Online Business Management Undergraduate Certificate

The Business Management Undergraduate certificate program provides students with the skills to expand existing business management knowledge for a current or future job, or prepare for further education at the undergraduate level.

Upon completion of the program, students will be able to:

• Understand the Penn Foster distance learning process, the materials used in the program, successful study skills and techniques, individual life goals and steps needed to fulfill them, similarities between personal financial goals and business goals, the basics of setting up a budget and starting up and maintaining a business
• Discuss the various functions of business including competition, economics, accounting, technology and information systems, marketing, management through the phases of starting and growing a business, and management of financial and human resources along with the ethical and social responsibilities of business
• Discuss both the business environment and the manager's role in decision making, planning, organizing, leading, controlling, and developing an ethical perspective
• Demonstrate understanding of basic mathematical operations including percentages, discounts, interest, present worth, sinking funds, installment buying, pricing, depreciation, investments, insurance, use of symbols and their applications, equations and formulas, and the importance of statistics
• Compose professional documents using word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software, and integrate the applications
• Explain the principles of financial accounting including analyzing transactions, completing the accounting cycle, merchandising businesses, inventories, assets, liabilities, stocks, bonds and cash flow
• Explain the law of supply and demand, cost of living, monetary systems, international factors, and short run economic fluctuations
• Discuss managerial accounting including budgeting and performance evaluation, decentralized operations; differential analysis, product pricing, capital investment analysis, and cost activities

Applicants are required to complete two Basic Skills Assessments, one in reading and one in math, to determine the level of readiness for beginning their selected program. Additional studies may be required.

Succeed by learning how to use your Penn Foster program, and learn how to effectively manage your time, talents, and resources in your personal life, academics, and in your career.

Objectives:

• Understand how to use your Student Portal.
• Access the Penn Foster Community and use it to find answers.
• Connect with Penn Foster on various social media sites.
• Examine your individual life goals and the steps needed to fulfill them.
• Recognize how your personal financial goals mirror that of most businesses.
• Use time management skills to make the most of your day.
• Determine personal financial goals.
• Set up a typical budget.
• Explain why creative thinking, research, planning, gathering resources, and production and marketing are vital for the start-up and maintenance of a business.

This course is designed to introduce you to basic business concepts, theories, and perspectives. It will serve as a basis for further learning in your program.

Objectives:

• Understand the principles of business ethics and basic economics.
• Compare the different types of business ownership.
• Describe the basics of organizational structure.
• Identify the differences between management and leadership.
• Understand the importance of information technology in today’s business environments.

This course will review the functions of management and its role in planning, leading, organizing, motivating, and controlling.

Objectives:

• Define and correctly use business terms.
• Explain the importance of communication.
• Identify the steps of managerial decision making.
• Explain the relevance of the basic skills required by managers.
• Describe major components of various management perspectives.
• Discuss the ever-increasing employee diversity and the management activities required for the changing workforce.

This course will hone your math skills so you are able to successfully use them in business and finance industries.

Objectives:

• Use percentages, discounts, and interest formulas effectively.
• Analyze present worth and sinking funds.
• Understand how to buy in installments and price merchandise.
• Explain depreciation, insurance, equations, and formulas.
• Discuss investments and statistics.

This course will allow you to build your computer skills through a combination of reading and hands-on practice. You will navigate popular software tools such as Windows® and Microsoft® Office.

Objectives:

• Create, edit, and illustrate Microsoft® Word™ documents.
• Apply formulas and functions to large data sets in Microsoft® Excel.®
• Incorporate useful charts and graphs to summarize data.
• Add, delete, sort, and lay out table data.
• Create presentations in Microsoft® PowerPoint® using advanced tools, tables, and charts.

This course will allow you to develop a basic understanding of the principles of financial accounting. 

Objectives:

• Understand important accounting principles and concepts in order to prepare basic financial statements.
• Understand the fundamentals of bookkeeping while using the general journal, general ledger, and trial balance to prepare financial statements.
• Account for inventory, the use of different inventory costing methods, and their effects on financial statements.
• Distinguish between different liabilities and account for and report current liabilities and long-term debt on the balance sheet.
• Prepare a statement of cash flows using the direct and indirect methods and evaluate the company’s performance as it relates to cash.

This course will provide an overview of macroeconomics and the modern market economy. Law of supply and demand, the cost of living, monetary systems, international factors, and short-run economic fluctuations will be examined and discussed.

Objectives:

• Explain the economic systems and the economic perspective
• Identify the key factors in macroeconomics and how economists study the economy as a whole
• Explain the macroeconomic models and fiscal policies
• Explain money, banking, and financial policy
• Explain extending analysis of aggregate supply, current issues in theory and policy, and international economics
• Analyze foreign exchange and investment and the effects each nation’s economy has on another nation’s economy

This course provides an introduction to managerial accounting; analysis: C-V-P and management; budgeting and performance evaluation; decentralized operations; differential analysis and product pricing; capital investment analysis, and cost activities.

Objectives:

• Understand cost classifications as applied to preparing financial statements, predicting cost behavior, and making decisions
• Understand the flow of cost in job-order costing and use activity-based absorption costing to compute product costs
• Understand the flow of process costing, computing the cost per equivalent unit using the weighted-average method and FIFO method and allocating department costs using the direct and step-down methods
• Explain how changes in activity affect contribution margin and net operating income and examine cost-volume-profit relationships, such as margin of safety and break-even points
• Explain how variable costing differs from absorption costing and prepare income statements using the different approaches as tools for management
• Understand activity-based costing and how it differs from a traditional costing system
• Understand budgets, the process used to create budgets, and the preparation of various kinds of budgets
• Compute and record various variances
• Understand and compute various performance measurements
• Prepare differential analysis as a key to decision making
• Evaluate calculations for capital budgeting decisions
• Prepare a statement of cash flows using the direct and indirect methods and compute free cash flow
• Compute and interpret financial ratios Textbook: Managerial Accounting

This course provides an overview of Human Resources Management (HRM) as it's understood today. It illustrates the dynamic interaction of the personnel functions with each other and with the objectives of an organization.

Objectives:

• Describe the elements of human resource management, including labor considerations, regulation, and management of workflow
• Explain how companies should prepare for and implement HRM to hire new employees and create training programs
• Identify the aspects of employee, career, and turnover management
• Summarize how employees are paid, including legal requirements, performance-based pay, commissions, salaries, and benefits
• Describe other HRM functions including collective bargaining, labor relations, global HRM, and building a high-performance organization

Additional Course Materials:
Textbook: Fundamentals of Human Resource Management

This course provides an introduction to the various methods of organizing material for a professional setting. Students will compose business documents using the ABC method. These include memos, emails, outlines, reports and proposals, descriptions, and organizing materials. Students also work on honing their grammar skills.

Objectives:

• Describe the basics of the writing process and the ABC method of organizing material for a document
• Identify the parts of speech in a sentence
• Demonstrate correct pronoun use
• Choose proper and effective words for writing documents
• Identify the elements of a well-written sentence
• Demonstrate how to use length, directness, emphasis, and variety to craft impactful sentences
• Explain how to construct a coherent paragraph
• Describe how to write an effective cover letter and resume
• Format and write an interoffice memorandum, a routine business letter, and an effective email
• Identify the different ways to write for blogs, the Internet, and social media
• Describe how to create an organized formal outline
• Identify the types of research and methods of documentation used in business and technical writing
• Explain how to create visual interest and clarity in reports with illustrations, tables, graphs, charts, and overall design
• Explain the purpose and importance of various types of informal reports
• Describe the nature of formal reports and identify their components
• Differentiate among external, internal, informal, and formal proposals
• Describe an object or a process and prepare a set of instructions
• Describe the preparation and submission of professional and technical articles and manuals

This course is an introduction to the legal environment of business. Topics covered include American court practice and procedure, alternative dispute resolutions, employment law, business organization and regulation, contract law, and agency relationships.

Objectives:

• Explain the sources of law.
• Discuss the judicial process and alternative dispute resolution.
• Describe different forms of business organization and their characteristics.
• Explain the elements of contracts and rules pertaining to contracts.
• Explain the law of agency and laws concerning employment.

This assessment will evaluate the knowledge and skills that you learned during the program. You choose the time, the location, and the qualified exam supervisor.