Knowledge and understanding: this course focuses on Financial Accounting, the process of collecting, processing, and reporting financial information. At the end of the course, students will be able to understand the concepts of financial performance and financial position, their measurements, and how they are reported to the various users of financial information.
Applying knowledge and understanding: making students capable of reading and understanding financial statements, with an emphasis on the use of financial information in the decision-making process.
Making judgments: learning how to perform a basic assessment of a firm’s profitability, solvency, and liquidity.
Communication skills: using Accounting technical terms correctly, in order to describe the effects of different transactions on a firm’s financial statements.
Learning skills: allowing students to understand more complex topics taught in other courses, and to better appreciate the financial consequences of management decisions.

None.

Building on contemporary research, theory, and practice, the course explores the key issues of Financial and Managerial Accounting, such as: the use of financial information in the decision-making process, measuring financial performance, financial statements and financial statement analysis, and business ethics. The course emphasizes the construction of the basic financial accounting statements - the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement - as well as their interpretation.
The concepts and principles that are taught in this course are not country-specific, although an emphasis is given to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

Miller-Nobles, Mattison: “Horngren's Financial & Managerial Accounting. The Financial Chapters”, Global Edition, Pearson Higher Education, 2024, ISBN: 9781292731261. Miller-Nobles, Mattison: “Horngren's Financial & Managerial Accounting. The Managerial Chapters”, Global Edition, Pearson Higher Education, 2024, ISBN: 9781292463186. Students can use older editions of the textbook.

The detailed content of the course is the following: • Accounting and the Business Environment • The main accounting concepts: assets, liabilities, and equity. The basic accounting equation. • Measuring and reporting financial performance. Revenues and expenses and their connection with assets and liabilities. • Stockholder’s deficit and its solutions. • The valuation process: rational range of valuation, hidden reserves, watered-down equity. Business ethics and financial fraud. • The bookkeeping method: recording Business Transactions • The three properties of double-entry bookkeeping. • The Adjusting Process • Completing the Accounting Cycle • Merchandising Operations • Accounting for Merchandise in a Periodic Inventory System • Merchandise Inventory • Accounting for Inventory in a Periodic System • Receivables • Discounting a Note Receivable • Plant Assets and Intangibles • Current Liabilities, Payroll, and Long-Term Liabilities • The Time Value of Money: Present Value of a Bond and Effective-Interest Amortization • Retiring and Converting Bonds Payable • Corporations: Paid-In Capital and the Balance Sheet • Corporations: Effects on Retained Earnings and the Income Statement • The Statement of Cash Flows • Preparing the Statement of Cash Flows by the Direct Method • Introduction to Managerial Accounting • Job Order and Process Costing • Preparing the income statement using the “Total output” format. • Production for internal use: own work capitalized, products reused, distributed. • Assessing a firm’s profitability, liquidity, and solvency.

Lectures, exercises, interactive whiteboard, instant polls, and case discussions. In addition to the face-to-face teaching hours carried out by the lecturer, the Accounting course also includes 20 additional hours of supplementary teaching activities, consisting of exercises and applications of the concepts covered in class.

Presentations, exercises, and additional readings are available on the moodle2 page of the course.

A written and an optional oral exam, regarding all the topics of the course. The written exam comprises exercises on the preparation of the financial statements, double-entry bookkeeping journal entries, exercises on cost-volume-profit analysis and short-term business decisions, and other exercises similar to those illustrated during the course. The written test may have a “preliminary” section, focused on the basic concepts of accounting, also in the form of an online quiz. Failure to pass this section implies the failure of the entire exam, which will not be graded past this point. Students who do not take the oral exams will be assigned the grade achieved in the written exam, with a maximum grade of 26/30. To attain a final grade greater than 26/30, an oral exam is necessary. The oral exam is optional, and it is reserved for students whose grade on the written test is at least equal to 24. The final grade will be determined by the grades acquired in both the written and the (optional) oral exam. This means that the final grade could be greater or lower than the grade acquired in the written test, depending on the outcome of the oral exam. The oral exam must be taken in the same session as the written exam. Failure to pass either the written or the oral portions of the exam determines the failure of the entire Accounting exam, and the necessity to retake the written portion of the examination. Regardless of the outcome of the written exam, the oral exam may be requested by the instructor if clarifications or additions are deemed necessary due to anomalies identified in the written test. Moreover, the oral exam is mandatory in all cases where past violations of academic integrity have been recorded. Additional information on the rules regarding the exam is available on the course page on moodle.

This course explores topics closely related to one or more goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs)