Accounting and Finance
3-4 hours per week
Course Information
Course Length : 9 weeks
Estimated Effort : 3 – 4 hrs per week
Course Overview
A business’s performance is strongly influenced by four foundational drivers of profitability i.e. Asset Management, Cost Management, Leverage Management, and Tax Management. Analyzing and evaluating the role of each of these driving factors calls for a thorough understanding of Finance and Accounting on the part of the decision-makers. Hence, an aspiring entrepreneur or a budding manager can never afford to overlook the importance of building a strong financial acumen as they plan to run their venture or business successfully.
This IIMBx MOOC on Accounting and Finance taught by Prof MS Narasimhan is designed for graduates, working personnel, managers, and entrepreneurs who intend to build their financial acumen. The course will enable learners to evaluate business performance and help them identify the areas for improvement.
In this MOOC, one will learn to read and analyse financial statements, manage costs, prepare cost sheets, budget, and make cost-based decisions. The MOOC also provides an overview of financial markets to raise capital of different types. This will help learners develop the ability to prepare and evaluate finances for their business plans and manage working capital.
Professor M S Narasimhan
Finance and Accounting
Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB)
Course Syllabus
Week 1 - Mechanics of Financial Accounting
⦁ Fundamental Accounting Terms
⦁ Recording Accounting Transactions
⦁ Financial Statements
⦁ Financial Accounting Regulations
⦁ Annual Report
⦁ Uses of Financial Statements
Week 2 - Reading Financial Statements
⦁ Balance Sheet – Shareholders Fund
⦁ Balance Sheet –Liabilities
⦁ Balance Sheet – Assets
⦁ Income Statement – Revenue
⦁ Expenses and Profit
⦁ Cash Flow Statement
Week 3 - Financial Statement Analysis
⦁ Assessing Financial Health
⦁ Asset Management
⦁ Cost Management
⦁ Leverage Management
⦁ Risk Management
⦁ Benchmarking
Week 4 - Product Costing
⦁ Methods of Product Costing
⦁ Job Costing
⦁ Customer Costing
⦁ Process Costing
⦁ Indirect Cost and Allocation
⦁ Misallocation of Indirect Cost
⦁ Activity Based Costing
Week 5 - Cost Analysis for Decision Making
⦁ Absorption vs. Marginal Costing
⦁ Behavior of Costs
⦁ Break-even Analysis
⦁ BEP in Multiproduct Environment
⦁ Pricing Decision
⦁ Make or Buy decision
⦁ Discontinuing product or closing down divisions
⦁ Optimal Product Mix
⦁ Operating Leverage
Week 6: Budgeting and Variance Analysis
⦁ Strategic Planning and Budgets
⦁ Budgeting Process
⦁ Preparation of Master Budget
⦁ Setting Standards
⦁ Variance Analysis: General Framework
⦁ Fixed & Variable Overhead Variance
⦁ Material Mix Variance
⦁ Sales and Sales Mix Variance
⦁ Investigating Variance
Week 7 - Financial Markets
⦁ Introduction
⦁ Financial System
⦁ Institutional Financing
⦁ Direct Capital Flow
⦁ Financial Instruments
⦁ Role of Finance Function
⦁ Key Issues in Finance Function
⦁ Organization Structure of Finance Function
⦁ Financial Goal and Agency Cost
Week 8 - Capital Budgeting
⦁ Time Value of Money
⦁ Capital Budgeting Techniques
⦁ Estimation of Project Cash Flows
⦁ Capital Structure and Cost of Capital
⦁ Case Study
⦁ Special Issues in Capital Budgeting
Week 9 - Working Capital Management
⦁ Short-term Financial Planning
⦁ Working Capital Cycle
⦁ Financing of Working Capital
⦁ Inventory Management
⦁ Receivables Management
⦁ Cash Management
⦁ Managing Payables
By the end of this MOOC, you will be able to:
- Explain the accounting terms and concepts
- Read and interpret the different elements of financial statement
- Analyse the financial statements
- Explain the different costing techniques
- Apply the knowledge of budgeting process to prepare different kinds of budgets required in an organisation
- Brief about the financial markets and the financial instruments
- Elaborate on capital budgeting techniques
- Describe the working capital management
Executives, students pursuing post graduate and anyone aspiring to learn deeper in the field of accounting and finance.
Really useful course for Managers, especially technical managers. Since it covers most of the subjects, time may not be sufficient. Explanation for the answers in graded questions will be helpful. – Srikanth Rao
Questions are good an related. However, the answer to questions (either graded or ungraded) lacks any explanations. Sometimes explanations are required, esp. when there are calculations happening. I liked the summaries that the professor presents through the course. Sometimes the topics were boring for me as an Engineer. –Student
Recently I completed an online course on Accounting and Finance designed and presented by you. Even though I’m from a non-finance background , I could understand the topics with a keen interest in learning more because of how you structured the course and explained the contents with relevant examples. Your simple way of explaining the concept to a layman made those contents successful and easy to understand for the audience.Inspired by your course content, I bought your book “Financial statement and Analysis”; it is very useful. – Jayaraj.S (Working Professional)