What Are the Different Types of Business Finance Courses?

The different types of business finance courses often include accounting, business communications, human resources management, real estate, investment, and business law and policy. Each area relates intricately to the responsibilities a financial manager may encounter while working for a corporate or private employer. These classes are typically designed to be interrelated so that each new concept builds off previously taught information. These courses may be taken at a traditional four year university or at some community colleges.

Business finance courses teach the art of managing money, both from a corporate and personal financial view. These classes may be taken in the course of earning an undergraduate or graduate degree with a focus on financial practices. They may also be taken as continuing education seminars that expand the knowledge and training of individuals who are already employed in the financial business sector.

Some basic accounting classes are typically required to complete this type of degree. Accounting mathematics teach students how to obtain the numbers that relate to a company's profit and losses. Further business finance courses teach students how to analyze and interpret those numbers in such a way as to provide sound advice regarding the future management of the company's assets. Learning the account principles that generate these numbers better equips students to understand the potential profitability and risk a corporation may undertake during its daily operations.

Finance students and employees can also benefit from taking courses that focus on business communications and human resource management. These classes teach students how to interact professionally with other employees and with their superiors. During a communications seminar, participants may be instructed to create mock emails, memos, presentations, and quarterly briefs to expand their vocabulary, grammar skills, and public speaking confidence. Students also learn the purpose of a human resource manager, and the higher levels of productivity that can be attained when employees enjoy working together.

Real estate and investment courses teach students the foundational practices of the real estate market and the stock market. Financial managers learn how to recommend wise investment strategies to their employers based on existing trends in the marketplace. These courses also teach students the value of creating a diversified investment portfolio, and the impact different types of investments can have on both corporate and personal financing.

Business law and policy often form the capstone seminars for many business finance courses. These classes teach the legal parameters within which all corporations, both large and small, must work. Students learn how to form a small business and large corporation, and are taken through the process of filing appropriate paperwork, creating a board of investors, and entering their company in the stock market if it is publicly financed. Students may also be given the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of broad managerial principles by operating their company through a simulation throughout the course of a semester or the duration of the seminar. This allows instructors the ability to critique the management styles, international strategies, and investment opportunities taught over the course of several years in a practical and hands-on manner.