May 22nd, 2023
What Online Courses Can You Take for an Accounting Degree?
One of the great aspects of an accounting degree is that you can take all the courses online. It makes sense since most of what accountants and financial professionals do today involves technology. Whether you learn the basics with math and statistic courses, dive more deeply into financial courses, or step into tech, you can learn it all online. Here are some courses you can expect to take:
Business Math and Statistics
Business math isn’t just understanding that one dollar plus one dollar gets you two. It’s higher-level thinking that teaches you how businesses look at the numbers across accounting, sales, inventory, financial analysis, and forecasting. And a statistics course connects that math to the bigger picture of a business or economic condition. It teaches you how to collect, analyze, and visualize data so you can make informed decisions. An online college-level course will help you understand it all and teach you how to use the kind of software you might encounter in the real world.
Financial and Cost Accounting
Accounting is often called the language of business because it communicates important financial information to key decision makers such as executives, owners, and shareholders. A financial accounting course teaches you how to analyze and interpret basic financial statements, while cost accounting blends theory with practical application for the accounting of manufacturing firms. Combined, the courses help you speak the language of accounting.
Economics and Business Finance
In addition to the principles of accounting, you need to understand broader concepts such as economics and business finance. Macro and microeconomics help you understand what’s happening in the world and how it might affect individual industries and businesses. You learn about supply and demand, market behavior, and the role of the government in a capitalist economy, and how individual consumers and businesses make decisions based upon what’s going on.
Business finance courses teach the fundamentals of corporate finance. You learn about the methods of financial management and become familiar with internal and external methods of financing, capital budgeting and expenditures, and utilization of financial and operating leverage.
World Trade and International Business
In today’s global world, what happens next door can be influenced and upset by supply chains a world away. Courses in world trade and international business provide you with a broader perspective on financial transactions that occur across countries, including international investment and banking. And topics on international trade, the international transfer of technology, and global business strategies help you build connections and understand concepts that affect all industries.
Business Law and Ethics
Anyone with a fiduciary responsibility needs to understand business laws and ethics, not to mention the company policies that pertain to financial transactions. Courses in law and ethics touch upon crucial information about federal, state, and local laws that apply to sales, property, and negotiations so you don’t unintentionally break them. It’s important that you know how to act with integrity to build trust among your co-workers and company stakeholders and how to spot and report unethical behavior.
Principles of Management and Business Policy
In management and business policy courses, you find out how management works—from recruiting, hiring, and training employees to making key decisions that can affect staff, stakeholders, and clients—and the role that finances play in these responsibilities. You also examine the common problems that management must solve, including the financial issues that can affect the company’s bottom line.
Business Marketing and Communications
Take a look at a company’s annual budget and you’ll see a section dedicated solely to marketing. Although accountants and financial professionals aren’t responsible for advertising, it’s still necessary for you to understand the basic principles of marketing and the role it plays in building a clientele. In addition to marketing, you also learn about the fundamentals of internal business communication, including how to craft emails, memos, and letters.
CPA Prep
Some universities include preparation for the certified public accountant exams in their state as part of their curriculum. These courses are often critical to success on the exam and cover accounting theory and its application. Prep touches upon all four sections of the national exam: Financial Accounting and Reporting, Auditing and Attestation, Regulation, and Business Environment and Concepts. Passing the CPA Exam can differentiate you in the job market, opening up more opportunities for growth and advancement across a wide range of industries.
Why Take Accounting Courses Online?
An online accounting degree program allows you to complete your courses from where and when you choose. Without a commute to campus, you save time and money. And online convenience allows you to build your schedule the way you want. An online degree program also helps you build your technological muscles. Since financial and accounting careers now require solid computer skills, the more time you spend online, the more prepared you will be for a job after graduation.
Are you looking to earn your accounting degree online? Limestone University offers an online Bachelor of Science in Business Administration-Accounting that can train you for an entry-level career as an accounting specialist, financial planner, or business consultant. Click the button to learn more.
Bachelor of Science (B.S.)
The Bachelors in Business Administration with an Accounting concentration will prepare students with an understanding of accounting theory and its application in a variety of options, including career opportunities in financial and banking institutions, government regulatory agencies, insurance companies, non-profit organizations and more.
