Full course description
The organization’s managers play a crucial role in an organization's overall success and strategic decision-making. While non-finance managers’ primary focus may not be on accounting, they must have a solid understanding of accounting, finance, financial statements, and financial analysis to enable them to speak this language of business and communicate with the financial decision-makers of the organization. Understanding finance empowers non-financial managers to contribute effectively to organizational objectives, fostering a more collaborative and informed decision-making environment within the company. This course covers the basics of accounting and finance, financial terminology, and financial statements.
Throughout this course, you will:
- Define key financial terms and concepts relevant to business operations.
- Define Financial Intelligence and explain its importance.
- Discuss the Art of Finance and overview of Accounting and its relevance in decision-making.
- Identify, explain, and interpret the main components of financial statements (Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Statement of Cash Flows) to understand and evaluate revenue, expenses, and profitability and assess assets, liabilities, equity, cash inflows, and outflows.
- Explore the interrelationships between different Financial Statements.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the time value of money and its application in financial decision-making.
Course Format:
This course is an online, on-demand and self-paced offering.
Course Duration:
10 contact hours
Completion Credentials:
A digital credential issued by American University consisting of a certificate of completion and a digital badge will be issued to you upon successfully completing the course.
Policies and Processes
Refunds:
The following is the refund policy for courses registered through our Professional and Lifelong Learning Portal (https://american.catalog.instructure.com/).
Learners will be eligible for a refund (minus any non-refundable fees) if they drop a course and request a refund no later than the date the course starts as per the dates in Canvas and/or Canvas Catalog platforms. If a learner registered for a course after the start date, they will be ineligible for a refund.
Learners registered for on-demand courses without a start date will be eligible for a refund if the course is dropped and a refund is requested within 24 hours of registration and when there is no record of page views or participation in the Canvas Platform.
Refund requests will be denied if requested after a course’s start date, 24 hours after registration in the case of on-demand courses without a start date, or when there is a record of page views or participation in the canvas Platform.
Payments and fees:
For payments with credit cards, debit cards or bank accounts, the tuition cost includes a non-refundable 4% administrative fee. In case an eligible refund is requested, the net funds returned will be the tuition minus 4%.
Notice about AU Non-Credit Courses:
Non-credit courses are not recorded in American University transcripts. No credit is earned from these courses and grades are not posted. Learners enrolled in Non-Credit courses will not receive an AU ID or have access to services and or facilities reserved for AU students. Access to the AU library system will be available to all members of the greater Washington DC area through visitor services. See the link for more information https://www.american.edu/library/services/visitors.cfm
For questions or help regarding this course, contact the Lifelong Learning team at lifelonglearning@american.edu.