Course Syllabus

Intro to Financial Accounting – ACCT 208

Section 72

Summer 2020

Crafton Hills College

Course Information

Name: Intro to Financial Accounting

Online

Prerequisites: None

Credit Units: 4

Instructor Information

Instructor: Kenneth George

Phone: 909-576-8375 Cell

Email: kgeorge@sbccd.cc.ca.us

Virtual Office Hours: Email anytime, video conferencing by appointment, and call between 8 am to 8 pm.

Course Description

Fundamental concepts and procedures of financial accounting including the use, interpretation,
preparation, and analysis of financial statements.

Course-Level Student Learning Outcomes

1. Explain the nature and purpose of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

2. Explain the role of accounting in organizations and organizational decision-making.

3. Explain and apply the components of the conceptual framework for financial accounting and reporting, including the qualitative characteristics of accounting information, the assumptions underlying accounting, the basic principles of financial accounting, and the constraints and limitations on accounting information.

4. Define and use accounting and business terminology.

5. Explain what a system is and how an accounting system is designed to satisfy the needs of specific businesses and users.

6. Summarize the purpose of journals and ledgers.

7. Apply transaction analysis, input transactions into the accounting system, process this input, and prepare and interpret the four basic financial statements.

8. Discuss the purpose, structure, content, and underlying principles of the general-purpose financial statements including the income statement, balance sheet, statement of changes in shareholders' equity, and statement of cash flows.

9. Explain the content, form, and purpose of the basic financial statements (including footnotes) and the annual report, and how they satisfy the information needs of investors, creditors, and other users.

10. Illustrate and apply accounting policy choices in the preparation and analysis of financial statements, including, but not limited to: inventory cost flow assumptions and depreciation methods.

11. Distinguish between cash basis and accrual basis accounting and their impact on the financial statements, including the revenue recognition and matching principles.

12. Identify and illustrate how the principles of internal control are used to manage and control the firm's resources and minimize risk.

13. Explain the nature of current assets and related issues, including the measurement and reporting of cash and cash equivalents, receivables and bad debts, and inventory and cost of goods sold.

14. Identify and illustrate issues relating to long-term asset acquisition, use, cost allocation, and disposal.

15. Distinguish between capital and revenue expenditures.

16. Explain the valuation and reporting of current liabilities, estimated liabilities, and other contingencies.

17. Identify and illustrate issues relating to long-term liabilities, including issuance, valuation, and retirement of debt (including the time value of money).

18. Identify and illustrate issues relating to stockholders' equity, including issuance, repurchase of capital stock, and dividends. 19. Explain the importance of operating, investing, and financing activities reported in the Statement of Cash Flows. 20. Interpret company activity, profitability, liquidity, and solvency through selection and application of appropriate financial analysis tools. 21. Identify the ethical implications inherent in financial reporting and be able to apply strategies for addressing them.

Program-Level Student Learning Outcomes

1. Present and discuss contemporary business principles, practices, and organizations
2. Discuss economic, political and ethical issues and their impact upon business policies and practices
3. Explain and apply basic accounting principles
4. Effectively explain and apply marketing principles pertaining to a promotion, advertising, public relations, and personal selling.
5. Describe and apply the economic concepts of supply and demand, competition, and product differentiation and their role in the free market
6. Explain and apply the basic concepts of management and leadership
7. Effectively explain the various concepts of human resource management including employee training, motivations, compensations, and labor relations.

Textbook Requirements

Please see the free textbook under the getting started module. 

Required Materials and Supplies

Students will need Office 2016 (Word and PowerPoint) to complete course assignments. The instructor will not accept work that is not submitted with Office products.  Crafton Hills College students are eligible to install Office 365 on up to five PCs, Macs and mobile devices, including Windows tablets and iPads, at no cost to the student. This includes the latest version of Office.  Visit Link for free Office 2016 for more details.

Technical Requirements

In order for students to successfully complete this course, you will need access to a computer with reliable Internet access and the appropriate system and software to support the Canvas learning platform.

Minimal Technical Skills Needed

Students should be familiar with certain basic computer skills. These skills include the use of the Internet, Office Word, and PowerPoint. Students can use the Crafton Computer Lab. The Open lab hours are posted at the lab entrance. The lab is available for all students to work on computer assignments, and help is available from the lab tutors. The lab tutors will help with the basic technical skills needed to complete the tasks, but will not help with the assignment content.

Course Assignments

Weekly Chapter Practice Quizzes – There will be 10 practice quizzes in Canvas. Students should take the quizzes each week they are assigned.  Students are not required to take the practice quizzes. Quizzes will consist of multiple-choice and/or true or false questions, worth zero points each, that assess the reading assignments from the weekly readings. 

Midterm and Final Exam – Students will take a midterm and final exam. The midterm exam will comprise 50 multiple choice questions worth two-point per question. The student will take a final exam final exam and will cover all chapters in the course and will be comprised of 87 multiple choice questions worth two points per question. 

Grading Policy

Grades are determined on a straight-scale basis using the following 340 point scale. The graded assignments are:  

• Get to know you Discussion Board for a total of 20 points
• Midterm Exam for a total of 100 points
• Final Exam for a total of 175 points
• Syllabus Acknowledgement for a total of 45 points

All written work must be of professional quality. All written work must be keyed using a computer. Handwritten work will not be accepted. In addition, work that has excessive or distracting grammatical, mechanical, or typographical errors will be graded accordingly. All written assignments should be written using APA format.

Grading Scale and Returning Graded Work

A – 90.00% or above

B – 80.00% - 89.99%

C – 70.00% - 79.99%

D – 60.00% - 69.99%

F – 0% - 59.99%

Your recorded grades can be viewed on Canvas and will be available for you to review. Feedback is given on Canvas, please review your feedback to improve next week. Please review your grades and notify your instructor if there are any discrepancies.

Attendance and Class Participation

Requirements for students’ attendance and participation are defined as:

• Monday of the first week is considered the first day of class for online instruction. You can start to work on assignments for the week on Sunday.
• The Instructor is not obligated to accommodate students under extraordinary circumstances, but the student must request accommodations and provide requested supporting documentation.
• Regular online attendance/participation and engagement is expected for student success in online courses. Online participation is evident through posting to a discussion board, completing assignments, or taking quizzes and exams.

Policy of Collecting and Returning Work

All work needs to be submitted through Canvas before the submission deadline. The grades and feedback of the assignment will be entered onto Canvas.  The instructor will, at a minimum, adhere to the following timeframe for returning work to students:

• Crafton College email will be used for all email communication and checked on a daily basis. The instructor will reply to all emails within 24 hours.
• Timely feedback for communication is 24 hours and maybe handled by email or phone.
• Timely feedback for assessed work is 72 hours after the submission deadline for minor assignments and 1 week for major assignments after the submission deadline.

Late Work Policy

All graded work must be submitted by midnight on Sunday of the week in which the work is assigned. Late work will not be accepted. You should turn your work in prior to the due date. Incomplete work may be considered for grading if you include an explanation as to why you were unable to complete the task as assigned. If you experience some type of difficulty with a quiz or an exam, please contact your instructor.

Communication Policy

Email messages: If you have any questions about the course or the related assignments please email me using my college email address which is: kgeorge@sbccd.cc.ca.us. I will respond to all emails within 24 hours.

Phone calls or voice Messages: If you call and I don’t answer, you can call leave a voice message on my office phone at: 909.576.8375. I will respond to the voice message within 24.

Drop Policy

Active participation in this course is required. You must complete and submit the work as assigned by the due date(s). If you fail to attend the course for two weeks in a row and do not submit any work, quizzes or exams, you will be dropped.  Additionally, anyone who does not check in or contact me during the first week of the semester will be dropped from the course. Please contact me using one of the communications methods listed above if you are experiencing any type of technical difficulty so that I can help you get back on task as soon as possible.

Policy regarding Decorum, Behavior and Netiquette

“Netiquette” is network etiquette—that is, the etiquette of cyberspace. And "etiquette" means "the forms prescribed by authority to be required in social or official life." In other words, netiquette is a set of rules for behaving properly online. Virginia Shea has defined the issues, and discussed them at length, in her book Netiquette. You may view a brief summary of her “Core Rules of Netiquette” at the following website: The Core Rules of Netiquette. They won't answer all netiquette questions, but they will provide some basic principles to use in solving many netiquette dilemmas. Remember to also always follow the student handbook.

• Be polite and respectful of one another including the instructor
• Avoid personal attacks. Keep dialogue friendly and supportive, even when you disagree or wish to present a controversial idea or response.
• Be careful with the use of humor and sarcasm. Emotion is difficult to sense through text.
• Be helpful and share your expertise. Foster community communication and
• Contribute constructively and completely to each discussion. Avoid short repetitive “I agree” responses and don’t make everyone else do the work.
• Consider carefully what you write. Re-read all e-mail and discussion before sending or posting.
• Remember that email is considered a permanent record that may be forwarded to others.
• Be brief and succinct. Don’t use up other people’s time or bandwidth.
• Use descriptive subject headings for each e-mail message.
• Respect privacy. Don’t forward a personal message without permission.
• Cite references. Include web addresses, authors, names of articles, date of publication, etc.
• Keep responses professional and educational. Do not advertise or send chain letters.
• Do not send large attachments unless you have been requested to do so or have permission from all parties.
• Two word postings (e.g.: I agree, Oh yeah, No way, Me too) do not “count” as a post)

Academic Honesty

As a learning community of scholars, Crafton College emphasizes the ethical responsibility of all its members to seek knowledge honestly and in good faith. Students are responsible for doing their own work, and academic dishonesty of any kind will not be tolerated. Violations of academic integrity include, but are not limited to, cheating, plagiarism, or misrepresentation of information in oral or written form. Such violations will be dealt with severely by the instructor. Plagiarism means presenting someone else's idea or writing as if it were your own. If you use someone else's idea or writing, be sure the source is clearly documented."

• Plagiarism - Plagiarism consists of using another author's words without proper identification and documentation of that author. Plagiarism takes the form of direct quotation without the use of quotation marks and/or documentation, or paraphrasing without proper identification and documentation. The fabrication of sources, or the act, deliberately or unconsciously, of passing another author's work off as your own are also considered to be plagiarism.
• Falsification - Falsification consists of deliberately changing results, statistics, or any other kind of factual information to make it suit your needs. It also consists of deliberately changing a source's intent by misquoting or taking out of context.
• Multiple Submissions - If you wish to turn in the same work or use the same research, in whole or in part, for more than one course, you must obtain permission to do so from all professors involved. Failure to obtain this permission constitutes academic dishonesty. “Recycled work” must contain significant work as related to the current course topic, meeting the standards for the current assignment.

Accommodations for Students with Disabilities

Students with a disability who may need special accommodation(s) for this class are encouraged to notify the instructor and contact Disabled Student Programs & Services, (909)389-3325, CCR 101 as soon as possible.

Policy Regarding Student-Initiated Contact

Any portion of a course conducted through distance education includes regular effective contact between instructor and students. Regular effective contact means the instructors will keep in contact with students on a consistent and timely basis to both ensure the quality of instruction and verify their performance and participation status of the student.

Instructor Initiated Contact with Students Examples for this Class are:

• Course Announcements
• Email Messaging
• Personalized Feedback
• Discussion Boards
• Phone/Voicemail

Student- Student to Example for this Class are:

• Email Messaging
• Discussion Boards

Student Content Examples for this Class are:

• Modules on Canvas
• Discussion Boards

Student interface examples for this Class are:

• Computer hardware
• Internet browsers
• Software applications
• Weekly modules on Canvas

All questions need to be asked directly to the instructor through email, phone call, or office hours. There is a general student discussion board forum for students to ask questions amongst each other. The instructor will monitor a general student discussion board forum, but will not answer questions posted in this forum because this is a student to student forum.

Policy on Communication, Email, and Technical Issues

• All students are required to use their campus assigned email. Any emails sent to the instructor with questions, concerns, or issues will be answered within 24 hours. The subject line of the email must include the course number and your first and last name. Emails without subject line information will not be read. Students may also contact the instructor at the posted phone number.  If you leave a message, please leave your first and last name and a return phone number. Calls will be returned within 24 hours.
• The Announcements area of Canvas will be used to post daily reminders, changes, revisions or issues related to the course. Be sure to check daily. Email announcements will be sent to your official student email address given by the school district SBCCD.
• The instructor will monitor the Canvas site. If the Canvas site experiences technical difficulties that impact assignments, quizzes or exams, due dates may be adjusted by instructor. If you run into a technical problem that impacts your ability to complete your work on time, you must contact the instructor well to discuss the problem.
• The Central Help Desk is available 24/7 to all faculty, staff, and students. They can be reached on campus at (x4357) and off campus at (877) 241-1756.  You can also create a help desk ticket online at SBCCD Technical Assistance Center Website.

Syllabus Disclaimer

The instructor views the course syllabus as an educational contract between the instructor and students. Every effort will be made to avoid changing the course schedule, but the possibility exists that unforeseen events will make syllabus changes necessary. The instructor reserves the right to make changes to the syllabus as deemed necessary. Students will be notified in a timely manner of any syllabus changes via email or the course Announcements. Please remember to check your school email and the course Announcements often.