module specification

The module is a Level 4 30 credit core module which is designed to lay the foundation for understanding the accounting requirements of business organisations for internal and external reporting and decision making. It examines the financial and management accounting techniques and decisions for sole traders and limited companies.

Module aims to:

1.  Enable students to understand the underlying principles of the financial and management accounting processes and to prepare/construct relevant accounting statements
2.  Enable students to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of accounting information systems and how they relate to the decision making aspects of financial accounting statements
3.  Enable students to analyse and interpret the financial accounting statements of a limited company
4.  Enable students to understand management accounting techniques and their relevance to management decision making
5.  Enable students to understand the context of the professional accountancy framework and to enhance their employability skills.

1. Students will be introduced to preparing the three main financial statements of businesses - the income statement, the statement of financial position, the statement of cash flows. LO1
2. The techniques of Marginal and absorption costing, traditional overhead accounting and activity-based costing, break-even analysis and budgeting will be used on the module to enable students to understand how and when to use them in a work environment. LO2
3. Techniques used by managers in short-term decision making with pricing, investment appraisal techniques and performance evaluation LO3

Scheduled teaching activity is a weekly one hour lecture and a two hour seminar. Independent study is supported by practical seminar questions, past exam questions practice questions in the recommended textbooks and past examination papers with suggested solutions on the websites of ACCA and CIMA.

On completing the module students will be able to :

1.  Construct a set of financial accounting statements for a sole trader and a limited company, starting from the double entry bookkeeping aspect of recording transactions, highlight the decision making needs of external users of financial reports, understand and implement the underlying concepts and conventions
2. Differentiate between marginal and absorption costing and use the relevant technique in decision making and understand the traditional and ABC approaches to job and product costing
3.  Understand the principles involved in cost estimation for planning, control and decision making and investment appraisal techniques for long-term decision making.

The assessment strategy for the module will comprise three elements.  The two in-class tests of 15% each, will assess basic financial and management accounting techniques, the coursework will require students to prepare an individual report and construct final accounting statements for a limited company and a reflective essay on the professional accountancy framework whilst the end-of-year examination will assess the management accounting learning outcomes. To pass the module, a student must obtain an overall 40% pass mark.

Textbooks :

Core textbook

Financial & Management Accounting: An Introduction
Pauline Weetman 7th edition, Pearson Education www.myaccountinglab.com

Other Texts:
Scott, P (2018), Introduction to Accounting OUP.
Carey M., Knowles C. and Towers-Clark J.   (2016)  Accounting a smart approach Oxford University Press www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/orc/carey/

Employability and Reflective resources :

Financial Reporting Council   www.frc.org.uk
ICAEW    www.icaew.com
ACCA      www.accaglobal.com
CIMA      www.cimaglobal.com
Accountancy Age    www.accountancyage.com
Financial Times   www.ft.com

Journals: 

Library Journal Databases :  Academic Search Complete, Business Source Ultimate, Emerald Management, Science Direct

Websites:

Electronic Databases:  FAME