17 Accounting Online Courses Platform for Everyone

Engineers might build the world, and we might have all this comfort because of the technocrats pulling all-nighters. But it is the accountants that maintain the balance in between and, in a way, run this world.  

Like every innovation, every fresh idea and galloping leap in humanity requires money to be moved from Account A to Account B. The transfer has to be accurate and within the shortest time to make things possible; that is where the role of accountants gets so essential. 

Accountants are the ones that see the numbers behind the innovations, and they are the ones that deem impossible things possible by moving money around. As technology and innovations grow, there is a similar rising interest in accountancy. Many students are being seen taking up the discipline because they understand how significant it is. 

In this article, we will discuss some of the leading accountancy courses that will cater to your every doubt when it comes to accountancy, and when you are done with them, you will be a force to be reckoned with. The list is long, in-depth, and will focus on all the courses’ salient features and find the right fit for you. 

Udemy 

We will start with the most popular platform that has become a familiar name for certification courses online- Udemy. 

Introduction to Finance, Accounting, Modeling, and Valuation

The Introduction to Finance, Accounting, Modeling, and Valuation on Udemy, is one of the most popular courses on Accounting in addition to Finance, Modeling, and valuation. 

This NASBA CPE credits: 6.0 course includes 4.5 hours of on-demand video, 6 articles, 15 downloadable resources, 1 practice test, Full lifetime access on mobile or TV, certificate of completion.

Mr. Chris Haroun offers the course, an Award-Winning MBA Professor, Ivy Grad, and Ex-VC Goldman. Chris has sold over 1,000,000 of his online business & self-improvement courses spread over 12 languages across 196 countries, which speaks volumes about his popular teaching strategy. 

The students will accomplish the following tricks of the trait at the end of the course-

• Analyze and understand a balance sheet
• Understand and utilize modeling best practices
• Create a financial model for income and cash flow statements
• Learn how to use Discounted Cash (DCF) 
• How to use P/R to pick target prices
• Analyze financial statements using profitability ratios.

In addition to the field’s traits, the students are coached on data handling, in-depth financial models, and valuations methodologies such as EV/Sales, EV/ EBITDA, P/B, EV/FCF, and many more.

The course has been rated 5 by over 25,000 students. What makes the program better than other courses available in a similar discipline is how it gets updated by the handler in a few months to keep the students updated with what’s new in the domain. 

Accounting in 60 minutes- A brief introduction

Accounting in 60 minutes is yet another popular course available on accounting on the Udemy platform. It has hit a chord with its students/ readers/ audience because of its compact nature. As the name suggests, the course will take you on a brief spin about accounting and introduce you to all the basic jargon, methodologies, and functions of Accounting. 

The NASBA CPA credit 2.0 course offers 1-hour on-demand video, 10 downloadable resources, 1 practice test, full lifetime access on mobile or TV, and a certificate of completion at the end of the course. You can choose to take this course or even give it to someone you think might need to grow their career. 

The course is offered by Mr. Vincent Turner, who is one of the favorites of teaching accounting. Mr. Turner has taught over 90,000 students on the Udemy platform. He holds an MSBA and is a Certified Information Systems Auditor.

If you choose to enroll in the course, you will learn to:

• Understand the basic accounting equations
• Prepare balance sheet and income statements
• Understand the difference between debit and credit
• Understand why profit does not equal cash

The field of accounting is vast, which keeps growing by the day. And it is impossible to present every aspect of accounting in a single course. Therefore, Mr. Turner understands that he has created this course to instill in his students’ interest in accounting and an essential arsenal to go ahead in the field independently. 

Since the course takes you on an interesting introductory joyride around accounting, and the basic concepts always remain the same, it does not require a lot of updating. However, the instructor can update the course based on the feedback received from the students. 

Coursera

It is impossible to talk about online certification programs and not mention Coursera.

Introduction to Financial Accounting by Brian J Bushee on Coursera

Introduction to Financial Accounting offered by Wharton, University of Pennsylvania takes upon a specific vertical of the discipline and educates its students on the relevant preliminary topics. It is created to introduce students to the intricacies and concepts that make up Financial Accounting. 

The 100% online course offers flexible deadlines, a Shareable certificate, 13 hours of visual lecture. It comes in multiple languages such as Arabic, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Italian, Vietnamese, German, Russian, English, Spanish, and Japanese.

The course is offered by Mr. Brian J Bushee. The university associated with this program is the University of Pennsylvania, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.

If you choose to join this course, you will be trained over the following skills:

• Financial Accounting
• Accounting
• Financial Statement
• Balance Sheet

The course can be applied to multiple specialized disciplines, and completing this course will count towards being trained in any of the following programs-

• Business Foundation
• Introduction to Finance Specialization

The course has trained over 250,000 enthusiastic students and has received mostly positive reviews.

Financial Accounting Fundamentals

Financial Accounting Fundamentals is yet another one of the most popular Accounting courses on Coursera. It covers every fundamental aspect of Financial Accounting, instilling a preliminary understanding of the discipline in its students. 

The 100% beginner-level online course offers a flexible deadline and a shareable certificate after the procedure. This multilingual course comes in Arabic, French, Portuguese, Italian, Vietnamese, German, Russian, Spanish, and English. 

Ms. Luann J. Lynch teaches the Financial Accounting Fundamentals. She’s a Professor of Business Administration at Darden School of Business. She has trained over 145,000 students through her two published courses on the platform. The course is offered by the University of Virginia, a premier institution that offers outstanding academics, world-class faculty, and an inspiring, supportive environment.

If you choose to join the course, you will learn:

• Draw the most fundamental conclusion about a company’s financial health.
• Using Journal Entries to record transactions
• Prepare and utilize T Accounts to summarize recorded transactions 
• Prepare financial statements based on transactions
• Three most commonly used financial statements 

Since the course covers every Fundamentals node of Financial Accounting, you will be ready to learn about the same at an advanced level and be equipped with the knowledge for any entry-level job in accounting. 

Fundamentals of Accounting Specialization

Fundamentals to Accounting Specialization introduces you to the basics of financing and every critical aspect and takes you on a detailed and thorough spin around Accounting and Balancing. 

This beginner-level course has a flexible schedule and offers shareable certificates that can be quickly posted on social media websites like LinkedIn and AngelList. The multilingual course is available in Arabic, French, Portuguese, Italian, Vietnamese, German, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian, other than English. 

The instructors of this course are Ms. Kevin E Jackson, Gary Hecht, and Sharon P. Cox. The University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign offers the course.

The course aims to make you equipped with the following knowledge after its completion:

• Discounting and compounding arbitrary cash flow streams to value different claims and make better financial decisions
• Classification of cash flows
• Difference between NPV and IRR
• Investment in debt and equity securities

The course also focuses on skills relevant to the field such as Corporate Finance, Financial Accounting, Financial Statements, Accounting, Decision-making, Discounted Cash Flow, Cash Flow Analysis, Balance Sheet, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, and Accounting Terminology. 1100 students have already enrolled for this course to learn the basics of finance and accounting.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the earliest social media platform that understood the need for a social space for professionals. What started as a way for professional people to connect has turned into a massive movement about career growth, networking, and connecting with people.

To train people in their industry, LinkedIn has started a sub-venture under the name of LinkedIn learning which trains professionals on various skills and provides a badge of completion at the end of their training, which can be shared as part of skills on the LinkedIn profile platform.

Develop Your Finance and Accounting Skills 

Developing Your Finance and Accounting Skills is not a particular course, but instead a stack of Multiple classes, seven to be exact. The parts covered under multiple classes of the stack are Accounting Foundations, Bookkeeping, Financial Accounting Foundations, Business Tax Foundations, Finance Foundations, Income Taxes, and Corporate Financial Statement Analysis.

The courses are prepared by a group of accomplished Authors, like Mr. Jim Stice, Kay Stice, and Michael McDonald. With the course “Develop Your FInance and Accounting Skills,” you will be able to review concepts such as financial analysis, accounting, and budgeting. The course will also teach you how to use financial data to assess and diagnose intricate business conditions, identify bottlenecks and issues, and eventually develop plans to resolve them. 

It also explores processes to determine how money should be spent to get the work done and establish and maintain realistic budgets. In a nutshell, you get to learn the following after the completion of the course:

• Explore FInancial, Managerial, and Tax Accounting
• Relate Accounting, Decision-making, and financial health
• Interpret Financial Statements, and communicate results.

Become a Bookkeeper

Similar to the previous course in the list, The Become a Bookkeeper course on LinkedIn is a set of 6-course, 14-hour long content, where you get to learn everything there is to know about becoming a bookkeeper. 

The course covers the following chapters/units:

• Accounting Foundations: Bookkeeping by Jim Stice
• Finance Essentials for Small Businesses by Jim Stice
• Running a Profitable Business: Understanding Cash Flow by Jim Stice
• Quickbooks Online Essential Training by Bonnie Biafore
• Quicks Desktop: Tips and Tricks by Bonnie Biafore
• Quickbooks: Advanced Bookkeeping Techniques by Bonnie Biafore.  

Ms. Bonnie Biafore is a LinkedIn Learning Rockstar, Project Management Consultant, and Microsoft Project Guru. She works to explain complex and dry topics like project management, bookkeeping, and software tools. 

The bookkeeping course reviews all concepts involved in bookkeeping skills by building a solid foundation in accounting and small business finance and Quickbooks and the best bookkeeping practices. 

At the end of the course, you will have mastered the fundamentals of bookkeeping, finance, and accounting. You can create your sample company files and records in QuickBooks. Also, You will learn a lot inexplicably from the industry leaders and experts on how to run a profitable business. 

Financial Accounting on Harvard.edu 

Harvard University is one of the most sought-after universities in the world. And when someone from Harvard is teaching about finance and accounting, the world surely does pay attention. 

Financial Accounting helps you discover and understand everything that goes behind numbers in financial statements and unlocks the most critical insights into business performances and potential to reach a strategic decision.

The 8-week long introductory course on financial Accounting is self-paced and covers Accounting, Financial Accounting, Career Development, Professional Development, and Self-Improvement. The system is associated with Harvard Business School. 

After the course, you will be able to:

• Appreciate how the balance sheet, income statements, and cash flow statements are constructed
• Use of Financial Statements for business health evaluation
• Understand multiple accounting standards like US GAAP, and IFRS
• Reach strategic decisions through preparation and evaluation of financial forecasting.
•  Perform sensitivity analysis and evaluate a venture, project, or investment opportunity.  

The course is offered by V G Narayanan, who has a keen interest in teaching and reaching out to students to solve their problems. This course is a way to reach out to the students globally and be able to make Finance and Accounting a little less complex. 

edX

edX is yet another online learning platform that offers courses on various subjects. These courses are prepared in collaboration with universities and organizations that also provide a certificate after course completion. Certificates obtained from EDX stand at par with credentials obtained from websites like Coursera and others discussed previously. 

Gain Skills in Financial Accounting, Managerial Accounting, and Tax

Gain Skills in Financial Accounting, Managerial Accounting, and Tax is a Micro-Masters Program in accounting on edX.com offered in association with Indiana University. It is a 3-expert grade level instructor-led course in which assignments and exams that have a specific timeline must be followed. The course duration is 9 months, with 8-12 hours of viewing hours per week. 

The course is offered by three accomplished teachers of the Indian University; Mr. Ken Merkeley, Associate Professor of Accounting at Indian University; Mr. Brain P Miller, Associate Professor of Accounting, Indiana University; and Mr. Grieg Geisler, Clinical Professor of Accounting, also of Indiana University. 

You will be able to learn the following after completing the above course- 

• Measure and Report a wide array of transactions, arrangements, events, balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements.
• Understand key elements of Financial reporting such as revenues, losses, net incomes, assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity.
• Use the essential information to draw strategic decisions such as Product Costs, Cost Allocations, customer profitability, budgets, execution plans, and control firm strategy.

The list of takeaways from the course is endless. As the Professors who are the course coordinators have been associated with the industry for over a decade, they have a lot to offer that cannot be summarized in bullet points.  

The introduction to the Financial Accounting course poses a few questions to the audience; How do investors, creditors, and others analyze financial statements to assess corporate performance and answers in the form of what it will offer. The course promises to teach you financial accounting, read financial information, and gather inputs from valuation methods. 

The instructor-led paced course is estimated to be 12 weeks, with 10-14 hours of commitment every week, and it is free of cost, with an optional upgrade. 32000 students have already enrolled for this course.

The course will be taught by Mr. John Core, Nanyang Technological University Professor and Professor of Accounting, Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Mr. Egor Matyeyev, the Executive Director of Micromasters Finance at MIT. 

The course offers to make you:

• Understand accounting terms
• Understand how financial statements are constructed 
• Ability to read financial statements 
• Gather inputs to valuation models and for corporate finance decisions. 

The course is open to everyone. However, people from Iran, Cuba, and the Crimea regions of Ukraine will not be able to register for the course. 

Financial Accounting Made Fun

Financial Accounting Made Fun is one of the most interactive courses made on Financial Accounting on EDX.com. The course is famous for its exciting material, crisp and conceptual teaching method, and how easily complex theories are broken into more straightforward concepts. 

The course is estimated to be 4 weeks long with 4-6 viewing hours every week, making it 24-hour content. The pace of the course is instructor-led, which means that all students move together and can discuss the subjects among themselves. 

The course instructor is Prof. Peter Wilson, Accounting and Law, Babson College. Pete currently serves as a faculty in the college and teaches purses in financial reporting and statement analysis.

Some of the courses instructed by Pete are:

• Business Principles and Entrepreneurial Thought
• Fundamentals of Financial Analysis
• Financial Decision-Making for Leaders

The Financial Accounting Made Fun promises to teach how to interpret and use the information in financial statements correctly to make critical operating decisions. At the end of the course, the students will have the understanding of the following:

• Primary Financial Statements
• Types of Information to be captured in Statements
• Difference between Cash and Profit
• How to use the information to manage growth effectively
• Key Performance Ratios, Evaluation of Performance of Businesses
• Financial Forecasting

Accounting 101: Financial Accounting on Study.com

Accounting 101 focuses on the basics of Financial Accounting. The course has been evaluated and recommended for three semester hours and can also be transferred to over 2000 colleges and universities, making it universally accepted by most. It offers expert instructions on financial accounting essentials. 

Fourteen chapters cover essential topics of the subject, such as the purpose of Accounting, GAAP, Financial Statements, Receivables, Operating Cycles, Liabilities, Cash Flows, and more. Each chapter comes with multiple lessons and quizzes at the end to test your knowledge gained. You can choose to visit any branch and quizzes anytime to revise and retest.  

The course is self-paced so that you can operate it per your schedule. The average lesson length in the module is 8 minutes, and the credit earned through the system is transferable. 

Class Central

Class Central is yet another online portal best suited for people who want to learn about accounting and other relevant fields. There are a total of 332 courses available for the vast area of accounting. You can choose any lesson from the list as they all are open for everyone without any prerequisites. 

The courses at Class Central have been made in association with some of the world’s best universities like Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, University of Penn, Wharton, Tezpur University, and other top universities. 

The courses offered have been divided into With certificate, Free Course, and University Course only, to cater to the needs of every individual seeking to learn the basic and advanced level of accounting. Each course has been assigned a difficulty level to make it easy for students to assess their growth while learning. Additionally, it has also been classified based on durations to differentiate between students learning about accounting as a part of a personal project and students doing it to gain academic credits.

Accounting Fundamental Series by Oklahoma State University on ed2go.com

The Accounting Fundamentals by Oklahoma State University provides the basics of double-entry bookkeeping and analysis and recording of financial transactions. With the course, it is said that you will gain expertise and hands-on experience with handling accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll procedures, sales tax, and various everyday banking activities.

The course will cover the basics, from writing checks to preparing an annual income statement and closing accounts at the end of each financial year.  

It is divided into two parts: Accounting Fundamentals I and Accounting Fundamentals II, with the former covering topics like Titles, Accounts, Journalizing and Posing, End-Of-year Worksheets, among many other things, and the later covering Accounts Payable, Receivable, Assets and Depreciation, income and expenses, and other advanced parts of the financial accounting.

Ms. Nancy Koenig offers the course, an experienced industry professional with over 40 years of industry experience.

Introduction to Financial Accounting on Saylor Academy

Introduction to Financial Accounting is one of the many courses offered in Accounting at Saylor Academy. The course introduces its students to Financial Accounting in preparation for much more advanced relevant topics. 

There are 10 units in the program covering Accounting Environment, Decision-Making Theories, Business Transactions and everything related to it, Financial Reporting, Financial Statement Analysis, Receivables and Payables, Liabilities and Equities, etc. The units in the course have been arranged in a cascading way. The knowledge gained in the previous team is tested and implied to the topics covered in the later units, thus making the learning more interactive and involving than most of the courses available on the internet. 

The course also comes with study material, including articles, lectures, and videos. These materials are free to access and can be found in each unit. You can also find more learning material in the Resources tab of the team. These resources are to be used in combination with the lectures and articles to understand the topics better. 

There is also a minimum passing score in the course, failing to obtain which, the students will not be able to complete the course. Only the final exam is considered while providing a grade for the course. Students need to earn 70% or higher on the final exam to pass the course. 

There is no set pace for the show. It lets the students be comfortable with the content and move ahead at their speed, making it a self-paced course. There is no schedule to follow and no instructor to convene a live emergency session. The total duration of the course is 57 hours, which can be completed in any time duration, and a final test can be attempted after that for successful completion of the system. 

Accounting Coach

Accounting Coach is not just an online portal for certification courses. Instead, it is a website dedicated to teaching students about every aspect of accounting. It takes on novices and transforms them into industry experts. 

The Free Website is suitable for employees, bookkeepers, students, accountants, small business owners, and anyone who wants to learn about accounting. There are a total of 33 chapters followed by a certificate of completion. 

The website has been trusted by major companies like Inc. Forbes, The New York Times, CNBC, Quickbooks, Harvard Business Reviews, and Yahoo Finance, making it one of the most competitive websites in teaching Accounting. 

Alison Accounting Courses

Finance and Accounting, as discussed earlier, is one of the hot topics for professionals right now. It is finance and bookkeeping that decide the future of any business. Without the awareness of the company’s prospects, it is impossible to create great products or services. Learn how to control and monitor a company’s financial transactions with Alison’s free online accounting courses.

Conclusion

This article covered almost every notable website and course relevant to accounting and finance. We have detailed information about instructors, what the course offers, their ratings, and feedback received from its students. 

Although every course out there might look the same to you, now you know how much they differ from each other, based on what they offer and how they offer it.

If you are looking to grow your career as an accountant or any other profile in accounting, then take your pick from the long list and be sure you will get the best of all the courses out there.