ACCT40415: FINANCIAL PLANNING AND CONTROL

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• The module aims to:
• develop students' knowledge and understanding of the financial planning and control processes of organisations;
• develop students' knowledge and understanding of key aspects of management accounting related to financial planning, control and decision-making in organisations;
• develop students' skills relevant to management accounting practice i.e. preparing, interpreting, and presenting essential financial information for management control and decision making;
• develop students' knowledge on current development that relates to financial planning and control of organisations.

• Management accounting contextualised
• Cost terms, concepts, classifications and behaviour
• Cost-volume-profit relationships and analysis
• Profit reporting under absorption and marginal costing
• Activity-based costing (ABC)
• Relevant costs for decision making
• Flexible budgets and variances analysis
• Budgeting for planning and control
• Capital investment decisions
• Management control systems and performance
• Sustainable organisations and ethical issues
• Current developments in management accounting
• Strategic management accounting and the balanced scorecard

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Understanding of the context of the information needs of management and the role of the management accountant in financial planning and control of organisations
• Knowledge of the behaviour of costs associated with the production of products and provision of services and ability to use this to determine prices
• Knowledge of budgeting and forecasting techniques for planning and control
• Knowledge of different management accounting decision-making techniques
• Appreciation of key performance measurement and management approaches

Subject-specific Skills:

• Able to provide a breakeven analysis and illustrate how CVP analysis could assist in organisations' strategic planning
• Able to select appropriate budgeting approaches and methods, prepare budgets and evaluate the role of budgeting in effective management control
• Able to select appropriate performance measures and calculate differences between actual performance and standards or budgets
• Able to identify and calculate relevant data for use in management decision making
• Able to use management accounting information for organisations' decision making
• Able to identify other influencing factors in organisations' decision making

Key Skills:

• Written and Oral Communication;
• Planning, Organising and Time Management;
• Problem Solving and Analysis;
• Using Initiative;
• Numeracy;
• Computer Literacy.

• The module will be delivered by a combination of lectures, seminars/workshops, case studies and guided reading appropriate for conveying the specialist knowledge and skills set out in the learning outcomes.
• The summative written examination will test students' knowledge and understanding of the material covered in the module, their analytical and problem-solving skills.

Online test. Additional formative assessment, and feedback, may take a number of forms such as oral feedback on work prepared by students for seminars; answers to questions either discussed during a seminar or posted online.

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