Introduction to Accounting and Finance

The module introduces students to the role and purpose of accounting and finance functions within business environment.  Financial statements and financial ratio analysis.  Students progress to learning selected topics from Financial Management, and selected topics from Management Accounting.  More specifically, students are introduced to the structure and contents of financial statements, and financial ratio analysis from the areas of Financial Accounting.  The foundations of strategic investment appraisal techniques and decision rules, alternative sources of financing short and medium term as well as strategic investment plans are analysed and recommended, accordingly.  Furthermore, topics from Financial Management such as the cost of capital and capital structure, and dividends together with other alternative forms of distribution policies are studied.

At tactical levels, theoretical and practical areas of mergers and share valuation.  Students will also benefit from other important topics that will be covered from the following Management Accounting areas that are useful for management decision purposes: breakeven analysis and marginal costing, in addition to standard costing and variance analysis.  In studying these topical areas, students are expected to obtain good level of fundamental understanding in relation to financial management and strategic financial decisions as well as useful tools used in making management decisions.

• Develop fundamental understanding of financial statements - Statement of Financial Position, Profit and Loss Statement, and Cash Flow Statement
• Develop skill of understanding and/or analysing financial statements and interpret results regarding profitability, liquidity, gearing, efficiency, etc. ratios
• Learning and applying alternative investment appraisal techniques and making decision on selection of investment projects individually as well as a member of specialists coming from various technical departments forming a team of experts to evaluate, implement, monitor and manage the investment project till the end
• To develop a skill of identifying alternative sources for short-term and long-term financing needs of a business and ability to maintain financial health of a business
• To understand fundamental theoretical and empirical contents of capital structure i.e., with reference to maintaining optimal balance between debt and equity sources of financing
• To understand fundamental theoretical and empirical contents of policies on dividend payment and other forms of distributions to equity holders
• To have fundamental knowledge and understanding regarding financial and related aspects of business mergers and share valuation.
• Break-even analysis and marginal costing
• Standard costing and variance analysis

This is an SCQF Level 7 module and upon successful completion, participants will be awarded 20 credits.

Delivery 

This module will be delivered at Paisley and Lanarkshire campuses:

• Tuesday (Paisley): 10am to 12pm tutorial
• Friday (Lanarkshire): 1pm to 3pm lecture 

Course presenter

This module will be delivered by Dr Kenbata Bengassa.

NOTE: This is a university module and upon approval of your application, you will be invited to register and then supported to complete enrolment. To enrol on the university system, the first step involves security set-up using the Microsoft Authenticator app; you will need to ensure that you have a compatible smartphone.

Further information is available at the Student Information Portal.

To access this module via the CPD route, individuals should be ordinarily resident in Scotland.  If you do not meet this criteria, please enquire here.