The study of bookkeeping focuses on the essential recording of financial transactions within a business, the first step in assessing a company's financial condition. Students learn how to properly track cash disbursements and sales, which are entered into a ledger for the preparation of monthly statements used in making a variety of business decisions.
Students should expect to gain knowledge in a variety of areas including:
Students should leave school with a sound basis in economics to help them understand the role that bookkeepers play in the larger scheme of things. Typical courses teach students how to prepare financial reports for stockholders, creditors, regulatory agencies and tax authorities.
Bookkeepers must have a basic fluency in mathematics. Students gain proficiency in business math covering arithmetic, decimals, percentages, fractions, ratios, averages, and some basic algebra as they are applied to common business situations.
Learning the ins and outs of computers is essential to a bookkeeper's ability to manage accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, purchase orders, and more. Students should becomeproficient in computer programs such as spreadsheets, databases, word processing, and accounting programs.
It's important for students to stay informed on legal matters that may affect the companies for which they will work. Students are introduced to the pronouncements issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the Securities and Exchange Commission that regulate accounting and bookkeeping practices.
Through their coursework, students learn the importance of how bookkeepers collaborate with sales and marketing staff to promote business while staying within the company's budget. Students work together to prepare budgets, monitor trends, record gross sales, and measure total sales against the cost of the marketing campaign.
Students will also develop valuable skills in the following areas:
Critical thinking is essential in diagnosing and responding to business dilemmas. Learning to analyze, synthesize, and assess ideas prepares students to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in financial matters.
Students will learn the importance of systems analysis in ensuring proper compliance with audit and security controls. Students learn the types of internal controls that systems analysis affords as well as how such controls can catch inadvertent accounting errors and malfeasance.
Bookkeeping courses online teach students how to manage financial resources, a task that begins with accurate recording practices. Students learn to craft budgetary controls over capital expenditures, staff salaries and contractual agreements with outside entities, as well as carry out performance measures, cost analysis, methods of improving profitability, stakeholder analysis, outsourcing, and investments.