B1792 - Financial Reporting and Analysis

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students acquire the basic concepts of financial accounting, which involves the preparation of financial statements. Students are able to analyze and interpret three key financial statements (the Income Statement, the Balance Sheet and the Cash Flow Statement) and other financial information like ratios and key performance indicators used by managers and investors in their decision making process. The course provides students with the ability to interpret differences in financial reports due to national and international accounting standards to mindfully compare company financial performance, especially in the service sector.

Course contents

The course will focus on the following topics:

1) Financial Accounting vs Managerial Accounting

2) Basic accounting concepts and principles (e.g. accrual accounting, going concern, materiality) and recap of horizontal model for bookkeeping

3) Financial Statements:

- The Balance Sheet

- Income Statement

- Cash flow statement

4) Common Size analysis and comparative analysis of company Financial Statements

5) Margins and profitability ratios and other financial ratios

6) Reporting and Disclosure: IAS/IFRS (IAS framework and some selected standards, e.g. IAS 16, IAS 36 )

Readings/Bibliography

Teaching material (ppt slides, exercises on word and excel, and pdf files) distributed by the teacher and downloadable from the online teaching material repository named VIRTUALE

PLUS

Selected chapters of the following book will be listed by the professor during the first day of class and reported on the online repository named VIRTUALE:

"Accounting : what the numbers mean" by David H. Marshall, Wayne W. McManus, Daniel F. Viele - 10. ed, New York : McGraw-Hill, 2014

Teaching methods

The professor will give lectures in presence at Rimini Campus. Students will attend lectures, try to solve ongoing tests and problem sheets.

When applicable, external key speakers (e.g. company managers or foreign visiting professors) will be invited to give a lecture in class.

The lessons will be supported by power point slides.

During class, exercices will require the use of calculator or excel.

Assessment methods

Students are assessed based on a written exam made by multiple choice questions, open questions and exercises; the written exam is computer based and organized in the Campus computer lab.

The written exam is always made by multiple choice questions, open questions and exercises. The exam is designed to assess the knowledge of students and their ability to use the concepts to solve problems.

Students have to enrol to the exam through Almaesami (this is compulsory).

The final written exam will be held in a computer lab, in front of a pc. Students might be organized in shifts on the same day, if their number exceed a certain threshold (i.e., the number of seats in the computer lab)

Attending classes in presence or not will not be evalutated by the professor.

Students will pass the exam with a grade of at least 18 out of 30. The following structure indicates the range of possible grandes:

< 18: insufficient (not passed)

18-23: sufficient

24-27: good

28-30: very good

30 cum laude: excellent

Teaching tools

https://virtuale.unibo.it

An interactive game developed by the teacher and other professors to be played in class

Office hours

See the website of Selena Aureli