How to Learn Intermediate Accounting

Accounting is the analysis of the financial transactions within a business. The basic accounting principles focus on the investment of capital, different types of ownership and the creation of a balance sheet. Intermediate accounting elaborates on these basic ideas and introduces new concepts. You should already have an understanding of basic accounting before learning about intermediate accounting. In order to learn intermediate accounting, take an intermediate accounting course, purchase a workbook, comprehend liabilities, understand cash flow, analyze financial statements, take notes and do practice problems.

Take a course in intermediate accounting. In an intermediate accounting course, you will learn the information that you need to know in order to analyze the financial information of a business. You can take an intermediate accounting course online or at a community college.

Purchase an intermediate accounting workbook. A workbook will explain each concept and provide visual examples, such as sample transactions. This will help you to understand how the information applies to the endeavors of a business. Read a chapter of several intermediate accounting workbooks until you find one that you prefer. You can purchase an intermediate accounting workbook online or at a bookstore.

Comprehend liabilities. In beginning accounting, you are introduced to the definition of a liability. In intermediate accounting, you learn about current liabilities and long-term liabilities. A liability is an amount of money that one business owes to another. Current liabilities are the amounts that you need to pay within a year. Trades payable, payroll amounts, and a note payable that does not extend beyond one year are examples of current liabilities. Long-term liabilities are the amounts that you need to pay which extend beyond a year. Mortgage payments, leases, bonds and notes payable that extend beyond a year are examples of long-term liabilities.

Understand cash flow. Cash flow refers to the money that a business receives and the money that the business has to use for payments. The main components of cash flow consist of the activities of operation, investment and finance. The operation activities are the daily cash exchanges of the business, such as payments from customers. The investment activities are those which relate to the progress and sustainability of the business. The financial activities correspond to the long-term liability payments. All of this information is necessary in order to comprehend all aspects of cash flow.

Understand financial statements. When learning intermediate accounting, you must understand the importance of financial statements, which are used to evaluate the success of a business. Financial statements are analyzed in the form of trends, common-size and ratios. Trend analysis focuses on the percentage change of an account. Common-size analysis refers to the percentage calculations in terms of the total amount of assets on a single balance sheet. Ratio analysis is the calculation of a ratio based on the different aspects of a business, such as liabilities and assets.

Take notes on the chapters of the workbook. For example, as you read about financial statements, you can take notes on all of the different ways to analyze the statements. Creating notes will help you to remember the information more effectively.

Do the practice problems in the intermediate accounting workbook. Completing the practice problems is a great way to learn intermediate accounting because it will help you to apply the information that you read about in the workbook.