Introduction to Python for Accounting and Finance Professionals (IT072)

This course is an introduction to Python, a popular programming language, which will be delivered in a context relevant to professional accountants. Python is a user -friendly language taught as an introductory Computer Science courses in the universities, while also being powerful and flexible enough to be used in a variety of professional settings, e.g. in data science, artificial intelligence and web development.
 
Participants will learn how Python can be used to consolidate data from reports of varying templates, crawling data from e-commerce sites to evaluate the organisation’s pricing strategies, and making documents in the workplace secure from prying eyes.

Programme Outline:

• Day 1: 
  • Getting started with Jupyter
  • Python basics: Variables, Loops, Conditionals and Data Types
  • Introduction to data processing with the Pandas library
  • Using plotting libraries to present data with simple graphs
  • Python in the real world: Compiling tweets, and cracking a zip file
• Day 2: 
  • Using data tools in Python for financial analysis
  • Reading from public stock ticker APIs, manipulating and presenting stock data
  • Excel vs Python, when to use each, and how to complement one another
  • Working with Excel files and Google Sheets
  • Python in the real world: sorting out Excel data, reading weather data using APIs