Financial Accounting by Michael P. Licata, Ph.D. is a first accounting course for homeschool high school students. Many high schools offer an accounting course as an elective for students interested in pursuing a career in business. Now homeschool high school students have such an elective available to them. Financial Accounting by Michael P. Licata, Ph.D. is a challenging college level course similar in content to the first accounting course taken by all students in university and college schools of business across the country. Any high school level student with basic math skills can handle this course.

Students taking Financial Accounting by Michael P. Licata, Ph.D. will learn to prepare and interpret the four basic financial statements which all publicly traded companies must prepare and make available to the public. See the course syllabus for more details as to course objectives and specific topics covered.

Any homeschool high school student interested in a career in business or in someday owning their own business will benefit from this course.

All course content is incorporated into the lecture slides for each chapter. There is no textbook and no 40 page chapters to read. The course is comprised of 12 chapters which are covered in 28 lessons (including exams) and can be taken in either a semester format or over an entire academic year. Each chapter’s lectures include a discussion of important concepts and demonstration problems featuring step by step illustrations of how to work through the various types of accounting problems covered.

Course Objectives
The objective of Financial Accounting by Michael P. Licata, Ph.D. is to introduce students to the study of accounting which is known as the language of business. The main purpose of financial accounting is to measure and report the performance of a business to interested parties both outside and inside of the business. These interested parties use accounting information to make a variety of decisions such as:

• Investors - Deciding whether to purchase or sell a company’s stock.
• Bankers - Deciding whether to lend money to a business.
• Managers – Making day-to-day business decisions such as whether to increase inventory levels, or to spend more on advertising.
• Students will learn to prepare and interpret the four basic financial statements - income statement, balance sheet, statement of owners’ equity and statement of cash flows. See below for detailed Learning Objectives by Chapter.
• Any homeschool high school student interested in a career in business or in someday owning their own business will benefit from this course.

Prerequisites
None. Any high school level student with basic math skills (algebra) can handle this course.

Course Materials
The course has 12 Chapters each divided into 2 or 3 parts.

Basic materials for each chapter:

• Flash lectures – 2 or 3 parts, each part 15 to 40 slides
• Lecture slides to print (the lecture slides from (1) above in a printer friendly format).
• Key Terms and Concepts (1 – 3 pages)
• Chapter Problems (4 – 15 problems per chapter).
• Note: some of the Chapter Problems are worked in the Flash lectures as demonstration problems while some are assigned as homework problems to be completed by the student.
• Solutions to Chapter Problems noted in (4) above.

Method of Instruction

This course is taught in a non-traditional format. There is no textbook and no 40 page chapters to read. All necessary course content is included in the Flash lecture slides and a brief Key Concepts and Terms file for each chapter. The Flash lecture slides for each chapter include a description and discussion of all important concepts and demonstration problems which include step by step illustrations
of how to work through the various types of accounting problems covered.

Click here to view the Financial Accounting Lesson Plan.

The course is comprised 12 chapters which are covered in 28 lessons (including exams). Students can work through the course in the following formats:

• A traditional college semester format (September through December or January
  through May) working two lessons per week for 14 weeks.
  
• An entire academic year format (September through May) working one lesson
  per week for 28 weeks.
  
• A summer school format (June through July) working three lesson per
  week for 9 weeks.

Note: The average time per lesson is 75 minutes to view the Flash lecture plus 1.5 to 2.5
hours to work the homework problems.

Click here to learn more about Professor Michael Licata

Click here to view the sample chapter

Click here to download excel spreadsheets