacioli's Summa de Arithmetica — Christie's — an auction house's two-minute film about the book printed in 1494 and its place in Renaissance mathematics and commerce. Its details about Pacioli's later life are the film's own; the course pins only that the 1494 Summa holds the first published description of double-entry bookkeeping, which Pacioli described and did not invent. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)
Double-Entry Bookkeeping: The Idea That Built Capitalism — The Budget Autopsy — a four-minute history of the method from Venetian merchants to modern companies, which says plainly that Pacioli did not invent it. Watch it critically: it describes the method as writing each transaction down twice and says an error announces itself because the books will not balance, two claims this week's chapter corrects; its other dates and quotations are the video's own. (video, 4 min) (captions: automatic)
Double-entry bookkeeping (Rebels with a Cause exhibition) — International Institute of Social History — one short exhibition panel from a social-history archive showing a later edition of Pacioli's Summa and describing the first printed manual on double-entry bookkeeping, printed in 1494; read it for the panel's picture of what a merchant needed, and check its other dates against Chapter 3 before you repeat them. (reading, 2–4 min)

③ Journal, chart of accounts, and ledger

Chapter 3, Section “Record it in order: the journal, the chart of accounts, posting, and the ledger” · Session 2, Segment 5, “The journal and the ledger” · Remember: the journal records each transaction in date order, and posting moves each amount into its account in the ledger.

How to Post Journal Entries: Posting to the Ledger Explained, Basic Accounting Lesson 23 — Simplified Sphere — an eight-minute beginner lesson on posting as the step between the journal and the trial balance: the journal keeps transactions in date order, the ledger sorts them by account, and posting moves each debit to the debit side and each credit to the credit side of its account without changing any amount. It walks two small entries into T-accounts, shows the reference numbers that tie a journal line to its ledger account and back, works a running Cash balance, and ends with tips such as posting both sides of every entry. Use it while working through the Week-3 module overview. Its dollar amounts and owner's capital account are the video's own example, while the course's corporation uses Common Stock. (video, 8 min) (captions: automatic)
Chart of Accounts Explained with Examples: Accounting Made Simple, Basic Accounting Lesson 17 — Simplified Sphere — a seven-minute beginner lesson on the chart of accounts as the complete list of accounts a business records in, each with a name and a number, sorted into the five categories of assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, and expenses, with number ranges such as asset accounts starting with 1, and a short sort-the-account check at the end. Keep its point that account numbers differ from one business to the next and what matters is using them consistently. Its equity examples are an owner's capital and drawings, while the course's corporation uses Common Stock. (video, 7 min) (captions: automatic)
Publication 583, Recording Business Transactions — Internal Revenue Service — the IRS small-business guide's short sections on how purchases, sales, and payroll generate supporting documents, how journals record each transaction and ledgers summarize them by account, and how a double-entry system gives each account a left side for debits and a right side for credits with total debits equal to total credits. Read only these record-keeping sections; the rest of the publication is about taxes, which this course does not teach. (reading, 5–8 min)

④ Balanced is not the same as correct

Chapter 3, Section “Know what the check cannot catch” · Session 2, Segment 8, “What the check cannot catch” · Remember: matching trial balance totals prove only that every entry went in with equal sides.

Trial balance explained — The Finance Storyteller — a sketched walk from journal entries and T-accounts to a trial balance for a new company, with both columns footed to the same total, and then the key warning: a balancing trial balance can still hide a swapped debit and credit, a posting to the wrong account, or a transaction never recorded. Its totals are the video's own example. Stop here before adjusting entries; next week takes that up. (video, 6 min) (captions: creator)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Balancing the Books in Rare Books — Smithsonian Libraries and Archives — the library's short feature on Pacioli's Summa, printed in Venice in 1494, and its description of double-entry bookkeeping; read it as a look at the book itself, and keep the course's point that Pacioli described the method rather than invented it. (reading, 4–6 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

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