This course is the first half of the combined four-credit Accounting/Corporate Finance course. This course provides an understanding of the concepts of financial accounting and published financial statements.

As the language of business and the cornerstone of the financial capital markets, accounting provides terminology, frameworks, and concepts with which to understand and analyze the financial consequences of business activities. As these activities have become increasingly complex and global, the task of presenting timely, relevant, and reliable financial information to interested internal and external users has become more challenging. Prerequisites: Restricted to Darden students.

As the language of business and the cornerstone of the financial capital markets, accounting provides terminology, frameworks, and concepts with which to understand and analyze the financial consequences of business activities. As these activities have become increasingly complex and global, the task of presenting timely, relevant, and reliable financial information to interested internal and external users has become more challenging.

This course is intended to provide students with a comprehensive conceptual and applied understanding of our society's accounting and financial reporting system and an in-depth look at the numerous factors that managers and executives must consider as they confront complex and difficult financial accounting and reporting issues. Students will examine significant financial accounting and reporting issues from both a rigorous theoretical perspective and an informed practical perspective. Students will explore such traditional issues as revenue recognition, inventory valuation, and leases, and such contemporary issues as mergers and acquisitions, intangibles, and financial derivatives. Although the primary focus of the course will be on accounting and reporting practices in the United States, students will also address selected differences between U.S. accounting standards and international accounting standards. How the major accounting scandals that have occurred in recent years have affected the financial reporting process and those who have the responsibility for insuring the accuracy of a company's published financial statements will also be addressed. [l1] By the conclusion of this course, students should be reasonably proficient at understanding, interpreting, and analyzing the information contained in corporate financial statements and their related footnotes, and also be able to assess the overall quality of a company's financial reporting, identify the critical accounting policies, and make an assessment regarding the reasonableness of those policies and their supporting estimates and judgments.

A Darden Independent Study elective includes either case development or a research project to be conducted by an individual student under the direction of a faculty member. Students should secure the agreement of a resident faculty member to supervise their independent study and assign the final grade that is to be based to a significant degree on written evidence of the individual student's accomplishment.