4/21/2014 Financial and Management Accounting module by MBA student Hemant Chandran | SBS Admissions

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Financial and Management Accounting moduleby MBA student Hemant Chandran

18 Friday Jan 2013

POSTED BY LUCYREYNOLDS IN PROGRAMME, STUDENT BLOG

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Accountancy, Cost Accounting, creative accounting, Edrington Group, ethics, Financial Accounting,Financial and Management Accounting, Management Accounting, MBA blog, Professor Barry Koch,

Professor Margaret Stewart, Strathclyde Business School, strathclyde mba, Student Blog, University ofStrathclyde

To allay the fears of those who have had practically no knowledge or experience in accounting, andyet feel quite excited about Accountancy, watching the introductory video of Professor Barry Kochon myplace would indeed be quite rewarding. Professor Koch reassures students that the mainobjective of this module is not to turn them into expert accountants. And that agreed he andProfessor Margaret Stewart covers in this module a remarkably wide range of issues and topics inFinancial, Cost and Management Accounting.

To begin with, one looks at the role of an accountant in an organisation and slowly moves on tointerpreting basic accounting statements using ratio analysis in conjunction with the basicaccounting concepts. Profitability, liquidity, efficiency and financial structure ratios offer anamazing insight into the functioning of a company both in the short as well as the long term, apartfrom helping various stakeholders who are interested in the company’s performance. At this stage, I

must mention that we touch upon ‘creative accounting’ where a few companies unethically colludewith their auditors and engage in ‘window dressing’ their accounts by exploiting the loopholes in thetaxation-law regimes of the land.

The module further swiftly moves on to Cost Accounting where one engages with classification,nature and the ‘behaviour’ of costs. One major difficulty accountants often face, I guess, is theallocation of overhead costs which often prove to be very subjective. For example, an accountantmay face real difficulty in apportioning distributive overheads such as rent, electricity, andinsurance to various departments which utilize all these services differently.

The Management Accounting section of the course deals with taking short term decisions(withdrawing or introducing a new product, make or buy decisions or limiting factor) by usingimportant concepts such as the contribution approach, “what if” decisions, and breakeven point.We end the module by briefly touching upon concepts like budgets, their importance fororganisations and for determining performance measurement.

To put such things into an enabling perspective, we had Mr. Richard Hunter, Group Finance

4/21/2014 Financial and Management Accounting module by MBA student Hemant Chandran | SBS Admissions

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To put such things into an enabling perspective, we had Mr. Richard Hunter, Group FinanceDirector of The Edrington Group Ltd. He was gracious enough to share with us his knowledge andexperience in managing the finance and accounts of a global firm. His recollection of acquiring theHighland Distillers and a majority shareholding in Brugal & Co, the leading producer of goldenrum in the Dominican Republic, was quite instructive. All in all, the Financial and ManagementAccounting module proved to be very engaging and demanding to all of us who fancy negotiatingsuch arduous and challenging financial tasks at nearly every crucial turn in our prospective careers.

About lucyreynolds

I am the Admissions Officer, for the Strathclyde Business School MBA and Postgraduateprogrammes, along with my colleague Suzanne Stevenson. Our team manages recruitment for theSBS MBA, all routes, including Full-time, Part-time, Flexible Learning and at our Offshore Centres.View all posts by lucyreynolds »

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