BUSI 106: Financial Accounting Welcome to BUSI 106: Financial Accounting. This page is the course syllabus, which includes all policies, grading guidelines, and expectations for your participation in this course. This syllabus includes the following topics: Course Overview Required Text Course Goals Course Requirements Grading Connect Plus (Homework) Hints for Success Academic Policies COURSE OVERVIEW This course provides an introduction to financial accounting, a system that collects and processes financial information about an organization and reports that information to decision makers. The decision makers include investors, financial analysts, creditors, governmental units, and a wide array of people who have a stake in the success of the organization. Financial accounting is a comprehensive function that involves analyzing, measuring (both objective and subjective), recording, and reporting financial information about a company or not for profit organization. Every public company (meaning that it sells stock publicly) and most private companies use financial accounting in an attempt to measure the value of their operations and of the entity at a given point in time. Financial accounting reports attempt to answer the questions: How well did we do this past year? and What is our company worth right now?
The information captured by financial accounting is conveyed in financial statements that include three reports: the balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows. By examining these statements, one can gain valuable insights about the details of the company's performance. For example, one could learn how much of a company's accounts receivable are likely to be collected, how much the company pays its top executives, and how and where the company is expanding, among other information. Managers, competitors, investors, and regulatory bodies such as the Securities Exchange Commission are all privy to the financial statements of public companies. These users carefully interpret financial statements and use their findings as the basis for important business decisions. The goal of this course is for you to develop a solid, basic understanding of the fundamentals of financial accounting through the identification and examination of the key concepts and methodologies used in the field. Additionally, we will consider the impact of these concepts and methodologies on the use of financial statements by both managers and public investors. This course is intended for students with no prior exposure to accounting or financial statements, and does not require significant exposure to the general business world. It will provide a basic accounting foundation for students who may later seek a career in marketing, management, finance, banking, manufacturing, human resources, and, of course, accounting. Accounting is a challenging course because it requires precision in the recording, summarizing, and reporting of the business transactions a company engages in. These transactions must be reported accurately and consistently from period to period. It could be said that accounting is unforgiving in this respect, and many students find it a challenge to carefully and consistently tend to the details. You should allow yourself plenty of time to complete the homework assignments, and keep in mind that exam questions that require numerical calculations will have a single correct numerical answer. REQUIRED TEXT See the Course Description for the most up to date list of materials. COURSE GOALS This course essentially consists of four main parts with an evaluation at the end of each part. The goal of Part I is to develop an overall understanding of the function of financial accounting. The balance sheet and income statement, as well as the recording and adjusting processes, will be introduced. This part ends with Quiz 1. In Part II we take a closer look at the reporting for revenue and other assets, both short term and long term. This part ends with Quiz 2. In Part III we will cover the liability and owners' equity accounts. Part III also includes the cash flow statement the final financial statement that we will be examining. This part ends with Quiz 3. In Part IV, we will wrap up the course and tie together everything we have learned by using this knowledge to analyze a specific company's financial position. For your final assignment, you will be given a comprehensive case where you will be looking at specific accounts to reach an overall financial assessment of the company. As you can see, the course is varied in that we will be looking at both the mechanics of financial accounting and the larger concepts as well. In Parts I and IV, we are flying above the financial accounting forest where we see three basic financial statements and the role they play in business decision making. In Parts II and III, we are cruising
through the forest looking at specific balance sheet and income statement accounts. Throughout the course, timely accounting issues such as fraudulent reporting of revenue will be considered. These themes are pervasive in the three specific goals for students in the course: 1. Understand the fundamentals of financial accounting, including its function, the balance sheet, the income statement, and the accrual recording process. 2. Learn to account for revenues, expenses, and assets and to recognize relevant issues. 3. Learn to account for liabilities and owners' equity. Understand the statement of cash flow. 4. Incorporate new knowledge and key financial ratios into financial analysis. COURSE REQUIREMENTS This course consists primarily of readings, homework problems, and three quizzes. The readings develop the background for understanding the fundamental elements of financial accounting, how they are accounted for, and their effect on management planning. The homework problems are exercises that focus on the mechanics of financial accounting. The quizzes will ensure your comprehension of the concepts from the text and the homework problems. The discussion forum serves as a means of exchanging views on important emerging issues that relate to the topics we will be covering. The final case involves a review of the mechanics covered throughout the semester and a big picture analysis of what these details reveal about the selected company s financial situation. GRADING The graded portion of the course is based on your performance on the following: homework problems (30 percent) three quizzes (15 percent each = 45 percent total) final case (20 percent) participation in the discussion forum (5 percent). Homework problems You will have thirteen homework assignments worth roughly 3 points each. Each lesson will require you to complete several problems on the Connect Plus website associated with your textbook. Unexcused late assignments will receive no credit. Participation in the discussion forums Participation in the forums will be evaluated based on the quality of the comments you post. A good submission will reflect a thorough familiarity with the discussion topic, showing that you have read the relevant materials, considered them carefully, weighed all sides to the argument, and formed an opinion or at least that you see why people have differing opinions on the topic. Some of the discussion forum topics may seem a little difficult, so please feel free in your submissions to highlight areas that are confusing to you. There will be six discussion forums where you post responses to the assigned topics. The first forum is for practice, so only five will be graded. Each discussion forum is worth 1 point. If you submit a posting of appropriate length (see
the Discussion Forum section below) that presents good ideas, you will receive one point. If you make no submission at all or one that is of poor quality and reflects little effort, you will receive no credit. Quizzes You will have three quizzes; each is worth 15 percent of your grade and consists of thirty multiple choice questions. The goal of the quizzes is to test your mastery of the concepts we cover. The quizzes will be a mix of calculation type problems and conceptual questions. The quizzes will be open book and open notes, but you must not receive help from another person. You will take your multiple choice quizzes online in ConnectPlus. The quizzes will be available for a three to four day period (noted in the Schedule). You may take the quiz at any point during that period, but you must complete the quiz within the allotted time. You will have ninety minutes to complete Quiz 1, two hours to complete Quiz 2, and two hours to complete Quiz 3. In accordance with the Honor Code, you may neither give nor receive any help on these quizzes. Final comprehensive case The final assignment of the course is a single integrative case that will involve both quantitative and qualitative aspects. This case assignment takes the place of a final exam and will be available in the Resources section on the date indicated in the Schedule. Each student is expected to work independently on this case. When you are ready to submit your case, navigate to the Drop Box tool on Sakai s left navigation bar. You will see a folder with your name on it. Using the Add dropdown menu, select Upload Files to submit your assignment. CONNECT PLUS (HOMEWORK) Getting started with Connect Plus 1. Access the Connect Plus site by using the Connect Plus link in the left navigation bar. 2. Register: The first time you visit the site, you will need to complete a one time registration using the 20 digit code located on the back of the Connect Plus access card that came with your textbook. The code is casesensitive, so type everything just as it appears on the card. 3. Create a password: As part of the registration process, you will create a password. Be sure to write it down because you will use it to access the site from that point forward. 4. When you are ready to work on your homework assignment, click on the lesson number and enter your email address and the password that you created. 5. The answer key will be available in Connect Plus once you submit the assignment. Note that in Connect Plus you can save or submit your homework. Save means you plan to return and completed your homework later. Submit means that you are submitting your assignment for grading and cannot return to work on the problems. Important Student Tips! See the Connect site for additional student resources and answers to frequently asked questions.
1. You can only do one thing at a time. You cannot view past results while you are in the process of taking an assignment. You cannot take two graded assignments at the same time. 2. There is a print option icon (which looks like a printer) for each assignment in Connect. You may wish to switch from portrait to landscape, and extend the margins as far as possible if needed. 3. As you are working on an assignment, periodically click the save icon (which looks like a computer disk) in case your computer crashes or if there's a power failure. 4. If you need to quit the assignment, be sure to click save & exit so your work is saved and you can revisit it later. 5. When you've completed the assignment and are ready to send it to your instructor for grading, click submit assignment. 6. Don't copy and paste this might enter illegal characters in your homework and prevent you from getting a grade. 7. Be sure to follow the instructions on the Connect Plus site about rounding your answers since failure to use the right number of decimal places can lead to the wrong answer, even though it is approximately correct. 8. To navigate through the questions in an assignment, you can select a question from the drop down menu or use the previous or next buttons as you advance through the assignment. Do not use your browser's back and forward buttons to navigate through your questions as it could result in losing some of the work you ve entered for this assignment. The Ask Any Question forum is a place where you can ask questions about the course at any time, including questions about issues that do not have specific forums. I will read this forum regularly and respond promptly (many times I will be able to respond the day you post, but other times, I will be traveling or out of the office and will respond as soon as possible). In addition, all students are expected to read the Ask Any Question forum regularly and to respond to the questions of other students (this counts towards participation credit). This discussion forum is one of the important ways you can learn from the course by sharing your questions and answers with other students, just as you might in a typical class meeting. The main goal of the Ask Any Question discussion forum is to provide a place for you to post any type of question that comes to you in the progress of the semester. Most often this will be questions about the assignments. Posting your question here will allow everyone to see the answer to your question and will comfort many that you have the same question that they do. I will be watching the forum regularly (I may miss a day or two from time to time when I am out of town) and watch for your posts. I want each of you to look at the questions and to try to answer them with a follow up post. This is like someone asking a question in class and I ask for someone in the class to answer. Asking and answering questions about the material is very important because I'm sure you will all have questions at some point, and likely someone else will have the same question. So using the Ask Any Question forum is a key way to make progress in the course and to speed up your learning. It is the closest thing we have to the classroom setting. I will usually add something to the answers that are posted as well. Answering these questions on the forum is a key way to get class participation points. You might view it as a computer based study group, where you are sharing questions and answers. I've also included a forum called Items in the News, where I will post and comment on news items and articles that are related to our course material. These will be posted as relevant news item occur and not on a specific regular basis. You are welcome to add your comments or questions regarding these news items. If you see a news item you would like to include, you are welcome to post it as well, including its link, and a few of your comments. Participation in this forum is NOT required and will NOT affect your course grade in any way. This is a free resource for you. The
purpose of this new discussion forum is to provide you an opportunity to increase your understanding of the course material by discussing it in the context of current events. Watching for Posts in the Discussion Forums Since I want to know right away when someone has posted to any of the forums, I have my forums set up so that I receive an email notification whenever someone posts to one of the forums. Each of you can set your forum notifications in this manner by going to the Watch tab on the command line of the forum page. There you can choose: (a) to be notified by email whenever a new message is posted (b) to be notified by email when a thread you have contributed to receives a new message (c) no email notification. I suggest you choose (a) so that you are better connected to the forum conversations. Option (b) is the default setting in Sakai. HINTS FOR SUCCESS Complete the following steps for each lesson: 1. First, read the Objectives and Overview sections for that lesson. 2. Do the textbook reading assignment and look at the Web resources. 3. Next, begin working on your written assignment. While you are working on it, take a look at the worked problems from the text that I've provided for you in the Resources section (left navigation bar). They will give you an idea of what a good solution would look like for the problems in that lesson. Use them as models for your own solutions. 4. Finally, if the lesson has a discussion forum assignment, complete it before the end of the lesson period. Discuss general questions and relevant issues with your fellow students on the forum. Don't get behind. It is hard to catch up because we deal with many different, essential concepts and techniques, and much of the material later in the course builds on material covered early in the course. Don't hesitate to use email or the Ask Any Question discussion forum to get help as soon as you need it. Finally, please be sure to check the Announcements page reguarly in Sakai. To make sure everyone is notified when I make an important announcement in Sakai, I will send everyone an email to notify them that the announcement has been posted. Other announcements of lesser importance will not have an email to everyone, and you should find these by regularly checking the Announcements page, which you can access through the left sidebar of Sakai. ACADEMIC POLICIES By enrolling as a student in this course, you agree to abide by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill policies related to the acceptable use of online resources. Please consult the Acceptable Use Policy on topics such as copyright, net etiquette, and privacy protection. As part of this course, you may be asked to participate in online discussions or other online activities that may include personal information about you or other students in the course. Please be respectful of the rights and protection of other participants under the UNC Chapel Hill Information Security Policies when participating in online classes.
When using online resources offered by organizations not affiliated with UNC Chapel Hill, such as Google or YouTube, please note that the terms and conditions of these companies and not the University s Terms and Conditions apply. These third parties may offer different degrees of privacy protection and access rights to online content. You should be well aware of this when posting content to sites not managed by UNC Chapel Hill. When links to sites outside of the unc.edu domain are inserted in class discussions, please be mindful that clicking on sites not affiliated with UNC Chapel Hill may pose a risk for your computer due to the possible presence of malware on such sites. Honor Code As a UNC student, you are expected to uphold the University s Honor Code. All work that you produce must be your own! Plagiarism is a serious offense and will not be tolerated in this course. Be sure that you understand the correct way to cite scholarly material when completing assignments by consulting the Chicago Manual of Style. If you have any additional questions about what constitutes plagiarism, or how to properly cite a source, please contact me. Please view this brief Plagiarism Tutorial created by the librarians of UNC Chapel Hill, Duke University, NC State University, and NC Central University.