Greg Miller and Gautam Kaul

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From the course by University of Michigan

Accounting for Decision Making

45 ratings

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University of Michigan

Accounting for Decision Making

45 ratings

Through this course, you will start by addressing the two “big questions” of accounting: “What do I have?” and “How did I do over time?” You will see how the two key financial statements – the balance sheet and the income statement - are designed to answer these questions and then move on to consider how individual transactions aggregate to make up these financial statements. After developing a broad understanding of accounting and financial statements, you will begin to develop a more nuanced understanding of individual components of doing business, such as making a sale or building inventory. By considering many of the more common actions of a company, you will build your understanding of accounting, and explore these concepts by applying them across various types of transactions. Once you understand these individual concepts better, you will be ready to return to the overall financial statements and use them as informational tools, including building ratios. You can do this course standalone or to qualify for the residential component of the Finance for Strategic Decision-Making Executive Education program. For more information, see the FAQ below.

From the lesson

Ratios and Course End Assessment

We have covered a lot of ground. You now are familiar with financial statements and the underlying transactions that create them. Our goal is to help you use accounting to make decisions and you have surely gotten much better at that. Now we get the big payoff - we learn how to build ratios to provide insights regarding the decisions we are making (maybe even to help us decide what types of decisions we should consider). We have seen a few ratios as we went through the course, but in this module we are going to discuss how to go about making your own ratios related to whatever question you want to answer. I think you will be surprised to find how easy it is now that you understand accounting. In fact, it is so easy that it will be just a couple of short lessons. Along with those short lessons, the rest of the week can be used to prepare for and take the final comprehensive exam. It will go back over material from each module to assure that you can pull it all together.

Greg Miller and Gautam Kaul4:32

Meet the Instructors

Greg Miller
Professor
Ross School of Business

Hi, we are here talk about this new hybrid program,

and I wanted to introduce Greg,

who I've known for many years and who will be

the expert in accounting and it's my pleasure to be part of this team.

Yeah I'm really excited about this project as well.

It's been great to have an opportunity to work with Gautam,

who was one of my teachers way back when I was in the PhD program,

and that's how we've known each other for years.

What I also like is that without even talking,

we sometimes know what the other person is going to

say and I think that's very important to this program.

In the sense that we have come to agree upon,

how to create a hybrid program,

with the format and what you're doing fits.

So very quickly the digital format,

is one that you get to see content

repeatedly at your own pace and come prepared for the second part.

And I think Greg puts the second part

so well that I'm going to listen to him and said talk about it.

So the great thing about the second part is,

once you get here and we can engage with you.

We can actually push you much further than you can through some sort of a video,

where we can't figure out what does that you're struggling with,

or even more importantly,

where is it that we can push you a little more.

So from the moment you walk in you'll be working with data,

you'll have to make a case,

you have to be able to defend your views,

not just to Gautam or myself which is tough enough,

but also to all of your classmates there.

The other great thing about this mixed format is that when you get here,

you're going to be in a class with a whole bunch of

other people who are already prepared to be here.

People who've completed a finance,

and an accounting component of this.

So that we can hit the ground running and take off.

Most other programs like this,

you come in and some people need basic work,

and other people need advanced work,

and we can't find a happy medium that works for both groups.

That means time's wasted for everybody.

Here, we won't waste a second.

And another advantage of not wasting a second is,

you're not taking five days off for the whole week from your work.

Right. You're saving time, you're saving money,

and you're getting the education I believe,

in the best two formats right now.

You won't believe this but,

he and I have been talking about working with some people

sitting behind the cameras over here, for about a year now.

This is not plug and chug in design.

This is very deeply thought out with you in mind,

and you get to see us before you come.

That's not possible in today's world in

most admission based programs that I can think of, right Greg?

That's right. I hate being away from my family.

I hate being away from my home,

and this is a chance to really get value for the time you're away.

That makes traveling worth it.

And what you'll get in the second piece you can think of combining with the first one is,

you'll have a Certificate in Finance and Strategic Thinking,

Decision Making, Value Creation.

In fact, one way to think of this is to compare it

to what we do in the MBA program here at Ross.

When you're taking that MOOC part that's a lot of

the fundamentals that we would cover in an intro class.

We can't push it as far as we would if you were here in person,

but we can give you a lot of those basics.

When you come here for the two days intensively with us,

that's where we're really going to take off and push it.

There you're going to get the equivalent experience to take in an elective,

and not just any elective,

it's an elective where you've got the two of us in there at

the same time, pushing on you,

pushing the idea and making you make not just one person happy but two people happier.

And that is exponentially more difficult,

than just coming in and taking one class,

which means you'll get a lot more out of it.

And I would strongly encourage you to check us out, see,

take the online class and maybe you can convince your colleagues at work,

and what that will enable us to do both digitally,

and face to face is speak to your company's issues,

right, speak to decision making within the context of the company.

To me that's this mix of digital and face

to face with customization is

the best possible education I can think of, right now at least.

We can do something in a hybrid format that you

just simply can't do with either one of the formats on their own.

So I think Greg and I would really like you to take both courses,

they are available all the time,

at your convenience and get excited and come visit us and we learn together as well.

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