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Business·14h

Accounting Fundamentals

From double-entry basics to reading a balance sheet and income statement on your own.

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Double-EntryBalance SheetP&LInvoicingSpreadsheets

About this course

A from-scratch course on the language of accounting: double-entry bookkeeping, recording everyday transactions, invoicing and reading the main financial statements. You'll learn through small-business cases and spreadsheet exercises, separating universal principles from each country's local rules. For administrative assistants, people running their own business and anyone who wants to understand a company's numbers.

Level: BeginnerDuration: 14hVersion: 1.2.0 · Editorial draftIncludes a verified skill badge

Course syllabus

An editorial preview of the modules. Full lessons unlock inside Academy.

1

Module 1

The accounting equation at work

Assets equal liabilities plus equity — you test the equation against a small café's opening month, recording each event twice until the balancing habit forms.

Lessons included

  • The equation behind everything
  • Account types and the chart
  • Debits and credits, demystified
  • First journal entries
  • Balancing as error detection

You will be able to

  • Classify any item as asset, liability, equity, income or expense.
  • Record basic events as balanced debit–credit entries.
  • Explain why every transaction touches at least two accounts.
  • Build a minimal chart of accounts for a small business.

Preview

Every entry has two halves

Buy a 900-euro laptop with cash and two things happen at once: equipment rises by 900 and cash falls by 900. The equation stays balanced — it always must. That is double entry: every transaction recorded twice, once for what you received and once for where it came from. When books don't balance, you haven't found a math error; you've found half a transaction missing its other half.

2

Module 2

A month of everyday transactions

Thirty days of café life hit the journal: sales in cash and on account, supplier purchases, rent, payroll, and a mid-month equipment purchase that forces the expense-versus-investment call.

Lessons included

  • Sales and collections
  • Purchases and payments
  • Expense or investment?
  • Receivables and payables
  • Universal rules versus local rules

You will be able to

  • Record sales, purchases, collections and payments in sequence.
  • Decide when a purchase is an expense and when it's an investment.
  • Track what customers owe and what the business owes suppliers.
  • Separate universal accounting logic from country-specific tax rules.
3

Module 3

Invoicing, collections and payments under control

The café's paperwork turns into a control system: invoices issued with every field that makes them collectable, receivables and payables tracked by age, overdue accounts chased with an escalating routine, and the books reconciled against the bank each month.

Lessons included

  • Anatomy of an invoice
  • Receivables and the aging schedule
  • Chasing overdue payments methodically
  • Payables and payment timing
  • Monthly bank reconciliation

You will be able to

  • Issue invoices with the fields that make them clear and collectable, numbered and filed so none go missing.
  • Keep an aging schedule for receivables and payables that flags trouble while it's still small.
  • Chase overdue invoices with a three-step escalation — reminder, call, formal notice — without burning the relationship.
  • Reconcile a month of bank movements against the books and explain every line that differs.
4

Module 4

Building the statements and reading them like an owner

The month's ledger becomes statements you build yourself — trial balance, simple depreciation and accrual adjustments, then the income statement and balance sheet — read the way an owner needs them: where the profit went, why the cash disagrees, which lines spell trouble.

Lessons included

  • The trial balance checkpoint
  • Adjustments, then the income statement
  • Building the balance sheet
  • Profit is not cash
  • Red flags in the balance sheet

You will be able to

  • Produce a trial balance from the ledger and track down whatever doesn't match.
  • Apply simple period-end adjustments — depreciation and accruals — and assemble the income statement.
  • Build the balance sheet and tie its equity to the period's result.
  • Explain how a profitable month can still empty the bank account, and spot the balance-sheet signs of a coming squeeze.
5

Module 5

Interpret, close and decide

The café case closes for good: liquidity, debt and margin ratios turned into plain judgments, a month-end close run from a checklist, and the story behind the numbers told so an owner who never studied accounting can decide with them.

Lessons included

  • Ratios: liquidity and debt
  • Margins and their drift
  • Month-end close, step by step
  • Explaining numbers to non-accountants
  • Capstone: the complete café case

You will be able to

  • Calculate working capital, the current ratio, debt load and gross and net margins — and state what each says about the café.
  • Run the month-end close from a checklist, in order, without skipping a step.
  • Write a plain-language summary of the numbers that a non-accountant owner could act on.
  • Deliver the complete case: a full month of books, both statements and your analysis.

What you'll learn

  • Record everyday transactions (sales, purchases, collections, payments) using double entry.
  • Distinguish assets, liabilities and equity, and expense versus investment.
  • Prepare a simple balance sheet and income statement from the records.
  • Interpret liquidity, debt and margin from financial statements.
  • Organize invoicing and payment tracking in a spreadsheet.

Roles this course opens up

Typical job titles that ask for this skill.

Accounting Assistant
Bookkeeper
Billing Clerk
Finance Assistant

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