Heads up! To view this whole video, sign in with your Courses account or enroll in your free 7-day trial. Sign In Enroll
Preview
Start a free Courses trial
to watch this video
Introducing financial statements and why it's useful to know how to read them.
This video doesn't have any notes.
Related Discussions
Have questions about this video? Start a discussion with the community and Treehouse staff.
Sign upRelated Discussions
Have questions about this video? Start a discussion with the community and Treehouse staff.
Sign up
[MUSIC]
0:00
Hi, I'm Michael Watson,
the CFO here at Treehouse, and
0:09
I'm super excited to welcome to
the financial statement basics course.
0:12
Understanding how to read financial
statements is an incredibly useful skill
0:18
that can help all of us,
both personally and professionally.
0:23
However, because the conversations
surrounding financial statements
0:27
can be can quite high stakes,
people are often intimidated by them.
0:31
The CEO is asking questions about that, or
0:36
this investment bankers talking about XYZ,
and I have no clue what is happening.
0:39
Well, the funny thing is that often times,
0:45
these people have no clue what
they're talking about either [LAUGH].
0:48
Seriously though, these consequential
conversations with smart,
0:52
powerful people can scare folks.
0:56
And sometimes, they never get around
to learning this important skill.
0:58
Well, enough of that.
1:02
We've put together an approachable, easy
to understand course, that will give you
1:04
all the essentials you need to continue
to develop your financial acumen.
1:09
As I said earlier, understanding how to
read financial statements is very useful.
1:14
Financial statements tell a story about
the financial performance of a business or
1:19
organization.
1:24
It doesn't matter if you're working in
the private sector, for the government, or
1:25
a nonprofit, financial statements are an
important part of governing any entity.
1:30
They help us understand what
is going well and what isn't.
1:35
Do the strategy we adopted two years
ago translates to the results today?
1:38
Clearly, being able to talk
coherently to this subject matter,
1:43
is a very useful skill to
your career development.
1:47
There aren't many senior managers out
there who are unable to read profit and
1:51
law statements for example.
1:55
Having some basic accounting knowledge
will help you digest this course better,
1:57
which shouldn't come as a surprise.
2:01
It is accounting principles
that create the framework for
2:03
financial statements to be prepared,
specifically journal entries and accounts.
2:07
Without accounting, there would be
no financial statements of value.
2:12
That said, a deep understanding of
accounting is not a necessary prerequisite
2:17
for this course, so if you don't know
anything about accounting, don't sweat it.
2:21
You'll still be able to follow and
learn from this course, and
2:26
we'll cover some basic foundation
stuff in the next video.
2:30
Also remember, if you have any questions
while taking the course, go ahead and
2:33
navigate to the community section of
Treehouse, and ask your fellow students.
2:37
Feel free to tag me directly with
a question, I love interacting with
2:42
our amazing Treehouse students, and
it's one of the best parts of my job.
2:46
In the following videos of this stage,
2:51
we'll briefly cover
some accounting basics.
2:53
And in stage two of the course,
get into the actual financial statements,
2:56
starting with the profit and
loss statement.
3:00
If you're not interested in a short
overview of accounting principles and
3:02
recognition concepts,
feel free to skip to stage two.
3:06
You need to sign up for Treehouse in order to download course files.
Sign upYou need to sign up for Treehouse in order to set up Workspace
Sign up