Economics & finance · 50Intermediate

Accounting & Audit Data Analyst

Accountants or auditors who want to automate their analyses.

Accounting basics, then Tableau visualisation, data analysis in Python and machine learning applied to accounting.

216hours of coursework

22weeks at 10 h

3steps

10courses

2universities

Target skills

Income StatementFinancial StatementsAccountingFinancial AccountingBalance SheetLedgers (Accounting)Accrual AccountingGeneral LedgerExcel FormulasJournalsRevenue RecognitionBusiness Ethics

Skill labels as listed on Coursera.

Target jobs

Audit data analyst
Data-driven controller
Digital audit consultant

Progression

1
Specialization · 3 courses
Introduction to Financial Accounting: The Accounting Cycle
30 h
University of California, IrvineBeginnerMicrosoft Excel
Stated prerequisites: No prior experience required
Show the 3 courses
Course Level Length Rating (reviews)
What is Financial Accounting? Beginner 9 h 4.7 (558)
Recording in Journals & Posting in Ledgers — 11 h 4.8 (189)
Completing the Accounting Cycle Beginner 10 h 4.6 (156)

Course	Level	Length	Rating (reviews)
What is Financial Accounting?	Beginner	9 h	4.7 (558)
Recording in Journals & Posting in Ledgers	—	11 h	4.8 (189)
Completing the Accounting Cycle	Beginner	10 h	4.6 (156)

Specialization · 4 courses

Fundamentals of Accounting

58 h

University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignBeginner

Stated prerequisites: No prior experience required

Show the 4 courses

Course	Level	Length	Rating (reviews)
Understanding Financial Statements: Company Position	Beginner	12 h	4.8 (1,404)
Understanding Financial Statements: Company Performance	Beginner	12 h	4.7 (797)
Accounting for Business Decision Making: Measurement and Operational Decisions	Beginner	18 h	3.8 (190)
Accounting for Business Decision Making: Strategy Assessment and Control	Beginner	16 h	3.8 (119)

Specialization · 3 courses

Accounting Data Analytics

128 h

University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignIntermediatePython, Pandas, Scikit-learn, Seaborn, Tableau

Stated prerequisites: Basic Microsoft Excel understanding recommended

Show the 3 courses

Course	Level	Length	Rating (reviews)
Introduction to Accounting Data Analytics and Visualization	Beginner	21 h	4.8 (458)
Accounting Data Analytics with Python	Intermediate	43 h	4.4 (118)
Machine Learning for Accounting with Python	Intermediate	64 h	4.6 (46)

With Coursera Plus

This path takes 216 hours, about 5 months at 10 hours a week. A Coursera Plus subscription gives access to most of its courses during that time.

Discover Coursera Plus

Projects to build

After step 2

Management dashboard

Build a Tableau dashboard of a fictitious company’s sales, margins and costs.

After step 3

Anomaly detection

Find unusual journal entries in an anonymised public ledger with Python.

After step 3

Predict late payments

Train a model that predicts late-paid invoices and explain its features.

Free textbooks

Principles of Accounting, Volume 1: Financial AccountingOpenStaxFree (OpenStax)

Python for EverybodyCharles R. SeveranceFree, CC BY 4.0

Python for Data Analysis, 3rd ed.Wes McKinneyOpen access online