Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Accounting and Finance (Top-Up) awarded by 

University of Greenwich, United Kingdom

This Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Accounting and Finance will help you understand financial and management accounting, and how it affects planning, decision-making, and budget control.

The courses will give you confidence in analyzing and communicating information so that you can explain concepts and manage new projects. This will develop your core skills, enabling you to take your career in any direction.

This CIMA and ACCA accredited degree increase your career potential within accountancy.

The aims of the Accounting and Finance (BAAF) degree are:

• To develop theoretical and practical knowledge of accounting and finance in the context of the global economy
• To equip students with the necessary skills to be able to function in a complex and changing business environment
• To ensure that the students are equipped with the appropriate professional values, ethics and attitudes to function as professionals

Throughout the programme, there will be an emphasis on a practical application to the teaching of the subject to help prepare students for effective job performance in this area. A further important aspect of the aim is to prepare students for a career in this sector by delivering a programme that offers the opportunity of substantial professional exam exemption.

However, not all graduates will subsequently pursue an accounting and finance career and those will need an appreciation of other business areas. Therefore, the programme will develop skills which are generally applicable in a business context and include syllabus and learning outcomes which promotes a wider appreciation of business.

Knowledge and understanding of:

• The main current technical language and practices of accounting
• The organisational and business context in which accountants operate
• Alternative technical languages and practices of accounting

By the end of the programme, graduates will be able to demonstrate the accounting and finance related knowledge, which will be further developed and integrated into broader business knowledge, skills and professional values and ethics.

The various components of knowledge and understanding are:

• content, concepts, structure and meaning of reporting for organisational operations, both for internal and external use, including information relating to financial statements and the needs of decision-makers and a critical assessment of the role of accounting information in satisfying those needs.
• national and international accounting standards; financial reporting and analysis
• the regulation of accounting.
• management accounting, including planning and budgeting, cost management, quality control, performance measurement and benchmarking
• knowledge of the business legal environment and the institutional context
• knowledge of financial management, risk and the operation of capital markets
• contemporary theories and empirical evidence concerning the operation and awareness of others
• ethical and professional considerations in the context of the wider public environment (Based on QAA 2016)

Intellectual skills

• capacity for the critical evaluation of arguments and evidence
• an ability to analyse and draw reasoned conclusions concerning structured and unstructured problems from a given set of data and from data which must be acquired by the student
• ability to locate, extract and analyse data from multiple sources, including acknowledgement and referencing of sources
• capabilities for independent and self-managed learning

Subject practical skills

• numeracy skills, including the ability to manipulate financial and other numerical data
• skills in the use of communications and IT in acquiring, analysing and communicating information
• preparation of financial reports using a wide range of appropriate techniques
• selection and application of appropriate management accounting, financial management and quantitative techniques for financial planning, decision making and control.

Transferable/key skills

In addition to the transferable intellectual and practical skills mentioned already, students should be able to achieve and demonstrate:

• effective self-management in terms of time, planning and behaviour, motivation, self-starting, individual initiative and enterprise
• the effective performance, within a team environment, including leadership, team building, influencing and project management skills
• interpersonal skills of effective listening, negotiating, persuasion and presentation
• self-reflection and criticality including self-awareness, openness and sensitivity to diversity in terms of people, cultures, business and management issues.

Graduate Attributes

Scholarship and Autonomy

• Have a critical understanding of the study of finance
• Be independent learners with the skills and experience to become lifelong learners
• Be able to produce high quality is written, oral and digital work that is appropriate for academic and industry audiences

Creativity and Enterprise

• Have an entrepreneurial orientation to finance
• Be confident in applying core business techniques
• Be able to use financial skills to solve business problems

Cross-cultural and International Awareness

• Be able to analyse the global marketplace for accounting and finance
• Be able to manage across and within diverse cultures
• Be able to apply principles of sustainable development to the finance industry