Course Description
This is a first accounting course for undergraduate students whose majors require: understanding the impacts business transactions have on organizations; knowledge of basic accounting principles and techniques; and the ability to leverage the variety of information the accounting discipline provides managers, owners and other stakeholders. The primary focus of the course is the development, presentation and understanding of accounting information useful for a variety of stakeholders on issues related to income, management analysis, cash flow, product costing, overhead application, budgeting and planning, and analyzing organizational performance for management decision making.

Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to:
• List and describe the key principles and assumptions used by accountants when providing information to stakeholders by answering questions and applying the concepts to solve problems.
• Describe and explain each of the key sections of the balance sheet, income statement and statement of cash flows by solving problems and producing financial statements from account level information.
• Analyze the cost, volume and profit relationships of an organization by calculating the contribution margin, breakeven point and target profits.
• Analyze business transactions and their fundamental cash impact by creating a statement of cash flows from a series of transactions and account balance changes.
• Analyze the manufacturing cycle cost flows of a business and their impact on profitability by producing a schedule of cost of goods manufactured and sold.
• Distinguish between traditional applied costs and activity-based costing methodologies by applying both techniques to business situations and evaluating the results.
• Analyze and demonstrate how strategic planning and budgeting enhances an organization’s ability to respond to economic changes by preparing elements of the master budget and a flexible budget.
• Analyze and identify cost information that is relevant for decision makers by recognizing and applying the relevant elements in a variety of decision making scenarios likely to face professional managers.
• Describe and demonstrate appropriate control and performance evaluation metrics in a multi-product, hierarchical organization by analyzing overall and segment performance using rate-of-return, residual income, and non-financial, balanced scorecard, measures.
To achieve these learning objectives, a combination of background reading, interactive discussion / lecture and practice problems will be utilized. Please note, the most important word in the sentence above is “interactive.” The reason is that research on learning indicates it is very difficult to gain anything more than a superficial understanding of material without practice and feedback. Therefore, you should expect our class sessions to incorporate a substantial amount of both.

To demonstrate you achievement of the learning objectives stated above: 1) you will be required to demonstrate your knowledge by individually working problems during quizzes and exams; and 2) you may be asked to complete in class group assignments on an ad hoc basis at the professor’s discretion.

Required Materials
The following books are available in the bookstore and will be used for both BUAD 291a and 291b.
• Libby, R., Libby, P.A., & Short, D.G. (2011). Financial Accounting, 7th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin (978-0-07-811102-0)
• Garrison, R.H., Noreen, E.W., & Brewer, P.C., (2012). Managerial Accounting, 14th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill (978-0-07-811100-6)
Feel free to purchase the books online as this can result in substantial cost savings. However, if you choose to purchase the books online, please be aware that you are responsible for making alternative arrangements for completing all readings and advance preparation until the books arrive.

Prerequisites and