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.

The 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 m
arginal 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 two-hour lecture and a one-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 in-class test 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, whilst the end-of-year examination will assess the management accounting learning outcomes.

Textbooks

Core textbook
Weetman, P. (2015) ‘Financial and Management Accounting: An Introduction’ 7th edition, Pearson Education www.myaccountinglab.com

Other Texts:
Scott, P (2018), ‘Introduction to Accounting’ Oxford University Press.
Carey, M., Knowles, C. and Towers-Clark, J. (2017) ‘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