Accounting, Finance and Mathematics (Industry) BSc Hons - 2020 Entry

Course Structure

Lancaster University offers a range of programmes, some of which follow a structured study programme, and others which offer the chance for you to devise a more flexible programme to complement your main specialism. We divide academic study into two sections - Part 1 (Year 1) and Part 2 (Year 2, 3 and sometimes 4). For most programmes Part 1 requires you to study 120 credits spread over at least three modules which, depending upon your programme, will be drawn from one, two or three different academic subjects. A higher degree of specialisation then develops in subsequent years. For more information about our teaching methods at Lancaster please visit our Teaching and Learning section.

The following courses do not offer modules outside of the subject area due to the structured nature of the programmes: Law, Physics, Engineering, Medicine, Sports and Exercise Science, Biochemistry, Biology, Biomedicine and Biomedical Science.

Information contained on the website with respect to modules is correct at the time of publication, and the University will make every reasonable effort to offer modules as advertised. In some cases changes may be necessary and may result in some combinations being unavailable, for example as a result of student feedback, timetabling, Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies' (PSRB) requirements, staff changes and new research.

Year 1

Core

• Calculus

  Students are provided with an understanding of functions, limits, and series, and knowledge of the basic techniques of differentiation and integration. Examples of functions and their graphs are presented, as are techniques for building new functions from old. Then the notion of a limit is considered along with the main tools of calculus and Taylor Series. Students will also learn how to add, multiply and divide polynomials, and will learn about rational functions and their partial fractions.

  The exponential function is defined by means of a power series which is subsequently extended to the complex exponential function of an imaginary variable, so that students understand the connection between analysis, trigonometry and geometry. The trigonometric and hyperbolic functions are introduced in parallel with analogous power series so that students understand the role of functional identities. Such functional identities are later used to simplify integrals and to parametrise geometrical curves.

• Further Calculus

  This course extends ideas of MATH101 from functions of a single real variable to functions of two real variables. The notions of differentiation and integration are extended from functions defined on a line to functions defined on the plane. Partial derivatives help us to understand surfaces, while repeated integrals enable us to calculate volumes.

  In mathematical models, it is common to use functions of several variables. For example, the speed of an airliner can depend upon the air pressure and temperature, and the direction of the wind. To study functions of several variables, we introduce rates of change with respect to several quantities. We learn how to find maxima and minima. Applications include the method of least squares. Finally, we investigate various methods for solving differential equations of one variable.

• Introduction to Accounting and Finance

  This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the basic concepts and techniques of Accounting and Finance, which include financial accounting, managerial finance, and financial statement analysis.

  An important element of this course is that it provides exposure to the business and financial environment within which the discipline of Accounting and Finance operates, using real-world financial data for actual companies.

  The course covers concepts, techniques and interpretive skills that relate to the external financial reporting of companies and their relationship to the stock market, and to the use of accounting information for internal management purposes.

• Linear Algebra

  Introducing the theory of matrices together with some basic applications, students will learn essential techniques such as arithmetic rules, row operations and computation of determinants by expansion about a row or a column.

  The second part of the module covers a notable range of applications of matrices, such as solving systems of simultaneous linear equations, linear transformations, characteristic eigenvectors and eigenvalues.

  The student will learn how to express a linear transformation of the real euclidean space using a matrix, from which they will be able to determine whether it is singular or not and obtain its characteristic equation and eigenspaces.

• Preparation for Placement

  During this Preparation for Placement module, you will learn about the skills and expertise employers expect you to evidence; how to produce excellent CVs and cover letters; how to make an impact on application forms, what to expect at interviews and assessment centres. You will get to hear from final year students about their placement experience and a chance for you to learn about the placement opportunities on offer meeting graduate employers.

• Principles of Economics A

  Providing a thorough introduction to the discipline of Economics, this module is divided into two parts. The first part covers microeconomic analysis, including the theory of demand, costs and pricing under various forms of industrial organisation, and welfare economics. Many applications of theoretical models are examined. The second part focuses on macroeconomic analysis, including national income analysis, monetary theory, business cycles, inflation, unemployment, and the great macroeconomic debates.

• Probability

  Probability theory is the study of chance phenomena, the concepts of which are fundamental to the study of statistics. This module will introduce students to some simple combinatorics, set theory and the axioms of probability.

  Students will become aware of the different probability models used to characterise the outcomes of experiments that involve a chance or random component. The module covers ideas associated with the axioms of probability, conditional probability, independence, discrete random variables and their distributions, expectation and probability models.

• Professional Skills

  This module will provide you with the opportunity to undertake a personal skills audit as part of the CV assignment. It will enable you to identify your current skills level and begin to collect evidence of skills acquisition. It will cover a detailed analysis of the individual in terms of personality, skills, goals, interests and career ideas, and self-development. It would include organisation recruitment processes, including consideration of what organisations are looking for, the nature of ‘transferable skills’ and how these can be developed, and how organisations can select and train people.

• Statistics

  To enable students to achieve a solid understanding of the broad role that statistical thinking plays in addressing scientific problems, the module begins with a brief overview of statistics in science and society. It then moves on to the selection of appropriate probability models to describe systematic and random variations of discrete and continuous real data sets. Students will learn to implement statistical techniques and to draw clear and informative conclusions.

  The module will be supported by the statistical software package ‘R’, which forms the basis of weekly lab sessions. Students will develop a strategic understanding of statistics and the use of associated software, which will underpin the skills needed for all subsequent statistical modules of the degree.

Year 2

Core

• Accounting Information Systems and Auditing

  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, including the regulatory framework, audit planning, systems auditing and substantive testing.

• Computational Mathematics

  Students will gain a solid understanding of computation and computer programming within the context of maths and statistics. This module expands on five key areas:

  • Programming and R
  • Numerical solutions of equations
  • Numerical differentiation and integration
  • Monte Carlo methods
  • Numerical solutions to ODEs

  Under these headings, students will study a range of complex mathematical concepts, such as: data structures, fixed-point iteration, higher dimensions, first and second derivatives, non-parametric bootstraps, and modified Euler methods.

  Throughout the module, students will gain an understanding of general programming and algorithms. They will develop a good level of IT skills and familiarity with computer tools that support mathematical computation.

  Over the course of this module, students will have the opportunity to put their knowledge and skills into practice. Workshops, based in dedicated computing labs, allow them to gain relatable, practical experience of computational mathematics.

• Linear Algebra II

  Students will be provided with the foundational results and language of linear algebra, which they will be able to build upon in the second half of Year Two, and the more specialised Year Three modules. This module will give students the opportunity to study vector spaces, together with their structure-preserving maps and their relationship to matrices.

  They will consider the effect of changing bases on the matrix representing one of these maps, and will examine how to choose bases so that this matrix is as simple as possible. Part of their study will also involve looking at the concepts of length and angle with regard to vector spaces.

• Management Accounting for Business Decisions

  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.

• Principles of Finance

  This module covers project evaluation methods as well as risk, return and the cost of capital, including the capital asset pricing model. Corporate financing, including dividend policy and capital structure, options, and working capital management will also be investigated.

• Principles of Financial Accounting

  This module examines the main features of financial reporting by UK companies as well as the regulatory requirements and conceptual bases associated with these, with attention given to the UK Companies Acts and international accounting standards. Time will also be devoted to inflation accounting, group accounts, and problem areas and to specific reporting topics of current interest and concern.

• Probability II

  Probability provides the theoretical basis for statistics and is of interest in its own right.

  Basic concepts from the first year probability module will be revisited and extended to these to encompass continuous random variables, with students investigating several important continuous probability distributions. Commonly used distributions are introduced and key properties proved, and examples from a variety of applications will be used to illustrate theoretical ideas.

  Students will then focus on transformations of random variables and groups of two or more random variables, leading to two theoretical results about the behaviour of averages of large numbers of random variables which have important practical consequences in statistics.

• Statistics II

  Statistics is the science of understanding patterns of population behaviour from data. In the module, this topic will be approached by specifying a statistical model for the data. Statistical models usually include a number of unknown parameters, which need to be estimated.

  The focus will be on likelihood-based parameter estimation to demonstrate how statistical models can be used to draw conclusions from observations and experimental data, and linear regression techniques within the statistical modelling framework will also be considered.

  Students will come to recognise the role, and limitations, of the linear model for understanding, exploring and making inferences concerning the relationships between variables and making predictions.

Year 3

Core

• Dissertation for Accounting and Finance placement students

  The dissertation is an extended academic piece of work which aims to allow students to explore an issue which may arise on their plcement 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.

Year 4

Core

• Financial Accounting I

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

  It examines accounting for business combinations, goodwill and strategic investments, and other aspects of consolidation, foreign currency translation, segmental reporting, and accounting for financial instruments, all within the context of modern accounting theory.

• Financial Accounting II

  This module develops your ability to critically evaluate advanced financial accounting issues, placing this within the international accounting context. It focuses on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), with appropriate and relevant comparisons to US GAAP.

  Other topics covered include the accounting treatments of taxation, leases, pensions, provisions and contingent liabilities. The module also looks at empirical research on issues of relevance to accounting practitioners and accounting regulators.

• Likelihood Inference

  Statistical inference is the theory of the extraction of information about the unknown parameters of an underlying probability distribution from observed data. Consequently, statistical inference underpins all practical statistical applications.

  This module reinforces the likelihood approach taken in second year Statistics for single parameter statistical models, and extends this to problems where the probability for the data depends on more than one unknown parameter.

  Students will also consider the issue of model choice: in situations where there are multiple models under consideration for the same data, how do we make a justified choice of which model is the 'best'?

  The approach taken in this course is just one approach to statistical inference: a contrasting approach is covered in the Bayesian Inference module.

Optional

• Advanced Management Accounting

  Aiming to extend your understanding of management accounting, this module focuses on both specialised techniques and the particular contexts in which they might be applied.

  In addition to introducing and explaining the use of quantitative methods such as simple and multiple regression, it covers topics such as advanced activity-based costing and customer profitability analysis, pricing for profitability, and flexible and activity-based budgeting.

• Bloomberg for Financial Analysis

  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 the Bloomberg Professional platform.

  The module has a strong practical component, as you will be using the Bloomberg Professional terminals in our Financial Markets Lab to extract, analyse and interpret data available within the platform in order to solve real-life financial problems. Through this, you will gain important insights into how financial platforms such as Bloomberg Professional are used for problem-solving within the industry.

• Corporate Finance

  This module examines corporate financing and investment decisions, focusing in particular on settings where companies’ assets and liabilities contain embedded options. Topics covered include valuation of options, investment appraisal, valuation of warrants and convertibles, capital structure, and mergers and restructuring.

• Financial Markets

  Fixed income securities are one of the major asset classes, and recent developments in debt markets (bankruptcies and reorganisation of key global players) call for deeper understanding of this key area of the financial spectrum.

  This module develops your intellectual and practical understanding of the organisation and structure of bond markets, introducing you to the main problems and issues relevant in the management of interest rate risk and the principles governing the valuation of fixed income securities and their derivatives.

• Financial Statement Analysis

  This module covers techniques and literature relating to the question of how markets use accounting information. The topics it introduces include the use of accounting numbers in the valuation of businesses, the properties of accounting ratios, accounting quality analysis, prediction of financial distress, relationships between share prices, and accounting numbers.

• Foundations of Banking

  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.

• International Financial and Risk Management

  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.

• Introduction to Asset Pricing

  This module provides a detailed analysis of three key finance paradigms: decision-making under uncertainty, including utility theory; capital asset pricing and market equilibrium; and option pricing and hedging strategies. Emphasis is placed on financial concepts, theories and models such as portfolio theory, the efficient market hypothesis, and theories of capital structure.

• Investments

  This module covers the fundamental concepts and techniques of modern investment theory and practice. Topics include security analysis, equity and bond portfolio management, asset allocation, performance evaluation, estimation of risk measures and hedging. There is also an emphasis on some of the practical issues in portfolio management.

• Issues in Auditing

  Auditing is the checking of accounts by independent accountants before they are published by companies. As such, it is vitally important to the financial markets and other users of accounts: only if the accounts are given a ‘clean bill of health’ by the auditors will the users be able to rely on the information they contain.

  This module considers not only how an audit is done but also the broader issue surrounding auditing and auditors. We look at theory and practice and consider how the two interact; how the market for auditing services is developing; the importance of auditor independence from their client companies and the ethical dilemmas in which auditors might find themselves; to whom auditors report and how they do so; and to whom are auditors liable if things go wrong.

  Module participants have the opportunity to equip themselves for a career in auditing (or a career observing what auditors get up to!).

• Professional Ethics

  This module focuses on the various codes of ethics and regulatory frameworks to which professionals in accounting and finance are subject. It examines the nature of ethics and its application in the workplace, looking at various types of ethical issues that may arise. By introducing you to current topics in ethics and governance, the module develops your understanding of the role that governance plays in the management of a business and the evolution of good governance practice, and also your awareness of the consequences of unethical behaviour.

• Professional Financial Analysis

  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.

  The CFA Level 1 syllabus is wide ranging, covering materials on economics, statistics, financial reporting, various topics in finance and ethics. To cover these in a realistic, professional manner, tuition will be provided by Fitch Learning. Fitch will utilise blended learning combining face-to-face lectures, the use of an on-line portal, self-study with on-line support and a series of mock exams.

  Amongst the areas to be taught on the module are: Portfolio management; Equity market organisation; Equity market indices; Equity analysis and valuation; Fixed income instruments; and Professional Ethics.

• Quantitative Finance

  This module helps you to understand how econometric models can be used to learn about the future behaviour of the prices of financial assets by using information on the history of asset prices and the prices of derivative securities.

  It describes time series models for financial market prices and shows how these models can be applied by banks and investors. It covers random walk tests and forecasting price volatility for financial asset prices.

• Taxation

  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.