By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Identify common financial statements and understand what the components individually mean and what information is collectively communicated by that financial statement prepared in accordance with GAAP
• Compute the cost of debt and the cost of equity and understand the implications of the capital structure decision
• Perform a basic financial statement analysis by computing common size financial statements and key financial ratios then interpreting the health of the company from such analysis
• Identify relevant and irrelevant costs in common decision scenarios then structure a way to communicate the best decision to others
• Classify costs as direct and indirect and as variable, fixed, or mixed. Divide mixed costs into fixed and variable components using the high low method. Use fixed and variable classifications for budgeting, contribution margin income statements, and cost volume profit analysis
• Allocate common costs to parts of the organization and allocate service department costs to operating departments. Understand the incentives created by allocation and the relevance or irrelevance of such allocated costs to decision making. After allocating costs, evaluate the performance of segments within the organization using return on investment or residual income
• Incorporate knowledge of the time value of money in computing the net present value and internal rate of return of a capital purchase. Also compute and interpret a payback period of the capital investment
• Identify major risks faced by companies and how to manage those risks. Understand some common underlying characteristics of occupational fraud. Learn the COSO framework of internal controls and how internal controls are assessed