A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or
more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two
months apart.
All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons
are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have
to be present when lessons are released. You will have access to all lessons until
the course ends. However, the interactive discussion area that accompanies each
lesson will automatically close two weeks after the lesson is released. As such,
we strongly recommend that you complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.
The final exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the final
exam has been released, you will have two weeks to complete all of your course work,
including the final exam.
Week One
Wednesday - Lesson 01
In this lesson, you'll learn all about accounts payable, which is a group of accounts that shows how much your business owes its vendors. You'll be journalizing and posting your company's purchases and preparing a Schedule of Accounts Payable. Keeping track of what your company owes others is a vital part of operating a business. This lesson will give you the tools you'll need to successfully track those accounts.
Friday - Lesson 02
We'll take a close look at accounts receivable in this lesson. This is the money that your customers owe your business. After completing this lesson, you'll know how to enter charge sales into your Sales Journal and then post them to your General Ledger. Knowing what your customers owe you can make the difference between your company's success or failure.
Week Two
Wednesday - Lesson 03
Today, we'll be dealing with uncollectible accounts receivable. While we'd all like to think that our customers will pay what they owe, it's not always the case. You'll learn how to account for long overdue receivables that probably won't ever be paid. While this doesn't happen often, it's a fact of business, so you'll need to know how to account for it in your company's books.
Friday - Lesson 04
In this lesson, we'll look at plant assets and depreciation. Most all businesses have assets they use to determine their income. Just like your car, business assets depreciate over time, so you'll need to know how to account for that expense in your records. And you'll need to record these assets and calculate their depreciation in a timely manner to keep accurate records for your business.
Week Three
Wednesday - Lesson 05
This lesson is all about notes payable and notes receivable. A business might need a little extra time to pay a bill beyond the usual terms offered by the vendor. Or a customer may need an extension of credit beyond what your business usually offers its charge customers. You'll find out all you need to know about accounting for these situations as we look at how to record the issuance and payment of these notes payables and notes receivables.
Friday - Lesson 06
Today, you'll learn how to deal with accrued income and accrued expenses. Accrued income is money that the company earns in one fiscal period that it doesn't receive until after another fiscal period begins. Similarly, accrued expenses are expenses that are incurred during one fiscal period that aren't paid until the next period. To get a true picture of the net income or net loss of your business, you'll need to account for the accrued income and accrued expenses within the period they're incurred.
Week Four
Wednesday - Lesson 07
In this lesson, we'll be dealing with dividends, which is money paid to the company's stockholders on their investment. You'll learn how the business accounts for the dividends it pays to its stockholders. We'll also look at retained earnings, or the amount of profit the corporation retains for future use. Then we'll begin to prepare the worksheet, possibly the most important financial report a business compiles each year.
Friday - Lesson 08
Today, we'll determine if our business has a net income or a net loss by completing the worksheet we started in the previous lesson. And because many General Ledger accounts change throughout the fiscal period—supplies are used, insurance premiums are depleted—we'll need to bring these accounts up to date to reflect their current values. So we'll also take a close look at how to make adjusting entries to update our General Ledger accounts for the beginning of the new fiscal period.
Week Five
Wednesday - Lesson 09
It's time to begin wrapping up our books for the end of the fiscal period. In this lesson, you'll learn how to compile most of the various financial reports a corporation needs to complete at the end of the fiscal period. You'll prepare an Income Statement, Stockholders' Equity Statement, Balance Sheet, and more. These are the reports that really demonstrate the success of a business.
Friday - Lesson 10
In this lesson, we'll get the books all caught up and ready for the next fiscal period. You'll go back and journalize those adjusting entries you entered into your worksheet, then you'll enter closing entries into your journal. Finally, you'll post these journal entries to the General Ledger to prepare it for the new fiscal period.
Week Six
Wednesday - Lesson 11
Today, we'll cover every employee's favorite subject: Payroll! You'll learn about various mandatory and voluntary deductions from employees' pay, as well as how to journalize and post an entire payroll. As an added bonus, after this lesson, you'll be able to check the accuracy of your own paycheck.
Friday - Lesson 12
We'll finish up by preparing a variety of end-of-year tax reports. Here's your chance to go step-by-step through a multitude of IRS forms with instructions that are much easier to understand! You'll fill out the federal Form 941, then learn how to make federal income tax deposits. Then we'll look closely at Form W-2s and Form W-3s. Finally, we'll look at how to calculate and report the company's Federal Unemployment Tax payment. This lesson is jam packed with valuable tax information!