2023/24 Reference

Management accounting may be seen as a way of providing information in three main areas: costing, decision-making, and planning and control. The emphasis of this module will mainly be on the first area (i.e., information for costing). In reality, however, it is often difficult to separate this area from the other two. For example, standard costing provides costing information which is then used as a tool for planning and control.

This module will develop students’ basic knowledge of management accounting and the context in which it operates. Students will learn about the traditional ‘routine or period-oriented’ concepts and techniques of costing such as absorption and marginal costing, system design such as job-order
and process costing, and also the non-routine or ad hoc approaches relevant for decision-making. These concepts and techniques will be considered mainly in the context of manufacturing organisations, yet they are also relevant to the service and not-for-profit sectors.

The module is complete and self-contained in itself but also provides students with the conceptual knowledge and technical skills to progress to other second and third year modules in management accounting.

Module Aims

• To develop an understanding of the main concepts and ideas underlying management accounting practice.
• To support and encourage education and learning, and foster the capacity for individual study.
• To encourage and facilitate critical, analytical thinking as a foundation for subsequent academic study, employment and personal development.
• To provide the necessary support to enable the successful completion of the degree.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:

Knowledge & Understanding

Technical and critical understanding of:

• The contexts in which management accounting (MA) operates.
• understand introductory ideas of cost and management accounting issues;
• understand costs, volume and profit in various business contexts;
• understand various issues of cost allocations and accumulations in relation to business and technology;
• understand conventional costing systems; and
• develop an understanding of various issues in relation to determining product costs, including relevant costs.

Skills & Abilities
Technical, analytical and evaluation skills in:

• Applying recent and current management accounting approaches
• Applying management accounting in different organisational contexts
• Using management accounting to manage organizations
• Key conceptual aspects and practical application of cost and management accounting issues
• Engage in written and oral communication for analysing management accounting issues of all
types covered

This module seeks to bring together knowledge and skills gained in earlier core and compulsory finance modules and enable students to apply and integrate their research skills, with a view to (i) critically investigate a contemporary issue in the broad area of finance, (ii) develop a deep understanding of a finance issue that is of interest to academia, companies, organisations, government and/or society more broadly and (iii) reinforce the research-led and critical mind-set that is a hallmark of Essex graduates.

In their final year, students undertake an individual, independent and self-directed research project under the supervision of a member of staff. Students will be provided with a list of suitable topics and be allocated a supervisor accordingly. In the Autumn term, students will attend a series of lectures designed to equip them with the tools to undertake the project. At the end of the Autumn term, students are expected to produce a first draft, outlining the structure of their dissertation, that will be marked. The final submission of the complete dissertation is at the end of the Spring term. By the end of this module, students will have developed their research skills, competencies and knowledge, which will enable them to engage in situations simulating real-life professional tasks and assignments. The project provides the opportunity to final year students to reflect on the application of finance theories and to develop a critical understanding of the contemporary issues in the finance area.

Module Aims

• To enable students to synthesise, integrate, and apply previously acquired knowledge;
• To develop students' critical and analytical skills;
• To encourage the acquisition of autonomous study skills in the learning process, as a vital foundation for subsequent academic study, employment, professional and personal development, and participation in society.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the research project a student should demonstrate knowledge and skills as follows:

• A capacity to synthesise, integrate, and apply previously acquired knowledge;
• An ability to locate, manipulate, and analyse numerical (including financial) data, critically evaluate arguments and empirical evidence, and develop an argument (in writing) and present ideas in a coherent and effective manner;
• An ability to work autonomously, and design a realistic and effective personal plan to achieve a final outcome.

Skills for Your Professional Life (Transferable Skills)

After completing this research project, students have developed and improved the following employability-related skills:

• Improve your academic skills, such as literacy, numeracy, and ICT skills;
• Develop your research skills through independent data collection and analysis, and the use of econometrics and statistics;
• Further your problem solving skills by setting a research question and independently devising a research plan to tackle it;
• Enhance your written and oral communication skills through the development of an independent piece of research project and the oral presentation of your work;
• Improve your professional working skills, such as adaptability, flexibility, and adoption of new techniques;
• Broaden your personal development planning through target setting and action planning.

This module is a Level-5 auditing module designed for students who are specialising in Accounting and who may wish to pursue a career in Auditing. The module is designed to cover basic auditing concepts and the tests and procedures an auditor will undertake when performing an audit. Students will cover topics such as the need for audit, the independence of auditors, evaluating systems of internal control, verification of selected assets and liabilities and the audit report. This module will complement the third-year module BE132 Auditing with a major distinction being that this module will focus on the practice of auditing whereas in the third-year module the focus will be more on a critical examination of some key issues and concepts in auditing.
Module Aims

1. To provide students with an appreciation of the work involved in conducting a financial audit so that they understand the strengths and limitations of the techniques employed by auditors.

2. To introduce students to key concepts in auditing.


Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:
1. Discuss why there is a need for audit and the importance of the key concepts of independence and competence and the role of auditing standards.

2. Understand the importance of the need for planning an audit.

3. Discuss the way that audit methodology has evolved and the advantages and limitations of the audit risk approach compared to the business risk approach.

4. Analyse a simple internal control system such as those relating to sales, purchases or payroll and identify the strengths and weaknesses of the system.

5. Devise tests to verify the existence, ownership, valuation and disclosure of certain assets and liabilities (long and current).

6. Identify the content and prepare a basic audit report.

This module is about defining, measuring and managing the various risks that are inherent in the business of finance, with special emphasis on the business of commercial banking.

To help students understand and measure various types of risks in the financial market and how they affect the value of portfolios; to provide an introduction to the features and applications of important financial derivatives that can be used in risk management; and to discuss and analyse cases of how risk management is conducted in the real world.

Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:
-Identify exposure to different types of risk
-Understand and be able to apply Value-at-Risk (VaR)
-Use derivatives to hedge equity, bond, interest-rate and currency risk
-Quantify the impact of market movements on portfolio value

Skills for Your Professional Life (Transferable Skills)
Upon successful completion of the module, students should be able to:
* Be able to price a bank loan given a customer's credit information and market parameters
* Be able to comment on the role and impact of the Basel accords in the development of banking regulation around the globe
* Be able to interpret what a credit rating means
* Improve research skills through the use of the Google Scholar search platform
* Develop critical thinking through the use of recent article journals
* Evaluate learning outcomes on case studies, i.e. Long Term Capital Management, Pine Street Capital, among others

This module introduces students to quantitative methods that can be used to empirically analyse some of the theories introduced during other finance modules on their programmes, including asset pricing, portfolio analysis and corporate finance. With extensive use of appropriate quantitative software (EViews) students will be able to use real data to analyse financial models. An important component of the module involves using classical statistical concepts to test hypotheses relating to financial models.


Module Aims

• To familiarise students with techniques for handling financial data
• To build a bridge between financial theories and practice
• To introduce students to regression analysis with financial applications


Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:
• Understand the principles of regression analysis and hypothesis testing
• Appropriately apply and interpret regression models
• Conduct appropriate hypothesis tests of financial models
• Examine and manipulate data using EViews
• Estimate financial models using EViews


Skills for Your Professional Life (Transferable Skills)

The module is geared towards building up or enhancing the following transferable skills:
• Fluency in data download, manipulation and statistical analysis
• Ability to run basic statistical models and interpret and present findings
• Obtain knowledge of additional issues in regression analysis that will allow you to appropriately apply these methods in a wider range of situations

The course carefully examines the basic building blocks of modern finance theory and focuses on the theoretical and analytical cornerstones on which the building blocks are placed. We study how these building blocks can, in certain cases, help us identify potentially optimal decisions now, even though the future consequences of those decisions are yet uncertain.

A common feature of finance is the need to make good use of and where possible best use of limited resources; constrained optimization techniques can often guide us in this need. Basic concepts in probability are used in finance to describe the inevitable uncertainty regarding the future. Most of us dislike risk and prefer to avoid risk, though only if the price for avoiding that risk is acceptable. We study how expected utility theory helps us measure how averse we are to taking such risks.

We then proceed to use these building blocks to examine several concepts: choice under uncertainty, maximizing returns and minimizing risk subject to constraints, mean-variance analysis and net present value.

Module Aims

The aim of this course is to familiarize you with the basic mathematical tools and the analytical skills necessary to understand modern finance theory.

Learning Outcomes
On completion of the course you should be able to
1. Apply basic mathematical techniques and tools used in modern finance.
2. Describe and evaluate measures of risk aversion using expected utility theory.
3. Understand the concept of 'efficient frontier' when investing in risky assets.
4. Evaluate choices using the net present value approach.