Unit information: Advanced Financial Reporting in 2018/19

Unit name	Advanced Financial Reporting
Unit code	EFIMM0034
Credit points	15
Level of study	M/7
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Professor. Clatworthy
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	School of Economics, Finance and Management
Faculty	Faculty of Social Sciences and Law

Description including Unit Aims

This unit is designed to develop the material covered in the Financial Reporting (FR) unit by examining more advanced financial reporting topics from both a technical and conceptual perspective. It will build on some of the topics covered in the FR unit and will also introduce new, more advanced ones. Topics covered include the IASB Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting, financial instruments, employee benefits, income taxes, joint arrangements, segmental reporting and earnings per share. Because the external financial reporting standard setting environment is dynamic, the unit may also introduce new topics if and when they emerge.

The aims of this unit are to build on the material that students will have covered in their first teaching block in Financial Reporting. It examines important and more advanced financial reporting issues – both in measurement and disclosure – from both a technical and a conceptual perspective, and introduces the relevant academic literature which assesses different accounting treatments from the perspectives of different users.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this unit students should be able to:

1. Develop knowledge of key IFRS requirements in areas of measurement and disclosure.
2. Apply key International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) requirements in a variety of complex situations, including accounting for financial instruments, defined benefit pensions, deferred taxation and share-based payments.
3. Discuss the issues to be considered for users in the preparation of financial statements and advise as to the complex trade-offs in accounting standard setting.
4. Consider the merit of different accounting policies in the context of the Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting and in the context of real world decisions.
5. Interpret relevant empirical and conceptual evidence designed to evaluate different accounting treatments.

Teaching Information

25 contact hours split between lectures and classes (typically 20 hours of lectures and 5 hours of classes).

Assessment Information

Summative assessment

The summative assessment for this unit is a three-hour examination in May/June. The exam will assess students’ ability to apply IFRS to various accounting problems, including for financial instruments, defined benefit pensions, deferred taxation and share-based payments. In this process, they will need to demonstrate their technical capabilities in applying the standards in numerical questions (ILO 1 and ILO 2), but also their ability to evaluate the technicalities (ILO 5). The exam will also include essay-type questions (ILO 2 and ILO 4), which will require students to demonstrate their knowledge of and ability to interpret important conceptual and empirical arguments surrounding the users of financial statements and accounting standard setting (ILO 3).

Formative assessment

The main method of formative assessment is class participation and discussion in tutorials. These will provide opportunities for feedback on the students’ progress. Furthermore, students will be required to submit at least one piece of work from the tutorials, which they will have marked and returned with comments and with a ‘model answer’. This exercise will contain both technical and discursive questions and will be designed to be broadly representative of questions given in the main exam paper (ILO 1; ILO2; ILO 3; ILO 5).

Reading and References

Picker et al. (2016) Applying International Financial Reporting Standards, Wiley (4th ed.).

Jorissen et al. (2017) International Financial Reporting and Analysis, Cengage (7th ed.).