Managerial Finance and Accounting 1

OLS 540Debra A. King

Semester, Year Spring 2017

Office Hours by appointment onlyCell Phone 540-746-8547

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

Managers, executives and boards carry fiduciary responsibility for their organizations. It is therefore imperative that they know how to read financial statements, analyze financial health, and communicate this knowledge effectively to others. This course teaches how financial data is generated and reported, as well as how it is used at the managerial level for decision-making, analysis and valuation. Topics include: understanding and reading financial statements, financial statement analysis, ratio analysis – what the numbers really mean, budgeting, and organizational governance.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

This course’s primary objectives focus onincreasing your financial literacy. Students who complete this course will:

  1. understand basic principles and concepts of accounting and finance;
  2. analyze and interpret budgets, financial statements and reports, and learn how to apply this knowledge to strategic decision making;
  3. be able to communicate financial information to a variety of audiences in appropriate ways; and
  4. understand the governance role of the board of directors.

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Karen Berman and Joe Knight. Financial Intelligence: a manager’s guide to knowing what the numbers really mean, 2nd Ed., Harvard Business Review Press, 2013.

H. George Shoffner, Susan Shelly, & Robert Cooke. Finance for Nonfinancial Managers, 3rd Ed., McGraw –Hill, 2011.

OPTIONAL TEXT (for nonprofit interest):

Thomas A. McLaughlin, Financial Basics for Nonprofit Managers, 3rd Ed., Wiley, 2009.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND ASSESSMENT:

Grading Scale:

A93-100%B83-86%C73-76%

A-90-92%B-80-82%C-70-72%

B+87-89%C+77-79%FBelow 70%

Your final grade is determined on the basis of your performance in the following categories:

10% class participation and attendance

20% weekly class assignments

70% case study

-Class participation and attendance:This portion of your grade will be based on regular attendance, arriving to class on time, engaging in class discussions and other classroom activities.

-Weekly class assignments:Students will be graded onpreparedness for class, including on-time completion of assigned readings, occasional writing assignments, and practice exercises.On occasion, students will be given an assignment to demonstrate mastery of a concept by preparing a tutorial or presenting steps for a solution to a particular exercise.

-Case Study:Throughout the semester, you will be learning concepts that will aid you in understanding and analyzing organizational finances, increasing your ability to diagnose and solve problems as well as to lead the organization toward a successful future. The culminating project is a case study of an organization of your choosing (preferably your workplace or another local entity). Leading up to the final paper, you will perform a number of tasks that will be due at regular intervals and will become a portion of your final project. These tasks will include choosing an organization, collecting information via interviews and documents, calculating and interpreting financial information, analyzing financial trends and current health of the organization, comparing the organization to others in the same industry, and providing a forecast of the organization’s future. One requirement of this project will be to present a financial report to the audience of your choice – stockholders, employees, donors, board of directors, etc. – selecting the relevant information and format to be used to best communicate with that particular group of stakeholders.

ACADEMIC HONESTY:

EMU faculty and staff care about the integrity of their own work and the work of their students. They create assignments that promote interpretative thinking and work intentionally with students during the learning process. Honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility are characteristics of a community that is active in loving mercy, doing justice, and walking humbly before God. EMU defines plagiarism as occurring when a person presents as one’s own someone else’s language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without acknowledging its source (adapted from the Council of Writing Program Administrators, 2005, (Taken from “Academic Integrity” in the 2016-2017 Seminary & Graduate & Professional Studies Student Handbook, p. 6.) Personal integrity and mutual trust are essential to the learning community. I expect students to uphold high standards of personal ethics, including the professional ethics associated with academic life. EMU considers a student’s lying, cheating, or stealing through the wrongful use or inappropriate attribution of information on tests, papers, or other academic assignments to be a serious violation of the standards of integrity in the academic community.

ACADEMIC SUPPORT:

Please contact me through email or by setting up an appointment if you have questions about the content of the course or need further explanation regarding class requirements. The following resources are available to you should you require further support:

Office of Academic Access Web: Phone: (540) 432-4233 or (540) 432-4254 EMU students who have disabilities are served through the Office of Academic Access located in the Academic Success Center, Hartzler Library, 3rd floor.

Writing Center Web: Phone: 540-432-4316 41 Students in the school of graduate and professional studies on the main campus have access to a dedicated writing center in Ammon Heatwole House, room 202.

CLASS ASSIGNMENT SCHEDULE:

The class schedule will be posted on Moodle by January 1, 2017. Please note the recommendation to familiarize yourself with spreadsheet function and use.