Online Bookkeeping Curriculum and Classes

Our curriculum is developed specifically for the distance education learner by instructional designers who specialize in how to develop content for adults and well-qualified subject matter experts, including two accounting professionals with more than two decades of experience in the field, to ensure quality content. The current subject matter expert is a CPA and owns her own company, assisting clients in bookkeeping. In addition, USCI works with a program advisory council of non-USCI employee who is a senior financial analyst with over 14 years of progressive accounting experience in the field to review content annually to ensure students receive content that is up-to-date, relevant and accurate.

Program Curriculum Breakdown

Your Online Bookkeeping School Classes are broken down into 5 units.

Instruction Pack I: Bookkeeping Concepts

Students learn about the importance of bookkeeping in today’s businesses. Key bookkeeping terms are defined, and students learn how to use accounting equations. This instruction pack covers the types of accounts businesses use, as well as how to interpret balance sheets and operating statements. Additionally, students learn how to follow a transaction through the entire accounting cycle, including recording transactions in journals, posting transactions to ledger accounts and identifying debits and credits. Students practice arriving at a trial balance and identifying common bookkeeping errors.

Instruction Pack II: Completing the Accounting Cycle

Students practice the detailed procedures of accounts payable and accounts receivable methods. They prepare a worksheet to summarize the entire accounting cycle and as a preparatory step to preparing financial statements. Additionally, students learn how to figure depreciation and sales tax, and perform accounting functions for merchandising businesses. Finally, this instruction pack teaches students to post to specialized journals and complete the accounting cycle by preparing a balance sheet and operating statement.

Instruction Pack III: Banking, Payroll and Computer Bookkeeping

Students learn how to close the financial books for a set period of time, handle checking accounts, interest, promissory notes and petty cash transactions, as well as reconcile bank statements. Students write payroll checks, figure payroll deductions and maintain employer’s payroll records. Finally, the students learn about computerized bookkeeping, including the importance of spreadsheets in the bookkeeping profession.

Instruction Pack IV: Daily Bookkeeping Procedures, Business Forms and Bookkeeping Simulation

Students learn how to apply daily bookkeeping procedures for businesses. Next, they learn the differences among partnerships, corporations and non-profit organizations, and how each type of business sets up the books. Finally, students demonstrate the skills they’ve acquired by performing a bookkeeping simulation project for a sole-proprietorship.