Computer Accounting Course Outline

Elements of the balance sheet; assets; liabilities and equity; dual-aspect concept; money measurement concept; entity concept; going-concern concept; asset management concept; balance sheet items and changes; income measurement.

The account; rules for increases and decreases; debit and credit; income statement accounts; the ledger and the journal; the closing process; a note on computers; fiscal year; accrual accounting; conservatism; materiality; realization; service revenue; amount of revenue; monetary assets; days' sales uncollected.

Expense and expenditure; unexpired and expired costs; matching concept; expenses that create liabilities; fringe benefits; rent; losses; the income statement; cost of sales; inventory valuation; first-in, first-out and last-in, first-out methods; average-cost method; adjustment to market; inventory in a manufacturing company; product and period costs; inventory turnover; noncurrent assets; acquisitions; capital leases; depreciation; depletion; intangible assets.

Working, debt and equity capital; sources of capital; retained earnings and dividends; distributions to shareholders; balancing debt and equity capital; debt ratio; consolidated financial statements; cash flow from operating activities, investing and financing activities; adjustments for depreciation expense and changes in working capital accounts and current assets and liabilities; net effect of working capital changes; summary of operating adjustments; the cash flow statement.

Limitations of financial statement analysis; auditing; measures of performance and profitability; return on equity; tests of capital utilization and financial condition; non-profit organizations; net assets; revenues, expenses and investments; transfers; similarities to financial statement of for-profit entities; limitation of ratio analysis.

Manual vs. computer accounting; navigating Peachtree®; the help feature; how to open, save and back up files; types of organizations; setting up a new company; creating a chart of accounts; entering balances.

Transactions and the general journal; creating new accounts and entering beginning balances for a simple cash business; recording and editing transactions in the general journal; printing the general journal and financial statements.

Recording accounts receivable; creating subsidiary ledger accounts for customers and vendors and entering the beginning balances; processing accounts receivable, payable, sales and purchase transactions; creating action items and event logs; adjusting the accounts receivable for uncollectible accounts and print reports; recording accounts payable; how to create subsidiary ledger accounts.

Recording and managing cash; using the cash payments and cash receipts modules; preparing a reconciliation of the checking account.

How to journalize the adjusting entries; preparing and printing the financial statements; changing the financial statements; changing the accounting period.

Periodic and perpetual inventory systems; common inventory costing methods; the inventory account; subsidiary ledger accounts for inventory items; processing inventory and sales transactions; inventory sales concepts; creating sales tax accounts and codes; invoicing; creating sales orders from quotations; recording finance charges on overdue customer balances; printing inventory and sales reports.

General payroll concepts; using the Payroll Setup Wizard; payroll system maintenance; printing payroll checks, tax returns and payroll reports; job costing projects; creating phase codes and cost codes and entering estimated revenue and expenses; using the job costing system to record purchases; creating and printing job cost reports.

Calculating, recording and preparing reports for fixed assets and depreciation; creating subsidiary ledger records for individual fixed assets; making entries to record the disposal of fixed assets; entering the disposal of a fixed asset in the general journal; partnerships and corporations; recording paid-in capital and retained earnings; the stockholders' equity section of the balance sheet; recording dividends; creating partnership and corporate accounts and entering corresponding transactions; closing the fiscal year.