4/21/2014

Financial and Management Accounting module by MBA student Hemant Chandran | SBS Admissions

Financial and Management Accounting module

by MBA student Hemant Chandran
18 Friday Jan 2013
POS TED BY LUCYREYNOLDS

IN

PROGRAMME, S TUDENT BLOG

LEAVE A COMMENT

Tags
Accountancy, Cost Accounting, creative accounting, Edrington Group, ethics, Financial Accounting,
Financial and Management Accounting, Management Accounting, MBA blog, Professor Barry Koch,
Professor Margaret Stewart, Strathclyde Business School, strathclyde mba, Student Blog, University of
Strathclyde
To allay the fears of those who have had practically no knowledge or experience in accounting, and
yet feel quite excited about Accountancy, watching the introductory video of Professor Barry Koch
on myplace would indeed be quite rewarding. Professor Koch reassures students that the main
objective of this module is not to turn them into expert accountants. And that agreed he and
Professor Margaret Stewart covers in this module a remarkably wide range of issues and topics in
Financial, Cost and Management Accounting.
To begin with, one looks at the role of an accountant in an organisation and slowly moves on to
interpreting basic accounting statements using ratio analysis in conjunction with the basic
accounting concepts. Profitability, liquidity, efficiency and financial structure ratios offer an
amazing insight into the functioning of a company both in the short as well as the long term, apart
from helping various stakeholders who are interested in the companys performance. At this stage, I
must mention that we touch upon creative accounting where a few companies unethically collude
with their auditors and engage in window dressing their accounts by exploiting the loopholes in the
taxation-law regimes of the land.
The module further swiftly moves on to Cost Accounting where one engages with classification,
nature and the behaviour of costs. One major difficulty accountants often face, I guess, is the
allocation of overhead costs which often prove to be very subjective. For example, an accountant
may face real difficulty in apportioning distributive overheads such as rent, electricity, and
insurance to various departments which utilize all these services differently.
The Management Accounting section of the course deals with taking short term decisions
(withdrawing or introducing a new product, make or buy decisions or limiting factor) by using
important concepts such as the contribution approach, what if decisions, and breakeven point.
We end the module by briefly touching upon concepts like budgets, their importance for
organisations and for determining performance measurement.

To put such things into an enabling perspective, we had Mr. Richard Hunter, Group Finance

http://sbsmbablog.co.uk/2013/01/18/financial-and-management-accounting-module-by-mba-student-hemant-chandran/

1/2

4/21/2014

Financial and Management Accounting module by MBA student Hemant Chandran | SBS Admissions

To put such things into an enabling perspective, we had Mr. Richard Hunter, Group Finance
Director of The Edrington Group Ltd. He was gracious enough to share with us his knowledge and
experience in managing the finance and accounts of a global firm. His recollection of acquiring the
Highland Distillers and a majority shareholding in Brugal & Co, the leading producer of golden
rum in the Dominican Republic, was quite instructive. All in all, the Financial and Management
Accounting module proved to be very engaging and demanding to all of us who fancy negotiating
such arduous and challenging financial tasks at nearly every crucial turn in our prospective careers.

About lucyreynolds
I am the Admissions Officer, for the Strathclyde Business School MBA and Postgraduate
programmes, along with my colleague Suzanne Stevenson. Our team manages recruitment for the
SBS MBA, all routes, including Full-time, Part-time, Flexible Learning and at our Offshore Centres.
View all posts by lucyreynolds

Blog at WordPress.com. Customized Chateau Theme.

Follow

Follow SBS Admissions

Powered by WordPress.com

http://sbsmbablog.co.uk/2013/01/18/financial-and-management-accounting-module-by-mba-student-hemant-chandran/

2/2