During this online course, you will learn the basic principles and practices involved in accounting and reporting for the financial activities of a college or university. The approach will be to begin by examining the underlying theory and financial principles involved. Please note - the workbook is only available online through the platform. No print versions are available. PDF reader required.
- The introduction is followed by a Module on Current Operations, which looks at the activities which form the core of the institution’s mission: instruction, research, and public service.
- The next Module, Financial Aid and Lending Activities, addresses accounting and reporting for student financial aid, including loans, and other lending activities.
- Endowment and Similar Activities takes us into the realm of institutional investments, gifts, endowments, and similar vehicles invested by the institution to generate a return that can be used as a source of perpetual revenue over the long term.
- The next Module, Capital Activities, addresses accounting and reporting for the Plant Fund, which houses the transactions for new construction, renovations, and purchases that meet the criteria for a capital asset. We also discuss depreciation issues in this section.
- Following this, we will cover the financial statements of either public or private institutions. Because the financial statements have some major differences, we will go through the financial statement display.
- Finally, we spend some time in comparing the accounting and reporting differences between public and independent institutions.
This course is aimed at a mixed audience of public and independent college and university staff. There are more similarities than differences between the two types of institutions when it comes to accounting and reporting, but there are some major differences.