APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2016/2017

GRA 8222 Financial Accounting (2016/2017)

Responsible for the course
Pål Berthling-Hansen

Department
Department of Accounting - Auditing and Business Analytics

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
3

Language of instruction
English

Introduction
The set of financial accounts is usually the primary channel for reporting the financial affairs of any organisation. A thorough understanding of such information is absolutely vital for any senior level manager involved in the discussion of a company’s financial state of affairs. Financial accounting based information is also the starting point of the financial aspects of most decisions aimed at improving shareholder value.

Learning outcome
Acquired knowledge:
Students are expected to obtain knowledge of the fundamental principles of financial accounting and obtain a thorough understanding of the financial accounting vocabulary. The course intends to give a rudimentary understanding of the mechanics of developing a set of external corporate accounts. This is an important prerequisite to understanding how to use accounting based information for corporate control and decision making. In this it is important that users of such financial accounting based information understand the limitations of such information, and when the financial accounts need adjustments to cater for various applications.

Acquired skills:
The course will teach students to conduct specific transactions in the financial accounts, conduct year-end adjustments, and produce a set of year-end accounts. Students will then learn how to conduct different types of adjustments before any type of analysis can be conducted. Different types of analysis will then be covered in order to provide input for a control and decision making emphasis, and finally briefly discuss the communication of such analysis.

Reflection:
The candidates will obtain the competence to reflect on the quality of financial accounting based information for various uses, and be able to evaluate the general quality of a set of financial accounts, especially in relation to the many financial scandals that have occurred over recent years that have not been directly identifiable through financial accounting based reporting.

Examination
The students will be evaluated by the following elements:
Group case, hand-in, counts for 60% of the total grade
Individual hand-in, counts for 40% of the total grade

This is a course with continuous assessment (several exam elements) and one final exam code. Each exam element will be graded using points on a scale (e.g. 0-100). The elements will be weighted together according to the information in the course description in order to calculate the final letter grade for the course.

Specific information regarding student evaluation beyond the information given in the course description will be provided in class. This information may be relevant for requirements for term papers or other hand-ins, and/or where class participation can be one of several elements of the overall evaluation

Examination code(s)
GRA 82221 - Continuous assessment ; accounts for 100 % to pass the course GRA 8222, 3 ECTS credits

The course is a part of a full Executive MBA programme and all evaluations must be passed to obtain a certificate for the degree.

Examination support materials


Re-sit examination
Re-takes are only possible at the next time a course will be held. When course evaluation consists of class participation or continuous assessment, the whole course must be re-evaluated when a student wants to retake a exam. Retake examinations entail an extra examination fee.

Additional information