Financial Reporting and Analysis

 

Teaching Hours and Credit Allocation:	24 hours, 6 credits
Course Assessment:	Coursework + Exam

 

Aims

Users of financial data must understand how a company's operations are reflected in its accounts, so as to interpret and analyse them correctly. Also, since company managers choose accounting techniques when making their reports, users must learn to identify and undo the effects of these accounting choices. The purpose of this course is to give you the foundation for such analysis.

 

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the course students will be able to:

• Read and understand key financial statements
• Construct a basic set of financial statements
• Critically evaluate some of the accounting decisions that have gone into the preparation of these statements
• Evaluate company performance using a set of financial statements
• Use accounting data for management planning and decision making

 

Content

• Uses and users of accounting information
• Overview of main accounting statements
• Preparing financial statements
• Accounting for groups of companies. Intangible assets
• Cash flow statements
• Financial statement analysis
• Understanding cost behaviour. Cost-volume-profit analysis
• Budgeting
• Divisional performance measurement