Hello, I'm Paul Kofman, Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne, and a professor of finance. Sound corporate financial decision making starts with a firm grasp of the numbers. CFO's and investors alike, rely on the veracity of the financial results, recorded and reported by the firm. Accounting provides you with the principles, rules and ratios that establish the trust you need to rely on those numbers in making business decisions. This first course in a finance specialization series of four uncovers the essentials of accounting information, underpinning financial analysis. You will learn how to apply that information in financial analysis using discounted cash flow methodology to arrive at fair valuation of the company. In this first module, we will be discussing an introduction to accounting principles. We'll take a closer look at the financial statements of corporations and at truly important items on the balance sheet and profit and loss statement. Each course is self contained yet integrated and connected within the specialization. There are four modules per course, with quizzes and reflective assessment. There will also be corporate check-ins and a capstone course delivered by the University of Melbourne in partnership with BNY Mellon. So let's motivate. Let's motivate this first module. A starting point is to understand corporate financial accounts and reports, but the essentials only. We will consider a representative corporation. We will consider its business operations and financial decision making. And our starting point is that financial decision making can only be done correctly in a sound way through thorough financial analysis. And that's where the accounting skills come in. So who's interested in this kind of information? Who's interested in the ultimate analysis? It would be the owners of the corporation. But it would also be the managers of those corporations. So the corporation that we have chosen for analysis, which you will see appear in many of our modules, is Kellogg's. Kellogg's produces, as most of you would know, cereals. It's a global corporation. It has operations in most countries around the world. It's large, it's been around for well over 100 years and it is well established in its financial reporting. So where does this reporting happen? well it happens at the annual general meeting first and foremost. The owners of the corporation are invited to attend a meeting hosted by the managers of the corporation, where the managers report and explain the financial standing of the corporation, it's financial position. But also it's most recent performance over the past year or so. In addition to the numbers, the shareholders, the owners are also presented with a narrative, an explanation if you want, where the context of those numbers becomes clear. In addition to that annual reporting, the owners are also presented with regular updates. Most corporations nowadays present quarterly earnings announcements, quarterly updates on their financial position. And if there are particular items of material value to the owners in the corporation, they would have extraordinary communications. Extraordinary communications, for example, if there is a restructuring or if there is an opportunity to take over another company and enlarge the business operations. So at this annual general meeting, the numbers are presented. But behind those numbers is a lot of financial analysis. And that financial analysis gets reflected in the narrative. But it is also further explained beyond the annual general meeting by a series of financial analysts. And we will come back to those financial analysts, what they do, why they do, and how they do it in the next set of modules. So the numbers that are presented are first and foremost the balance sheet, and the profit and loss statement. The balance sheet will tell the shareholders what the financial position of the corporation is at a particular point in time. And we will go into some detail explaining what these numbers actually mean. The profit and loss statement will tell the owners, the shareholders of the corporation, what the most recent performance of the firm has been. So it will tell you whether the company has made a profit or a loss in the most recent financial year. So the objective of this course and specialization, before we start delving into those numbers, What we aim to achieve with this specialization is that you will get an understanding of financial analysis and corporate decision making. And we will give you the tools and the skills that equip you to apply that knowledge in practice. What this course, this particular course on accounting measures will aim to contribute to the specialization, is that it will give you a set of foundations, understanding the accounting principles, and the subsequent financial analysis that can then be used in corporate financial decision making.
