Topic outline
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Welcome to Accounting for Decision Making
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This course is designed to develop the skills and knowledge to enable you to understand, evaluate and make the best possible use of accounting information, to improve your performance as managers. These skills will be developed through an initial understanding of the principles, processes and techniques involved in preparing financial reports and other accounting information. Then, we develop an appreciation of management accounting, by exploring how managers can use an understanding of costs, cost systems, budgets, control systems and financial decision making principles to improve business outcomes. We include a focus on contemporary issues within the discipline so that you are in tune with, or ahead of, accounting developments within your organisation. And finally, our delivery approach aims to enable you to share practical experiences of a range of accounting issues with your class colleagues.
Some students begin their accounting course in fear and trepidation. Accounting and sadly sometimes accountants are considered by some people to be dry, boring, mathematical, technical, complex, devoid of personality, and therefore difficult. Apart from this, they tend to be quite easy to get on with.
However, all organisations are managed through an accounting framework and managers who understand and operate effectively within this framework are empowered. More relevantly and to be blunt, accounting is the language of business. Having this language in your arsenal is essential for a career in senior management and most senior business positions. Many of you will feel intimidated, frustrated and anxious as the course progresses – but if you were experts in accounting, you wouldn’t be doing the course!
This course assumes that participants have not studied accounting previously, and everything that you need to know is developed sequentially. If you start with commitment, and make the effort along the way, Accounting for Decision Making promises to be an interesting and rewarding learning journey. Our aim is not to pass – it’s to truly understand what can sometimes be a confusing discipline (from a management perspective). Our grades will reflect how well we are achieving this. Extract as much as you can from this course – and expect to trip up now & then. There’s no such thing as a silly question (except for some of the ones I tend to ask) – so sing out if you think you are struggling.
I look forward to working with each of you during the course.
Fasten your seat belts!
Basil
Dr. Basil Tucker
Course Facilitator
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This course is designed to develop the skills and knowledge to enable you to understand, evaluate and make the best possible use of accounting information, to improve your performance as managers. These skills will be developed through an initial understanding of the principles, processes and techniques involved in preparing financial reports and other accounting information. Then, we develop an appreciation of management accounting, by exploring how managers can use an understanding of costs, cost systems, budgets, control systems and financial decision making principles to improve business outcomes. We include a focus on contemporary issues within the discipline so that you are in tune with, or ahead of, accounting developments within your organisation. And finally, our delivery approach aims to enable you to share practical experiences of a range of accounting issues with your class colleagues.