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Companies and financial accounting

This free course, Companies and financial
accounting, introduces you to the legal characteristics of limited companies and how limited companies raise finance through ordinary shares and loan capital. It also introduces the interests of company stakeholders, and looks at three different perspectives
on companies and their role in society. Finally, it introduces the formats of company financial statements in comparison with those of sole traders.
This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course B293 Financial accounting in context.
Transcript
Course learning outcomes
After studying this course, you should be able to:
- understand the legal characteristics of limited companies and how these characteristics are different from those of sole traders and partnerships
- understand company financing through share capital and loan capital
- understand the interests and information needs of different company stakeholders
- explain three different perspectives on the role of companies in society
- understand and reproduce company financial statement formats and explain how and why they are different from sole trader financial statements.
First Published: 30/10/2020
Updated: 31/10/2020
You can start this course right now without signing-up. Click on any of the course content sections below to start at any point in this course.
If you want to be able to track your progress, earn a free Statement of Participation, and access all course quizzes and activities, sign-up.
Course content
- Introduction
- Learning outcomes
- 1 Legal forms of business entity
- 2 The market environment and sources of company finance
- 3 The interests and information requirements of company stakeholders
- 4 Three perspectives on the role of companies and financial reporting in society
- 5 Comparing sole trader and company financial statement formats
- Conclusion
- References
- Acknowledgements
- This site has Copy Reuse Tracking enabled - see our FAQs for more information.
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About this free course
6 hours study
Level 1: Introductory
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