hi welcome i'm not an accountant i've never been one and i don't plan to be one in the future i could tell you that some of my best friends are accountants but i'd be lying that said though much of the raw material that we need in corporate finance and valuation comes from accounting statements so you need to know enough accounting to get by and that's how i describe myself i know just enough accounting to get by but an accounting class in my view is overkill because much of what you learn is irrelevant or useless in the context of corporate financial evaluation so here's what i'm going to try to do i'm going to try to take whatever accounting i think you will need in corporate financial evaluation and create a class around it along the way i'll say some mean things about accounting i'll cut corners but ultimately my objective is pragmatic here's how i plan to structure the class rather than get bogged down in accounting rules and debit and credit i'm going to take you on an overview through the financial statements starting with the income statement going on to the balance sheet ending with the statement of cash flows with each one i'm going to talk about what we're trying to measure and what accountants try sometimes to measure with imperfections we're going to talk about how to use that data in the larger context of finance i'll talk about financial ratios but with the twist i think financial ratios used judiciously can help you in analysis but with overkill too many ratios you can drown in them so in this class you're not going to become an accountant but you're going to learn enough accounting that you can get by if you're an accounting purist please don't watch this class it's going to terrify you because as i said i have no qualms about taking shortcuts because i have bigger fish to fry i hope you will come along on this ride with me thank you and i wish you the best