Course Lecture Titles

Balance Sheet—Assets

Balance Sheets—Liabilities and Equity

Income Statement—The Nature of Costs

Economies of Scale and Cash Flow

Financial Reports I

Financial Reports II

Learning Curves and Cost Reduction

Scale and Transportation Effects

Financial Decisions

The Costs of Capital

Return on Sales, Assets, and Equity

Financial Limits of Growth

Strategic Signatures Case I

Strategic Signatures Case II

Measuring and Controlling

Legal Issues and Summary

Finance and Accounting
for the Non-Financial Manager
(16 lectures, 45
minutes/lecture)
Course No. 533

Taught by Jules
Schwartz
Retired, Boston University
Ph.D.,
Harvard University

6
Videotapes
$199.95
(Std. $199.95)

In 1494, a Franciscan monk and
professor of sacred theology in Venice wrote the first
textbook of modern accounting.

Five centuries later, businesspeople the world over,
American or Italian, Japanese or Nigerian, still speak
the fundamental language of business created by Luca
Pacioli.

Investors, business owners, and managers have always
had a deep need to become fluent in the lexicon of
accounting and finance.

Understanding the Language of Profit Is Now
Essential

But as firms catch the wave of open-book and
profit-share management, everyone who works at these
firms now needs to become proficient in the language of
profit.

If you are in any of these groups, there are key
concepts you need to understand, including:

income statements

balance sheets

cash flow analysis

net present value

debt-to-equity ratios

the vast differences between profits and cash

the host of financial measurements that constitute
the bottom line.

Accessible, Useful, and Fun to Learn

This course is designed to teach you those concepts
in a way that is accessible, immediately useful,
interesting, and—in the hands of teacher Jules
Schwartz—even fun.

Professor Schwartz's varied and successful background
in business, investment banking, and academics includes
being the recipient of Boston University's Metcalf Prize
for distinguished teaching, making him an ideal choice
to teach this course.

His lectures are illustrated with computer-generated
graphics to display financial statements, definitions,
formulas, and equations.

One concept at a time, he clearly explains many of
the crucial aspects of the world of business and how
they are connected to one another, ranging from the
balance sheet to debentures, from the learning curve to
the Lang effect.

And to ensure that you master each type of business
problem covered in the lectures, the outline booklet
that accompanies the course includes example problems
and their solutions.

Lecture by lecture, you gain fluency in the language
of accounting.

And you also add a vital dimension to your
understanding as you learn to see how the numbers from a
financial statement impact a firm's strategy, growth,
and sources of revenue to pay for its activities.

Lecture 1: Balance Sheet: Assets

This first lecture introduces the balance sheet, or
statement of a company's condition.

Professor Schwartz explains this "snapshot" of a
company's assets and offers an explanation of where
funds come from to buy these assets.

Lecture 2: Balance Sheet: Liabilities and
Equity

This lecture discusses the sources of investment
funds open to a company. You learn the advantages and
disadvantages of debt and equity financing.

Lecture 3: Income Statement: The Nature of
Costs

This lecture explores the income statement, a report
on the profit results for the accounting period. You
examine how the nature of cost influences both results
and financial decisions.

Lecture 4: Economies of Scale and Cash Flow

You learn how to approach what is an important goal
for every business: maximizing the amount of cash it
generates relative to the amount it has invested.

Lecture 5: Financial Reports I

In a two-lecture lesson on financial reports, you get
a chance to examine a real report in detail as Professor
Schwartz unveils the 1972 Annual Report of the United
States Steel Company.

As you go through the numbers, you gain an
understanding of both the level of precision you can
expect in such information and the degree of discretion
management exercises in presenting information to its
shareholders.

Lecture 6: Financial Reports II

This lecture continues the examination of the U.S.
Steel Annual Report by explaining how this firm may have
increased reported earnings by $80 million through its
discretionary decisions.

Lecture 7: Learning Curves and Cost Reduction

Professor Schwartz examines some of the factors that
influence costs. You also learn about the phenomenon
called the "learning effect" and how it can create
strategic opportunities.

Lecture 8: Scale and Transportation Effects

You learn more about two other cost factors that
significantly affect the decisions of a company: scale
and transportation costs.

Lecture 9: Financial Decisions

Companies invest money today to realize returns
tomorrow. This lecture teaches you how to deal with the
concept of present value and the discounting of any
expected future payments.

Lecture 10: The Costs of Capital

What is the price a firm must pay for the use of the
funds provided to it by its creditors and shareholders?
You learn that the weighted average of these costs is
the corporation's cost of capital.

Lecture 11: Return on Sales, Assets, and
Equity

In this lecture, you consider the three traditional
measures of corporate performance:

return on sales

assets

equity.

You learn that no single criterion is sufficient.
They are all related, and different standards apply at
different levels in the company.

Lecture 12: Financial Limits of Growth

You learn how to develop a formula that defines the
maximum rate at which a company is likely to grow. You
also learn how growth, an important measure of corporate
performance, is directly related to its return on
equity.

Lecture 13: Strategic Signatures Case I

You get a chance to examine the financial data of 10
well-known American companies. Your task is to match the
data to the right company.

This exercise gives you an opportunity to apply many
of the concepts previously learned in order to determine
what each company should look like.

Lecture 14: Strategic Signatures Case II

In this lecture, you use the strategy definitions
derived for the 10 companies in the Strategic Signatures
Case I, along with the strategic variables you will have
defined, to determine which set of financials belongs to
which company.

You see that accountants do a reasonably good job of
describing each company in financial terms, despite, in
Professor Schwartz's words, "the limitations of their
craft and the odd results one expects to see within
Generally Accepted Accounting Principles."

Lecture 15: Measuring and Controlling

Professor Schwartz explores additional uses of
accounting data and financial analysis. You learn about
some of the problems inherent in measuring the
performance of people and units.

Lecture 16: Legal Issues and Summary

To conclude the course, Professor Schwartz considers
some of the regulatory issues that influence
management's financial policies and examines the rules
applying to patents, trademarks, and copyrights. You
also look at the laws that govern competition.

Available on Videotape

The course is only available on videotape. Professor
Schwartz’s lectures are richly illustrated with hundreds
of computer-generated graphics to display financial
statements, definitions, formulas, and equations.
Several example problems are included in the outline
booklets accompanying the course.

Privacy Policy | About Us | Site Index

© This site and content copyright 1990-2006.
The Teaching Company Limited Partnership.
Site contents are also
protected by other copyrights and trademarks. All rights reserved.