Accounting and Finance (Industry)

This module provides an overview of the design and main features of accounting information systems (AIS). It introduces methods used by business to meet the financial information needs of external parties and management and includes systems used for collecting, recording and storing transactions data, internal controls and effective design of AIS. It also provides an introduction to auditing, explaining why audit independence is a key factor in this profession. The module also examines some specific topics in auditing and relates these to the AIS syllabus, including materiality, going concern and the formulation of audit opinions.

This module provides an introduction to the use of management accounting information for management purposes. This includes an examination of cost-volume profit analysis, the concepts of direct and indirect costs, and various costing methods. The importance of budgets to organisations and their impact on performance are also discussed.

This module covers project evaluation methods, risk, return and the cost of capital (including the capital asset pricing model), corporate financing (including dividend policy and capital structure) and an introduction to options.

This module examines some of the main features of financial reporting by UK companies, the associated regulatory requirements and the conceptual bases of these (UK Companies Acts and international accounting standards). Also examined are specific reporting topics of current interest and concern, including the basics of consolidated accounting.

At the heart of many real management problems are data that needs to be described, analysed and interpreted. Statistical methods are important across the range of Management School subject areas (e.g. accounting and finance, marketing, economics, operations management and operational research). This module develops your ability to describe, analyse and interpret data soundly, making effective use of computer software.

Developing these skills will also help you demonstrate to prospective employers that you have practical skills that can immediately be put to good use to solve problems for organisations either in the public or private sector.

The lecture materials, and the problems you are asked to solve in workshops, reflect the problems that organisations have to solve in practical situations where data analysis skills are required.

Techniques based on mathematics and statistics can be extremely powerful tools in helping to solve organisational problems. This module consists of five such techniques: Forecasting, Simulation, Decision Analysis, Network Analysis, and Linear Programming. The course will explain the business situations in which the techniques apply, and will show how to use the techniques and interpret the results to make better business decisions.

Accounting often finds itself perched uneasily between, on the one hand, economics and, on the other, the law. Much of current accounting practice and many reporting standards require accounts to show the ‘economic substance’ of transactions rather than their ‘legal form’. However, every accountant needs to have some understanding of the law: if s/he doesn’t, their careers may be short!

This second year module (the first of two that, together, are intended to cover the basic accreditation requirements of the professional accountancy bodies) is intended to introduce the area of business law to students of Accounting and Finance. It covers topics such as the nature of the English legal system, the essential elements of contract law, the law of tort and the law of the sale and supply of goods and services

This module provides a detailed analysis of four key Finance paradigms:

1. decision making under uncertainty, including utility theory,
2. state preference theory and arbitrage pricing
3. capital asset pricing and market equilibrium,
4. option pricing.

The dissertation is an extended academic piece of work that aims to allow students to explore an issue that may arise on their placement or which they may have become interested in as a result of their academic studies at Lancaster. The specification is deliberately flexible to allow for the varying placement experiences and resulting dissertation ideas which might arise.

This module deals with accounting for complex entities, addressing concepts, issues and techniques.

It examines accounting for business combinations, goodwill and strategic investments (associates and joint ventures), and other aspects of consolidation, foreign currency translation, accounting for leases, all within the context of modern accounting theory.

This module develops students' critical evaluation of advanced financial accounting issues and places this within the international accounting context. Topics covered include the accounting treatments of taxation, pensions and share-based payments. The module also introduces theoretical foundations and empirical research on issues of relevance to accounting practitioners and accounting regulators in topic areas such as earnings management, building on and extending the basics introduced in other modules

This module aims to extend students’ understanding of management accounting, focusing on three distinct approaches to the discipline: conceptual, practical and applied. The conceptual material in the course will seek to develop critical thinking skills for students by inviting them to consider the wide range of philosophical and economic theories that fit with the management accounting paradigm. The practical element of the course will introduce students to new management accounting techniques, including the role of uncertainty in management accounting, management control systems and the use of transfer pricing. The applied material will centre on a series of case study classes in which students will be required to engage with case study material and articulate their ideas about how to help the case organisation solve the particular problems that it faces.

This course equips students with the knowledge to apply corporate finance theory to real-world situations. It builds on and extends the concepts covered in the basic financial management courses and introduces advanced topics in Corporate Finance. The major topics covered include capital budgeting, capital structure, corporate valuation, real options, equity financing for startups, IPOs, leasing, short term financing, merger and acquisitions, and corporate governance

This module introduces you to the leading financial platforms used in the financial industry. In particular, it gives you a general understanding of the structure, type of data and functionality of various platforms.

The module has a strong practical component, as you will be using financial databases to analyse and interpret data available and solve real-life financial problems. Through this, you will gain important insights into how financial platforms are used for problem-solving within the industry.

The objective of this module is to offer a practical introduction to the workings of today’s financial markets and institutions built on a theoretical base. Moving beyond the descriptions and definitions provided by other textbooks and UK university courses in the field, this module encourages students to understand the connection between the theoretical concepts and their real-world applications.

Topics include foreign exchange, stock markets, bond markets, derivatives, central banks' monetary policy and financial crises. We also look at how trading in financial markets takes place. This module prepares students for successful careers in the financial services industry or successful interactions with financial institutions, whatever their future careers.

This module provides a foundation in banking by familiarising students with the basic business activities of banks, and illustrates the role of banks for the economy while retaining a bank-level rather than a macroeconomic perspective. It also highlights the role of regulation and supervision in the banking industry to differentiate banking from all other industries, and how crises reshape regulation in banking. The objective of this module is to introduce banking and what is special about it into the curriculum to equip students with a basic foundation to pursue careers in the banking industry.

This module provides knowledge that is important to those concerned with financial management in a multinational setting. Areas covered include the relationships between exchange rates, interest rates and inflation rates, forward, futures and options markets, and corporate exchange rate risk management.

The aim of this module is to equip students with the tools necessary to enable them to make the core investment management decisions that managers face on a daily basis as well as the knowledge as to where they can find the information necessary to apply those tools. This course is an introduction to investment analysis, with emphasis on the pricing of equity securities. This course covers fundamental concepts and key issues in asset pricing; modern portfolio theory and its applications; equilibrium theories of asset pricing; portfolio performance evaluation; mutual funds and hedge funds. It provides an entry point to advanced-level subjects and foundational knowledge on the valuation and arbitrage of investment assets.

This module examines the economic rationale for auditing, the structure of the industry and considers some of the problems faced by the auditing industry. Fundamental issues involved in auditing financial statements and financial information systems are examined.

This module investigates the role of ethics in business life. The course looks at this topic from multiple perspectives, considering various theories and models that help to unpack both individual and corporate ethics. The syllabus includes stakeholder analysis and management, corporate social responsibility, different forms of ethical reporting, various codes of governance and conduct, and some ethics-related aspects of UK law.

The main purpose of this module is to give students a thorough grounding in the materials expected of a professional financial analyst and thus prepare students to take the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Level 1 examination.

As such, it will introduce and review the theories, methods and professional standards relating to financial analysis; help students apply the knowledge and skills developed during this and other modules to the investment problems encountered by professional financial analysts; and prepare students to sit and pass the February CFA Level-1 exam administered by the CFA Institute.

This module is designed as an introduction to econometric and time series methods for the analysis and research of financial assets and capital markets relationships. The focus will be on the analysis of financial data and econometric methods for modelling of financial time series, risk management and forecasting. The key objectives are to i) explain how econometric methods can be used to learn about the behaviour of financial assets; ii) endow students with practical experience of analysing financial data useful for research and practical work in the quantitative finance industry using basic statistical software packages; and iii) endow students with the relevant quantitative skills for advanced studies in MSc programmes.

This module gives you an understanding of the economic and social impact of taxation and how these impacts influence the formation of tax policy. It covers the basic principles of UK income tax, corporation tax and other taxes, and teaches you the skills needed to perform basic tax computations.