Accounting

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• The purpose, underlying assumptions and limitations of key corporate financial reporting documents including the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement;
• Budgeting and costing systems as a means of encouraging and evaluating managers’ actions;
• The processes involved in adapting financial reporting practices to a multinational setting;
• Combining financial and non-financial data in evaluating managerial and corporate performance.

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Identify, analyse and interpret quantitative and qualitative data in an appropriate way;
• Use appropriate quantitative, qualitative data, financial and non-financial data and techniques to make appropriate management decisions.
• Interpret financial statements and show how a business measures and manages it performance;

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Interpret and analyse quantitative data related to business issues, using appropriate financial and/or statistical skills and models to solve problems.
• Write effectively for business purposes;
• Manage individual tasks, personal resources and time effectively;

• The form of financial reporting – balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statements
• Issues in preparing financial reports – measurement and recognition with particular reference to knowledge based assets and other intangibles, economic substance over form, accounting for groups and changes in exchange rates
• Regulation of financial reporting – financial reporting incentives, earnings management, economic substance over form, activities of IASB’s including IASB-FASB convergence project
• Univariate and multivariate ratio techniques, relationship between accounting income and equity market value and equity valuation models
• Role of budgets and potential conflicts, process of budgeting, divisional performance evaluation, responsibility centres, divisional performance in control and evaluation decisions.
• Balanced scorecard - quantification of organisational goals, identification of perspectives and corresponding metrics, ensuring accountability for KPIs or other indicators.
• Costing, breakeven, relevant costs, relevant revenues and investment appraisal methods, in order to allocate resources effectively.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include

• Lectures
• Informal group work sessions
• Presentations
• Student led mini-debates.

Learning activities include

• Exercises on interpretation of financial reports and costing analysis
• Evaluation of live company using accounting and non-accounting data sources, requiring preparation of report and presentation
• Private study – directed reading and analytical activities

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Nobes, C. and Parker, R. (2016). Comparative International Accounting. Pearson.

Merchant K.A. and Van der Stede W.A. (2017). Management Control System – Performance Measurement, Evaluation and Incentives. Prentice Hall.

Atrill, P and McLaney, E (2015). Management Accounting for Decision Makers. Pearson.

Drury, C. (2015). Management and Cost Accounting. Cengage Learning.

Thomas, R.M. (2015). Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility: Cambridge- Gourlay- Trinity Lectures. Ethics International Press.

Jones, M.J (Ed) (2011). Creative Accounting, Fraud and International Accounting Scandals. Wiley.

Weetman, P. (2016). Financial & Management Accounting. Pearson.

Atrill, P and McLaney, E (2022). Financial Accounting for Decision Makers. Pearson.

Nobes, C. and Parker, R. (2006). The Penguin Dictionary of Accounting. Penguin.

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

In-class formative opportunities

• Assessment Type: Formative
• Feedback: Computational exercises, case studies and in-class presentations by students are a regular part of the module, and allow students to obtain feedback on their work. There is a mock exam just prior to the examination to provide final guidance and written feedback.
• Final Assessment: No
• Group Work: No

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External