Introduction to Financial and Managerial Accounting

15.501 is the MIT Sloan School of Management's introductory accounting course, taught by Sugata Roychowdhury in spring 2004 and published on OpenCourseWare. Its stated aim is to teach the basic concepts of financial and managerial reporting from the viewpoint of the people who read the reports rather than the accountants who prepare them. The 26-session calendar runs from the accounting framework, the balance sheet and recording transactions, through the income statement and accrual accounting, the accounting process, revenue recognition, inventory and cost of goods sold, and the statement of cash flows, to long-term assets and depreciation, marketable securities and the time value of money, long-term debt, leases and off-balance-sheet financing, current liabilities and contingencies, and intangibles and business combinations. The last four lectures switch to managerial accounting: cost concepts, indirect cost allocation and activity-based costing, worked through the Destin Brass and Seligram cases.

The site offers lecture notes, eight problem sets with solutions, and exams with solutions; there are no lecture videos, and the syllabus's required textbook and case packet are not included. At MIT the class met twice a week for 90 minutes and was graded on problem sets, class participation and three exams, but online there is no schedule or grading. Everything is free under a Creative Commons licence, with no account and no certificate.