Certified Expert in Financial & Managerial Accounting

• An interactive e-learning course including video lectures, PDF scripts, examples, practical exercises, self-assessment online tests and case studies
• A discussion forum for course related issues as well as for exchange of opinions and experiences with your classmates, tutors or the FSDF e-Campus team
• Personalized support from your e-Campus team
• Possibility to achieve a Frankfurt School certificate after passing the final exam or a confirmation of course completion after completing the course.

Final exam fee: An additional final exam fee will be charged for the second and third final exam attempt.

Discounts:

- 10% group discount (for 2 or more participants working for the same institution, informed to us before by an email)

- 10% Alumni discount

- For company packages, please contact us

Payment Options

• Bank transfer (bank fees have to be covered by the participant)
• Credit card
• PayPal

Payment in instalments is unfortunately not possible.

*Subject to change

The target group for the Certified Expert in Financial & Managerial Accounting is top managers, decision-makers, practitioners, consultants, and operational staff working at/for:

• MFIs and other financial institutions;
• Regulators and government authorities;
• Donor institutions;
• NGOs;
• International Organizations

The course takes approx. 6 months assuming 5-6 hours of self-study per week. It consists of 6 units which build upon each other. You will take the units in sequence and will  need to pass an online multiple choice test before accessing the next unit.

Unit 4 includes an assignment which you will need to submit at a fixed deadline.

You are not sure if you manage to complete the course within 6 months? No worries! You can apply for a course extension (6 more months) against an administrative fee.

The first unit is an introduction to financial and managerial accounting. You will become familiar with the logic of double-entry bookkeeping and start to understand how business transactions are recorded in financial statements. You will be introduced to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), which is a set of globally accepted accounting standards. Furthermore, in Unit 1 you will become acquainted with the idea that incentives matter and that there might be conflicts between different objectives of accounting. This also raises concern on accounting quality. We shed light on how IFRS defines accounting quality and how accounting quality can be assessed from a capital market perspective.

Unit 3 introduces you to financial statement analysis, i.e. how financial statements are used in economic decision making. The Unit deals with common size financial statements, introduces key financial indicators, but also more sophisticated tools that help us to assess a firm’s operating profitability. The Unit also discusses how financial accounting information is used in valuation models and credit analysis. It also sheds light on accounting discretion, an important aspect both from a financial management but also from the analyst’s perspective.

Unit 5 covers important techniques to analyse costs for managerial decision making. The module will guide you through cost-volume profit analysis which addresses the question of how many units you need to sell to break-even. Moreover, absorption costing and variable costing are explained, which are highly relevant to calculate the value of inventory and to calculate operating income of businesses that have inventories. Finally, you will be introduced to lower price limits and to choosing the optimal product or service mix when capacities are lower than customer demand.

Unit 2 aims at enabling you to read and understand complex financial statements. This is an important prerequisite to analysing financial statements. Understanding IFRS reports might be of high practical relevance for several reasons:

• Top managers should be able to understand how the business model translates into financial statements.
• Many stakeholders base their economic decision making on published financial statements; accounting will likely have an impact on cost of capital.
• In banks, credit decisions require thorough financial statement analysis, in most cases the clients of a bank are not from the financial sector.

Unit 2 uses the example of Volkswagen, a German car manufacturer selling its products worldwide. The interesting feature is that Volkswagen is not only an industrial firm but also has a financial arm which includes one of Germany’s largest banks. This allows us to use Volkswagen as a convenient example both for readers interested in financial reporting issues in industrial firms and in banks. You will basically learn how business models translate into financial statements and what the accounting treatments for key assets, liabilities, expenses and income are.

In Unit 4, you will learn the basics of cost accounting. This includes important concepts such as direct and indirect costs, variable and fixed costs, and total versus unit costs. To calculate profits of products or divisions, we need to allocate overhead costs. There are different options, and depending on the option you choose some product or departments will look more profitable or less profitable – although the underlying business activities do not change! Specifically, the unit will introduce you to methods for allocating support department costs, to job costing, and activity based costing. Understanding these choices is important for any performance evaluation exercise and particularly important for all if responsible for a department or business unit. Moreover, understanding cost allocation is also important, if you want to analyse investment proposals by corporate loan seekers.

The last unit introduces you to economic and psychological aspects of incentives. The knowledge provided in Unit 5 is important for all leaders, as people in leading positions must evaluate the performance of their subordinates. We will consider the non-monetary aspects that drive human behaviour and are relevant in accounting settings, such as social comparison, fairness, honesty and, reciprocity. Finally, the Unit will also provide you with recent insights regarding psychological pitfalls (heuristics and biases) in decision making, for example self-justification, overconfidence, and the sunk-cost effect.

Video Lectures

• Introvideos: After viewing the lectures, participants will have a basic understanding of each topic and will be able to classify importance and relevance of different techniques and aspects in a broader context.
• Web-based Presentations: Web based presentation complement the scripts and give additional input on important topics.

Online Tests

Each unit ends with an online test comprising a set of 10 - 15 multiple choice questions. Only after having successfully completed an online test you will gain access to the next unit.

Reading Material

A PDF script is for most of our courses the main studying material. This reading material provides basic concepts and principles applicable to the subject of each unit.

Assignments

The key to successful learning is the immediate use of newly acquired knowledge and the transfer of theory into practice. Our online courses are therefore supplemented by mandatory assignments.

Discussion Forum

A course discussion forum enables the interaction between participants and trainers and facilitates the exchange of experiences as well as possibilities to ask questions or get clarifications.

Passing a final examination is a requirement for obtaining your certificate.

• Location: The final exam takes place online
• Duration: The final exam takes 2 hours.
• Costs: An additional final exam fee will be charged for the second and third final exam attempt.

If you do not wish to take the final exam, you will receive a confirmation of course participation after completing the course.