How Bookkeeping Courses Should Be Designed

A lot of people are interested in online bookkeeping courses but it’s hard to tell if the course is any good before you sign up.  What are the things that you should learn in this type of class?  Here’s how I would design a bookkeeping course.

In the early stages of the class I would teach the basic principals of accounting.  The different types of accounts, such as current assets, fixed assets, other assets, current and long-term liabilities and owner’s equity accounts.  You would learn the characteristics of each and how they all relate to each other.  This would lead into a discussion about debits and credits.  Why debits must equal credits, how they each affect different accounts, etc.

Once the basic accounting stuff had been covered and everyone in the class understood it well enough, we would go on to cover how things work in the real world.  What to expect when you get your first job as a bookkeeper.  Things like how to process bills from vendors all the way from receiving the bill in the mail to the end result of paying the bill.  How to record the company’s sales, keep track of the accounts receivables (if any) and deposit money properly.  This section would also go over how to develop an efficient filing system that was well organized.  This is critical so that you can easily find whatever document you need to substantiate the financial transactions.

How to prepare basic financial statements would be next.  How to put together a Balance Sheet, Income Statement and Statement of Cash Flow is something that every good bookkeeper should know.  How they all tie together and how to analyze the reports to determine the company’s financial health.

Now that all those areas have been covered, it would be time for some more practical education, learning how to use QuickBooks.  Since 80% – 90% of small businesses use Intuit’s QuickBooks, this software should be taught to all accounting and bookkeeping students.  The concepts that people learn here can be transferred to almost any other accounting package, so the information is valuable to all students.

So that’s my idea of a good bookkeeping course.  It would be a mixture of traditional accounting education and practical, real world scenarios.  I find that too many people learn accounting theory without learning how to apply those theories once they get a job and are working in a real office.  Learning about processing receivables and payables, filing and how to use QuickBooks will go a long way in filling this gap.

What do you all think of my plan?  What would you do differently?  Let me know in the comments section!