Business & Money · Beginner

Accounting Basics

One equation and one rule, and then everything else is a consequence of those two things.

Lessons
29 lessons
Total runtime
41 hours of video
Modules
8 modules
Optional lessons
11 optional
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About this course

Accounting has a reputation for being dull, which is mostly a problem of how it gets taught. Underneath it there is one equation and one rule, and every statement, every entry and every audit is downstream of those two things. This course spends its first twenty minutes on the equation and the rule, because once they are solid the rest stops requiring memorisation.

It is built almost entirely from one teacher, which is unusual here and deliberate. James at Accounting Stuff has done something rare: a complete, properly ordered beginner curriculum in short videos, with a separate deep-dive series for each topic. Rather than stitch a course together from a dozen partial sources, this follows his sequence and pulls in the mini-series at the points where you need more than the two-minute version.

The path runs from the accounting equation, through debits and credits — the part everyone finds backwards, and there is a video here specifically about why that feeling is misleading — into how transactions actually get recorded, and out the other side at the financial statements, which is where accounting stops being an exercise and starts telling you whether a business works.

About six and a half hours of required video, and around forty in total once the optional lessons are counted — two eleven-hour university-style courses, a bookkeeping module, and a section on reading statements rather than producing them. The optional lessons are a quiz vault and two deep-dive series. Do take the quizzes: accounting is one of the few subjects on this site where you genuinely cannot tell whether you understood something until you try to answer a question about it.

What you'll be able to do

  • Explain the accounting equation and why it can never be out of balance
  • Record a transaction as a journal entry with the right account debited and credited
  • Read a balance sheet, an income statement and a cash flow statement without guessing
  • Say what accrual accounting changes, and why profit is not the same thing as cash
  • Work out what a set of financial ratios is actually telling you about a business

Curriculum

29 lessons · 41 hours

The One Equation

5 lessons · 48m

  1. 01CompletedThe Accounting EquationAccounting StuffVideoAssets equal liabilities plus equity. Three minutes, and it is the foundation everything else in accounting is built on — if this ever stops balancing, something is wrong.3m
  2. 02CompletedDouble-Entry AccountingAccounting StuffVideoThe rule: every transaction touches at least two accounts. This is the mechanism that keeps the equation above in balance, and it is roughly six hundred years old.4m
  3. 03CompletedAssets, Liabilities & EquityAccounting StuffVideoWhat the three terms in the equation actually mean. Most beginner confusion is really confusion about which bucket something belongs in.5m
  4. 04CompletedThe Expanded Accounting EquationAccounting StuffVideoWhere revenue, expenses and dividends fit into the equation. This is the version you will actually use, and it explains why an expense reduces equity.4m
  5. 05CompletedAssets, Liabilities & Equity in DepthOptionalAccounting StuffPlaylistA longer look at each of the three, one video apiece. Optional — take it if the categories still feel arbitrary after the short version.32m

Debits and Credits

3 lessons · 29m

  1. 06CompletedDebits & CreditsAccounting StuffVideoThe single biggest hurdle in beginner accounting. Debit does not mean decrease and credit does not mean increase — they mean left and right, and that is genuinely all.5m
  2. 07CompletedT-AccountsAccounting StuffVideoThe scratch-paper tool accountants actually think in. Draw them out by hand while you watch; the shape is doing the explaining.5m
  3. 08CompletedDebits and Credits in DepthAccounting StuffPlaylistFour short videos, including one arguing that debits and credits are not backwards and explaining why they feel that way. Worth it — this is the concept people quietly never resolve.19m

Recording Transactions

7 lessons · 38m

  1. 09CompletedJournal EntriesAccounting StuffVideoHow a real-world event becomes a line in the books. Everything up to now was theory; this is the part accountants spend their days doing.4m
  2. 10CompletedSimple vs Compound Journal EntriesAccounting StuffVideoWhat happens when a transaction touches more than two accounts, which most real ones do.3m
  3. 11CompletedThe Chart of AccountsAccounting StuffVideoThe index of every account a business uses. Dull on its own, but it is the thing that makes the ledger navigable rather than a pile.4m
  4. 12CompletedThe General LedgerAccounting StuffVideoWhere all those journal entries end up, sorted by account. The ledger is the book in bookkeeping.6m
  5. 13CompletedSubledgersOptionalAccounting StuffVideoHow larger businesses break the ledger into manageable pieces. Optional at this stage — it matters when you meet a real accounting system.7m
  6. 14CompletedThe Trial BalanceAccounting StuffVideoThe check that debits still equal credits. It catches arithmetic mistakes and is completely blind to entries that are neatly balanced and entirely wrong.5m
  7. 15CompletedInvoices ExplainedAccounting StuffVideoThe most common document you will actually handle, and the point where accounting theory meets someone owing you money.9m

Timing: Cash vs Accrual

2 lessons · 1h 13m

  1. 16CompletedCash vs Accrual AccountingAccounting StuffVideoWhen a transaction counts, which is a separate question from whether money moved. This is why a profitable company can run out of cash and fail.9m
  2. 17CompletedAdjusting EntriesAccounting StuffPlaylistThe entries made at period end to put revenue and expenses in the right period. Six videos, and the direct consequence of choosing accrual accounting over cash.1h 4m

The Financial Statements

4 lessons · 4h

  1. 18CompletedYour Guide to Financial StatementsAccounting StuffPlaylistThe balance sheet, the income statement and how they connect — eleven videos, and the point of everything before it. This is where the books turn into a description of a business.2h 13m
  2. 19CompletedThe Cash Flow StatementAccounting StuffPlaylistDirect and indirect methods. The third statement, the least intuitive of the three, and the one that would have warned you about most business failures.42m
  3. 20CompletedThe Ultimate Guide to Financial StatementsOptionalAccounting StuffVideoAll three statements and how they connect, in one sitting. The playlists above go deeper; this is the version that shows the whole picture at once.35m
  4. 21CompletedFinancial Statements ExplainedOptional365 Financial AnalystVideoThe same three statements from an analyst's side of the desk — reading them rather than producing them. A useful change of perspective.30m

Reading the Numbers

3 lessons · 4h 27m

  1. 22CompletedYour Guide to Financial RatiosAccounting StuffPlaylistTurning statements into judgements: liquidity, profitability, leverage and efficiency. This is the skill an investor or a manager actually uses.1h 7m
  2. 23CompletedAccounting Quiz VaultOptionalAccounting StuffPlaylistTwenty questions per topic, across fifteen videos. Marked optional, but of everything here it is the lesson most likely to expose what you only think you understood.2h 56m
  3. 24CompletedFinancial Ratios — How to Analyze Financial StatementsOptionalAccounting StuffVideoLiquidity, profitability and leverage ratios, and what each one is actually asking. A single-video summary of the playlist above.24m

The Longer Courses

4 lessons · 27h 26m

  1. 25CompletedLearn Accounting in Under 5 HoursOptionalAccounting StuffVideoThis entire course as one continuous video, from the same teacher. Take it instead of the short lessons if you would rather sit down once than thirty times.4h 51m
  2. 26CompletedAccounting Crash CourseOptionalLearn Accounting FinanceVideoNinety minutes aimed at getting job-ready rather than exam-ready, which means more time on what an employer expects you to do on day one.1h 33m
  3. 27CompletedComplete Financial Accounting CourseOptionalTony BellVideoEleven hours from a university lecturer, with problems worked on screen. This is a real first-year accounting module, and the most complete free treatment there is.11h
  4. 28CompletedFull Financial Accounting Course in One VideoOptionalTony BellVideoAn earlier ten-hour recording of the same course. Take whichever version is easier to follow; the material is largely the same.10h 2m

Bookkeeping in Practice

1 lesson · 1h 59m

  1. 29CompletedThe Only Bookkeeping Tutorial You NeedOptionalLYFE AccountingVideoThe applied version of everything above — running the books for a small business month by month. The natural next step if you learned this to keep your own accounts.1h 59m

Credits

Every lesson in this course was made by one of these channels. Tubeversity sequenced them; it did not make them. If a course is useful to you, the people below are the ones who earned it.