GRA 6233 Treasury Management

GRA 6233 Treasury Management

Course code: 
GRA 6233
Department: 
Accounting and Operations Management
Credits: 
6
Course coordinator: 
Kizkitza Biguri
Course name in Norwegian: 
Treasury Management
Product category: 
Master
Portfolio: 
MSc in Business - Accounting and Business Control
Semester: 
2021 Spring
Active status: 
Active
Level of study: 
Master
Teaching language: 
English
Course type: 
One semester
Introduction

After completing this course, students will be able to understand the basic functioning of a Treasury Department in an organization, regardless of whether it is a small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) or a large public company. Students will also have the chance to build from scratch and practice with a treasury management tool (the “toy”) using the information from the income statement, balance sheet, annual budget and the due dates from customer and supplier invoices in the accounting system of a real anonymous enterprise. This course covers part of the content of courses P2. Advanced Management Accounting and F3. Financial Strategy of the CIMA professional qualification as Chartered Global Management Accounting™.

Learning outcomes - Knowledge

The students will be able to identify the different types of treasury management instruments available along with their purpose, and will have an overview of the current risks and challenges faced in the context of treasury management.

Learning outcomes - Skills

The student should also be able to apply the acquired knowledge to real-life treasury management problems and to critically evaluate the corporate policy decisions taken by real companies in real situations.

After completing this course, students will build and reinforce the following general competences: decision-making, critical thinking, judgment, team work and communication and public-speaking skills. Students will also use/improve their excel skills.

General Competence

The student should critically reflect on treasury management’s role in society as a whole by evaluating the sustainability of a company’s liquidity actions and consequences (i.e. ethical considerations).

Course content

The course builds around the following blocks/clusters:

  1. Introduction to Corporate Treasury Management
  2. Liquidity Planning and working capital management
  3. Liquidity Planning and financing decisions
  4. Liquidity Planning and risk management
  5. Liquidity Planning and cash concentration techniques

With the theoretical and practical expertise acquired from the different clusters, students with then approach the key trends, events and challenges in corporate treasury in the post-covid19 environment. This may include (but it is not limited to) topics such as digital transformation and the role of technological progress in payments, the effects of the current de-globalization or the treasury strategies for the current low interest rates and high FX volatility environments. The course will also build a link to the GRA6232 Management Control course. More precisely, in the clusters related to responsibility centres, budgeting and performance measurement and analysis.

Teaching and learning activities

Students will be asked to prepare some theoretical and/or practical material before the lecture every week. This material will be specified in the first day of class, so that students will know what they are supposed to prepare at home before coming to the lectures every week. This is a “binding contract” and it is called the Weekly Plan. Preparation before coming to the lectures each week should not take more than an hour per week. Attending the lectures without preparing the material makes no sense.

During the lectures, students are expected to actively participate and to generate discussion in the different teaching activities (case/paper discussion, role-play, presentations, etc) and should be prepared to work in teams as part of the learning process. When cases are discussed during the lectures, students can expect to get a partial solution to the case when the discussion is over.

Software tools
No specified computer-based tools are required.
Additional information

Please note that while attendance is not compulsory in all courses, it is the student’s own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class.

This is a course with continuous assessment (several exam components) and one final exam code. Each exam component is graded by using points on a scale from 0-100. The components will be weighted together according to the information in the course description in order to calculate the final letter grade for the examination code (course). Students who fail to participate in one/some/all exam elements will get a lower grade or may fail the course. You will find detailed information about the point system and the cut off points with reference to the letter grades when the course starts.

At resit, all exam components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course.

Qualifications

All courses in the Masters programme will assume that students have fulfilled the admission requirements for the programme. In addition, courses in second, third and/or fourth semester can have specific prerequisites and will assume that students have followed normal study progression. For double degree and exchange students, please note that equivalent courses are accepted.

Covid-19

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there may be deviations in teaching and learning activities as well as exams, compared with what is described in this course description.

Assessments
Assessments
Exam category: 
Activity
Form of assessment: 
Presentation
Weight: 
50
Grouping: 
Group (3 - 5)
Comment: 
There are two options in terms of the presentation. A case study to solve (Option 1) or building a case study (Option 2) in groups. A maximum of 3-4 students per group. However, group size might change depending on class size.

For Option 1: A case study related to the content of the course will be provided to each group of students. The main goal of the project is that students address real life treasury management situations. All the content of the course can be a topic to be covered in the project. Each case has a treasury management i) challenge and ii) a solution implemented by the corporation. The students have to build the “story” around the company and present it to the rest of the class in an intuitive and clear manner.

For Option 2: Students should build a case for class discussion. This is a more open and creative option, but students should be proactive in choosing the topic of the case. This is not a supervised project but it requires a meeting with the professor to approve the content.
The projects/presentation will be discussed in detail the first day of the course.
Exam code: 
GRA62331
Grading scale: 
Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade
Resit: 
All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course
Exam category: 
Submission
Form of assessment: 
Written submission
Invigilation
Weight: 
50
Grouping: 
Individual
Support materials: 
  • No support materials
Duration: 
1,5 Hour(s)
Comment: 
Written examination under supervision
Exam code: 
GRA62331
Grading scale: 
Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade
Resit: 
All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course
Type of Assessment: 
Continuous assessment
Grading scale: 
ECTS
Total weight: 
100
Sum workload: 
0

A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of at least 160 hours.