Managerial Accounting and Performance Measurement

2.5 credits

In contrast to the external reporting perspective of Corporate Financial Accounting (ACC401), Managerial Accounting and Performance Measurement (ACC 410) focuses on strategic decision making within the organization. The course is oriented towards training business professionals to comprehend and utilize their organization?s internal accounting system to assist them in strategic decision making. The course provides students with a framework to understand accounting systems, and demonstrates how such an understanding of the underlying cost structures facilitates managers in evaluating profitability of individual products and customers. In addition, the course delves into issues of performance measurement, with special emphasis on the C-suite and the role of corporate governance actors such as the board in effectively monitoring CEO (and CFO) performance.In addition to covering the basic conceptual principles underlying managerial accounting, the course has a significant data analytics component with MS Excel and Stata being the primary data analysis tools used (the course outline indicates sessions where we will analyzedata). Examples of data analytics exercises include: (i) using publicly available financial reporting data (under GAAP) to analyze cost structures for specific industries, companies or macroeconomic cycles, (ii) using publicly available CEO (and CFO) compensation data toanalyze the mapping between pay and performance, (iii) studying the role of corporate governance in mitigating 'excess' compensation being paid to the CEO (or CFO). Prerequisites: ACC401 and STR401 or GBA461; STR403 (may be taken concurrently)