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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Bookkeeping Basics by Intuit

4.6
stars
4,408 ratings

About the Course

This is the first course in a series of four that will give you the skills needed to start your career in bookkeeping. If you have a passion for helping clients solve problems, this course is for you. In this course, you will be introduced to the role of a bookkeeper and learn what bookkeeping professionals do every day. You will dive into the accounting concepts and terms that will provide the foundation for the next three courses. You will learn how to work your way through the accounting cycle and be able to read and produce key financial statements. By the end of this course, you will be able to: -Define accounting and the concepts of accounting measurement -Explain the role of a bookkeeper and common bookkeeping tasks and responsibilities -Summarize the double entry accounting method -Explain the ethical and social responsibilities of bookkeepers in ensuring the integrity of financial information. No previous bookkeeping or accounting experience required....

Top reviews

CS

Jul 30, 2023

After taking this course, I can see where & how I can apply my skills and love for numbers. I am confident in my decision and cant wait to put all the pieces together.

Thank you, Coursera & Intuit!

JS

Jun 2, 2022

This course is so GOOD! I needed to brush up on my Bookkeeping Skills, and I am glad that I chose Coursera to help me do this. I love the Step by Step Lessons and the videos are AWESOME! Thank you!

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26 - 50 of 1,242 Reviews for Bookkeeping Basics

By Berenice S

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Sep 15, 2021

Broken down concepts clearly and loved the examples in Quickbooks on how to apply concepts. Need a few more hands on activities like the final test.

By luanna G

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Jun 22, 2021

A great introduction to Bookkeeping Basics

By ying l

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Sep 6, 2021

all the animation part is a waste time. the expert advise is quite usefull, practice is good, but still, half of your time will waste on the animate and no way to mute it ( I hate that animate sound btw)

By christine S

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Jul 8, 2021

Not what I thought it was

By Layth E

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Jun 11, 2023

I'm giving the same review for all 4 courses. Most the problems start small in the first course and get worse and worse as you get to the later courses. If this "course" was available for free on Youtube I would thank the creator but still tell them that there are too many problems to be able to recommend it to anybody. But this isn't a free bookkeeping course on Youtube, it's a paid course created by a company that runs the largest and most profitable bookkeeping software in existence - QuickBooks. This company is to bookkeeping what Disney is to animation and I can't call this "course" anything other than a scam.

First off it is clearly not a cohesive course. The info is taught in a jumbled order with lots of information repeated and lots of other information omitted entirely. There are 2 main components. First is the weird black AI teacher with a Jewish accent who has wonderful graphics full of information but no actual knowledge and is reading off a script. Second are the actual qualified bookkeepers whose videos are clearly old training videos repurposed for this "course". The location they are in changes and I swear one lady's hair color changes 3 times. This is info from years apart and has been loosely aggregated together. And of course the people that actually know what they are talking about hardly ever have any graphics or information along side them to actually show you what they are talking about. About 80% of their screen time literally takes the form of, "That thing the AI teacher was talking about is important because if it's wrong then the accounts are wrong and people might make bad decisions based on the wrong info. They talk about examples and never actually show any.

There are typo's and errors and misinformation all over this course. It's astounding. And even though there are places to report errors and the forums are full of people complaining they never fix it. They continue to take people's money for a broken course and refuse to fix it. The debt to equity ratio slide says to divide debt by equity then shows them divide equity by debt. Plus the answer they show is 4.1 when the answer (to their already wrong equation) is .41. The real actual answer is something like 2.5. They literally divided the wrong numbers got the answer .41 (which would not make sense in context) and instead of double checking their work decided to just move the decimal point over because 4.1 would be a reasonable value. This is only one of probably 25-30 errors in the course and those are only the ones I caught. These are not small missable mistakes. They are large egregious errors that any qualified bookkeeper should be able to see immediately leading me to believe that this course has never been reviewed by one. They teach a whole course about how to enter and double check everything twice and they didn't even check the course once. And again even after we complain they do nothing to help us or fix the problem.

The exams are total bullshit. They spend the whole course showing you how to do stuff in quickbooks and all the exams are in HORRIBLY formatted excel sheets. The excel sheets have to be fully completed and filled in before you take the exam and the excel sheet is never submitted or checked for accuracy and they never, even after completing it, tell you the correct answers. Due to the nature of bookkeeping your answers depend on previous answers so you could mess up on one of the first entries and do the other 90% of the excel sheet right and still get only 10% of the exam right. It's total bullshit and there is never any way to know where you messed up and you just have to start all over. Exams 3 and 4 have major errors in them. Exam 3 straight up calculates profit as taking value away from the business. A ****ing toddler could tell you that isn't true. And it's not like these errors are reflected in the answers. If you do everything right you will get the wrong answer unless you manually edit the prefilled parts of the excel sheet yourself.

Even the final exam on Intuit's website that you are supposed to take after this whole course had an error where it asked me what account type something would fall under and all the answers were descriptions of entire journal entries none of which included the account the question would fall under. Completely asinine.

If you got the Couresa 7 day free trial and want to blow through all 4 courses in a week for free there would be some value to it. It teaches you "OF everything you need to know". Meaning it gives you all the relevant terms. But if you want to pass a real exam I would take the list of terms and verify what they mean and how to use them with independent sources to verify you learned it correctly and/or that the course didn't define it poorly or outright wrong. I completed all 4 courses in a little less than 20 total hours (not 40-64) so you could complete it in under a week for sure but I also did fast forward through quite a bit of the actual bookkeepers talking if they didn't pull up QuickBooks and actually show you how to do something. Sometimes they teach you but if their segment starts with "This is important because" you might as well just skip it especially if you are a visual learner like me.

By Danielle A

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Feb 9, 2023

Not recommended for those returning to accounting or bookkeeping to refresh skills. The platform may not be Intuit's problem, but the maybe-sorta answers are. The terminology is not what you will get on the job, in fact you'd do better getting a "Bookkeeping For Dummies" book or watch a YouTube video. Either would be more helpful.

The only reason I gave it 1 star is because it was a healthy reminder that I paid for this garbage run and might as well finish the 4 months as there's not a refund.

By John W T J

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Aug 22, 2022

The whole series of Bianca and Lou videos are just silly/childish. Seems overly dumbed down to the point of being obnoxious. On the flip side, the field experts being interviewed are bland and are frequently confusing (talking at the CPA level for a basic bookkeeping class). I skipped these parts. Not impressed so far.

By Laura V

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Jul 7, 2021

Excellent basic course in the general accounting principles needed to perform as a bookkeeper for small business. Explains complicated concepts in an easy to understand way, broken up into small chunks of time. Engaging videos and examples combined with hands-on practice make this a worthwhile course!

By Christina R S

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Jul 31, 2023

After taking this course, I can see where & how I can apply my skills and love for numbers. I am confident in my decision and cant wait to put all the pieces together.

Thank you, Coursera & Intuit!

By Star O

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Jun 19, 2022

This is a great course, it explains all concepts in a very easy to understand language. I suggest adding more practice/examples on journal entries and ledgers, how to transfer from JE to GL.

By Faisal

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Sep 24, 2021

After learning this course I am quite confident to work and handle the quick book accounting software with great accuracy with bundle of reporting advantages :)

By Kari C

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Jun 28, 2021

Could provide more hands on practice and better explanation about which accounts to choose, but a good comprehensive tool to learn the bookkeeping basics fairly quickly.

By Newman S

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Sep 5, 2021

The course itself is fine. The most annoying thing is the accent that is being used with the cartoon instructor. Some kind of east coast/New York accent that is very insulting and annoying to the ear. Since it is now obvious that the text of the videos was not spell checked and was done voice to text the accent makes for some very interesting spelling errors. The character of "LOU" is spelled 3 different ways. Some sentences don't make sense because the word she is actually saying was transcribed as garbled up nonsense. I like to read the text and take notes from it and that is hard to do when no one spell or grammar checked the accompanying text.

When you do the assignments that you have to "mark as complete", they don't stay marked and you have to go back and remark them.

The one where you have to create an Adjusted Trial Balance doesn't work. You do one thing and then it freezes up and says mark as complete before you've actually created the ATB.

But please get rid of the accent! It is very rude and she comes off like she's making fun of people with accents. Just use a normal speaking voice.

More print outs would be nice, too

By Anna H

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Oct 18, 2022

I'm giving this a 3 becuase it is adequately challenging/educational for me. However, I have worked in an office/bookkeeping environment for several years, self-taught. I think for someone with absolutely no bookkeeping experience, the materials would be easy to zip through but the exams (not quizzes) by comparison would be difficult. There are some gaps between the educational material and the quiz/test content, for exmaple-some terminology introduced in quizzes before it's covered in materials and a few oddly worded questions that were subjective. There's room for improvement.

By Lauren G

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Jul 6, 2022

For anyone who has never had ANY experience with bookkeeping, this course is NOT for you! There is so much missing in regards to understanding the concept of bookkeeping. There should be way more detail and if Quickbooks is the platform you are using to give demonstrations then students should have access to it to be able to fully understand how bookkeeping works in the digital sense and not just rely on a person's ability to function within a computer program. The videos are great but I don't feel they would adequately prepare you for the certification.

By Craig T

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Jul 29, 2022

The course was ok. It covers all of the basics. The woman's New Jersey accent and sass is way too much, it was hard to listen to. Also, some of the topics are essentially out of order. They often made reference to topics and concepts that had not yet been presented. The section on cash basis vs accural basis should have come before the 3 sections before it.

By Faith N

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Jun 26, 2022

I was not fond of the scenarios used, the accent and tone of speach seemed forced and was very off putting to me. I found I sped through those portions and it wasn't a benefit for me. I would have much preferred straightforward teaching, with the real life examples that was provided by the guest speakers.

By Katie K

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Apr 19, 2023

I do not feel like the course adequately prepared us for the case study at the end of the module. I think more time needs to be spent on General Journal, General Ledger and Trial Balances.

By Kris L

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Oct 16, 2022

Case study was hard to complete w/o assistance. There are still components I don't understand with no one to ask for help

By Jeffrey R

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Sep 12, 2022

I am too angry with this curriculum to write anything constructive at this time. The lack of quality/accuracy/usefulness of this material is scary since so many people use Intuit products to support their livelihoods. Instructors, your job is not to evade questions or answer with corporate responses like "We are looking into it", we know it is not happening. It does not take six months to fix a typo - I know, I wrote training material for a living, but it doesn't take six months. As an instructor, your job is to educate, to guide the learner through the subject. That means actively engaging in discussion and providing more definitive answers to questions. If there is an issue with a question in a quiz or lab, don't just browbeat the learner with some obscure platitude. Instead, since questions are tied to specific sections of the course, suggest to the student they go back to the supporting section for review.

Actually create a workbook that has the student apply the concepts taught in all the courses to doing the books for the same company. You kind of did it in the course presentations. This way, the student would have a consistent enviroment to work with eg common set of accounts to be used.

Review your instructions. They are not clear. They read like somebody rushed through typing something in without thinking about it. if your intending to have something broken in a worksheet, it is best to clearly indicate it, because it is clear that what is presented does not reflect real world. And for learners just starting, that isn't needed. I was shocked at the number of people tagged as unenrolled!

Drop the talking heads. It got so tiresome listening to people who I had no idea of who they were and their signficance the program. This is a subject that requires a lot of hands on practice to master. A workbook with lots of problems would have been a lot better. Also a talking animated character teaching/guiding through all these modules really dropped the credability of this material. Honestly what was presented by these people was no different than what I was reading in "Bookkeeping for Dummies".

By Sarah H

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Dec 1, 2022

Material covered was fantastic. Bianca is the best. HOWEVER, the exam is NOTHING like the course. Very confusing, very tricky with the words. Uses terms that haven't been used in the course. Very messy. I have tried contacting Intuit several times now and basically get put on hold until I give up. Well, congrats Intutit. I tried to push through the course and failed anyway. Also, it's absolutely ridiculous how the exam is proctored with webcam, screenshare, and sound monitored. I didn't have that much "security" on a test when I was in college. Having it timed is fine. All the other bells and whistles are ridiculous. I was terrified to even look at a calculator- WHICH IS NEEDED. Ridiculous. Very disappointed in this outcome with the exam. And there is barely any hope to reach/contact your people to assist in anything. It looks soooo bad on your company...what a shame.

By Miriam S

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Nov 11, 2021

Although it will teach you important basics, it is too full of useless fluff. It spends more time trying to convince you that the material is approachable, rather than actually teaching the material. Although it says it is a 16 hour course, fundamentally it is 4-6 hours of material and work. It also does not give proper feedback for how to fix errors when completing the exercises. Many of the exercises are railroaded as well; you do not have a real opportunity to practice the material, because they tell you exactly what to put where. I would recommend learners look at Intuit's QuickBooks Online certification program (available for free!) rather than this course.

By Pamela H

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Jun 15, 2022

So far I have finished Bookkeeping Basics Part I - 4 weeks. I thought there was going to be more help in understanding the information. Also, the Quickbooks information is not thorough at all. Thank goodness I have been doing QB for many years. Otherwise I would have truly been lost.

I am going to complete this course and hope it meets my expectations.

But I have learned basic accounting lingo which is very helpful.

By John A

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Jul 13, 2022

Half way decent, but doesnt explain some things enough. And the last activity is a complete mess as is displayed in the discussion forum. No one seems to be able to figure it out, and thats a clear display of poor instruction.

By Sarah S

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Mar 27, 2023

I am a complete bookkeeping beginner, and I found myself googling quite a lot throughout the course. They definitely need to go into more detail with certain topics and give more practice questions.. At one point they said "this is a difficult concept that still trips up senior accountants, the more you do, the easier it will become" and then they didn't provide any practice questions lol. The guided activities either seemed to not work correctly, or legit spoon-fed me the answers. So when it came time for the case study and I had to do everything 100% on my own, I was a little stressed. Also, Bianca got on my nerves by the end.

Edit: I am now 2 weeks into Course 2 and I 110% DO NOT recommend if you are planning to complete all 4 courses. So far course 2 has many mistakes which makes me question if the information I have been taught is even correct. I will finish Course 2 because I paid (waste of money IMO) and I will not complete Course 3 & 4 like I had originally intended.