GRA 8222 Financial Accounting (2016/2017)

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.


    Prerequisites
    Granted admission to the EMBA programme. Please confirm our Student regulations. All deliverables will be in English.

    Compulsory reading
    Books:
    Financial Accounting and Reporting: A Global Perspective. 2013. Michel Lebas, Herve Stolowy, Yuan Ding. 4th, Revised edition. Cengage Learning, Inc

    Recommended reading

    Course outline
    Topic 1
    · The main principles of financial accounting
    · Posting financial accounting transactions
    · Completing year-end accounts

    Topic 2
    · Regrouping and adjusting the financial accounts in preparation for analysis

    Topic 3
    · Using financial accounting information for corporate control purposes
    · Earnings related issues
    · Capital structure issues
    · Liquidity issues
    · Other performance measures

    Topic 4
    · Using financial accounting information for corporate decision making
    · Strategic decision making
    · Investment decisions
    · Mergers and acquisitions
    · Valuation
    · Operational decision making
    · Budgeting
    · Pricing decisions

      Computer-based tools
      It's Learning

      Learning process and workload
      1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours.

      The course is conducted through a total of 24 hours of lectures and casework.

      Attendance at all sessions in the course is compulsory. If you have to miss part(s) of the course you must ask in advance for leave of absence. More than 20% absence in a course will require retaking the entire course. It's the student's own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class that is not included on the course homepage/ It's learning or other course materials



      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