Learning key financial topics like corporate finance, pricing models, M&A, and money markets can benefit you whether you are at the start of your career or an experienced professional. A finance-related skill can further strengthen your resume, making you a perfect candidate for many jobs.
If you are currently working or studying, you might not be able to acquire on-campus financial education. But, don’t worry because there are many online finance courses available these days. To help you out, we have provided information about some of the best online finance courses available today.
Best Online Finance Courses
Finance for Non-Financial Professionals
We will start off with a basic course that is designed for beginners. If you are a manager, you should definitely add this course to your shortlist because it might help you better contribute towards the growth of your organization. The total time of the course is seven hours, which means that some basic accounting and finance terms will be covered. The main focus will be on allowing students to understand basic financial jargon and better interpret financial information. You will get to learn about important things such as financial ratios, valuation, and costing.
Introduction to Corporate Finance
Comprising of the fundamentals of corporate finance, this is another course designed for beginners. It is offered by Coursera and it spans over four weeks. If you want to enhance your basic finance skills while expanding your understanding of the importance of finance in the corporate world, you should consider taking this online course. A certificate of completion will be presented to each student at the end of this course.
Financial Markets
This online finance course will introduce students to financial markets. After the completion of the course, you will gain leadership skills, and your understanding of financial principles and how they apply to the real world will improve. A certificate is available for purchase that you can display on your professional profile on LinkedIn. The Financial Markets course is available on Coursera and taught by professor Robert Schiller. This course is good for beginners or even professionals who need a refresher on basic financial concepts.
Finance Essentials
In this course, you will learn about the fundamentals of finance. You will gain knowledge about finance tools required for management. The Finance Essentials course is taught by Robert Kosowski and is available on Coursera. You don’t need any prior knowledge to join this course because it is designed for beginners and should help them get familiar with basic financial concepts.
Finance Boot Camp for Entrepreneurs
As the name suggests, this particular course is designed for entrepreneurs and it is an intermediate level course. Offered by Udemy, this course is more comprehensive but doesn’t need any specific pre-knowledge. If you have basic computer skills, you can join the course and learn from the capable lecturer named Lili Balfour. In this course, you will get to learn how to raise the funds required to get your firm off the ground. You will also learn how to create a financial model that will keep your business running smoothly. Crowd funding is another topic that will be covered at length in this course. So if you are a budding entrepreneur looking to excel, you should consider taking this course.
Financial Modeling for Startups and Small Businesses
This course offers information on basic financial modeling as it associates with startups and small businesses. You don’t need any prior experience to enroll in the course and once you have finished it, you will have a solid grasp on basic financial principles. This course is taught by Evan Kimbrell and available on Udemy. If you are thinking about starting your own business, this course should provide some assistance in the financial matters.
Behavior Investing
Behavior Investing is an advanced level course that is designed for people who have a solid understanding of basic financial concepts and want to start investing. Behavioral Investing covers different emotions that lead investors to make errors in their investment decision. This course focuses on behavioral finance and analyzes a variety of phenomena including loss aversion, regret aversion, cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, hindsight bias and several others. In simple terms, you will get to learn how emotions of people lead them to make wrong investment decisions. If you aren’t sure about investing in the stock market, this course should help you a lot. There are no formal requirements for this course but you should only enroll in it if you are thinking about investing in the stock market.
Accounting, Finance, and Banking: A Comprehensive Study
Featuring 31.5 hours of video and several printouts, this is another course designed for professionals. If you have a background in finance, you can consider taking this course. However, if you don’t have a solid grasp of financial concepts, steer clear of it as basics won’t be covered in this course. The topics covered in the course include capital budgeting investments, international finance, taxes and final accounts, and cash flow analysis.
Final Thoughts
Before you start taking an online finance course, make sure to have a clear goal in mind. You must also know what your current level of knowledge about finance is. If you are a beginner, then it doesn’t make sense to enroll in an advanced level course. Similarly, if you have a clear understanding of financial concepts, then basic courses would be a waste of time for you.
You should determine what your goal is and then enroll in an online finance course that can help you accomplish that goal. For instance, if you want to start investing in the stock market, then the Behavior Investing course would be perfect for you. Similarly, if you just want to learn basic financial concepts, then the Finance Essentials course will be a good fit for you.
