3 Semester Credit Hours

Course Description

This course is designed to give technical professionals an understanding of basic techniques and concepts of financial management and accounting. The course targets three broad subject areas:  Managerial Accounting and Control, Financial Accounting and Reporting, and Corporate Finance. The initial portion of the course explores how managerial accounting can create value in a dynamic business environment. This portion covers the concepts and tools used by managerial accountants in their roles as internal business consultants. Managerial accounting activity adds value by providing information for decision making and planning, controlling operational activities, and measuring the performance of activities, subunits, and managers within the organization. The focus of this initial segment of the course is on the needs of managers within the organization. The second segment of the course focuses on the tools necessary to understand and analyze information in corporate financial statements. Emphasis is placed on using the information in financial statements in corporate management, security analysis, and consulting. This section will incorporate many of the generally accepted accounting principles that provide a background for the accounting and auditing functions of a business. Each of the basic financial statements – the balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows- will be analyzed in terms of external users of financial information. The third, and final, portion of the course deals with issues related to corporate finance. It is centered around the financial behavior of corporations and capital markets. Significant emphasis is placed on the notion of value creation and the importance of judgment in financial decisions. The basic concepts of cost of capital, capital budgeting, and pro-forma statements are covered along with such advanced topics as assessing merger and acquisition targets and financing investments.

Prerequisites

Students without Financial Accounting coursework experience will need to purchase and successfully complete Financial Accounting: A Management Perspective 15th Edition, 2004, by Robert N. Holt, Ivy Software, http://www.ivysoftware.com. This course is designed to give you a managerial overview of financial accouning and to introduce you to popular forms of financial analysis. The instructor will assume you have these basics and will not review this content further in the course. You should plan to spend 12-18 hours to complete this review. (Approximate Cost = $50)

Objectives

• Explore how managerial accounting can create value in a dynamic business environment.
• Cover the concepts and tools used by managerial accountants.
• Explore relevant information for decision making and planning.
• Assess managers’ roles in directing and controlling operational activities.
• Provide tools necessary to understand and analyze information in corporate financial statements.
• Examine generally-accepted-accounting principles followed in the basic accounting and auditing functions of a business.
• Analyze the basic financial statements of a company in terms of the needs of external users.
• Introduce the basic concepts of corporate finance, including value creation and development of judgment skills.
• Explore capital budgeting and cost of capital decision making issues.
• Introduce advanced financial concepts of financing investments and assessing merger and acquisition targets.

Course Topics