Three year bachelor's degree
Why do some companies soar and others go bust? How can profits go up while the share price comes down?
Accountancy gets to the heart of these questions. If you love numbers and variety, and want a sound technical knowledge and understanding of the business world, accountancy and finance could be your ideal degree.
Our BSc Accounting and Finance is a flexible, career-focused degree programme that lets you take control of your studies as your interests change over the course of your time at Lancaster University. Our students leave prepared to take on challenging roles in Big-Four accounting firms, investment banks and beyond.
This degree was ranked 15th by the Guardian University Guide (2023). The same curriculum is delivered in the Lancaster University Leipzig campus.
Did you know? Lancaster University Management School (UK) is quadruple-accredited by AACSB, EQUIS, AMBA and the Small Business Charter.
Three years (full-time)
English
You will learn from leading academic researchers and expert practitioners in finance, investing and accounting. The degree provides the perfect blend of theory and practice, taking you to the heart of key questions around the nature of business performance, price/earnings ratios, accountancy skills, investment strategies and case studies.
Throughout your degree, we encourage you to pursue your interests, develop your strengths, and move towards your ideal career. To enable that, this degree programme is highly flexible, letting you specialise your studies based on your strengths and interests.
In your first year, you’ll study accounting and finance using real-world data from actual companies. You will also discover more about economic issues such as inflation, costs and pricing. You will also get advice on how to build your CV.
Second year core subjects include accounting information systems and auditing, financial accounting, risk, corporate finance and management accounting for business decisions.
Your third year builds on this knowledge with advanced modules such as advanced management accounting and International Financial and Risk Management.
At the end of your time with us, you will be equipped to work in the fields of finance and accounting, and be ready to progress your studies with further, required professional examinations. Lancaster University graduates have gone on to work for Big Four accounting firms, international consulting firms, blue-chip corporations, and global banks and hedge funds.
Programme structure: Information contained on the website with respect to modules is correct at the time of publication, and the University will make every reasonable effort to offer modules as advertised. In some cases changes may be necessary and may result in some combinations being unavailable, for example as a result of student feedback, timetabling, staff changes and new research. Not all optional modules are available every year.
This module provides a comprehensive introduction to the basic concepts and techniques of Accounting and Finance, which include financial accounting, managerial finance, and financial statement analysis. An important element of this course is that it provides exposure to the business and financial environment within which the discipline of Accounting and Finance operates, using real-world financial data for actual companies. The modules covers concepts, techniques and interpretive skills that relate to the external financial reporting of companies and their relationship to the stock market, and to the use of accounting information for internal management purposes.
Providing a thorough introduction to the discipline of Economics, this module is divided into two parts. The first part covers microeconomic analysis, including the theory of demand, costs and pricing under various forms of industrial organisation, and welfare economics. Many applications of theoretical models are examined. The second part focuses on macroeconomic analysis, including national income analysis, monetary theory, business cycles, inflation, unemployment, and the great macroeconomic debates.
This module will provide you with the opportunity to undertake a personal skills audit as part of the CV assignment. It will enable you to identify your current skills level and begin to collect evidence of skills acquisition. It will cover a detailed analysis of the individual in terms of personality, skills, goals, interests and career ideas, and self-development. It would include organisation recruitment processes, including consideration of what organisations are looking for, the nature of ‘transferable skills’ and how these can be developed, and how organisations can select and train people.
The key aim of this module is to equip you with essential mathematical and statistical skills relevant to the disciplines of accounting and finance. The module aims to prepare you for more quantitatively-focused subjects offered across the whole suite of Accounting and Finance undergraduate programmes.
This is a 40-credit module that spans across three semesters. In Michaelmas term, we will cover topics in mathematics such as functions, differentiation, integration, matrix algebra. In Lent term, the module will introduce basic statistics. You will learn some of the features of the financial data, the rules of probability and hypothesis testing. In Summer term, the module will introduce financial markets with some emphasis on risk, efficiency and operation.
This module provides an overview of the design and main features of accounting information systems (AIS). It introduces methods used by business to meet the financial information needs of external parties and management and includes systems used for collecting, recording and storing transactions data, internal controls and effective design of AIS. It also provides an introduction to auditing, including the regulatory framework, audit planning, systems auditing and substantive testing.
This is the second component of three and consists of further employability skills such as applying for jobs or postgraduate study; a ‘refresh’ of the job application process; enabling students to identify their style and preferences based on a test, plus an introduction to and preparation for the third component.
This module provides an introduction to the use of management accounting information for management purposes. This includes an examination of cost-volume profit analysis, the concepts of direct and indirect costs, and various costing methods. The importance of budgets to organisations and their impact on performance are also discussed.
This module covers project evaluation methods as well as risk, return and the cost of capital, including the capital asset pricing model. Corporate financing, including dividend policy and capital structure, options, and working capital management will also be investigated.
This module examines the main features of financial reporting by UK companies as well as the regulatory requirements and conceptual bases associated with these, with attention given to the UK Companies Acts and international accounting standards. Time will also be devoted to group accounts, and to specific reporting topics of current interest and concern.
The overall objective of this module is to develop students’ abilities to describe, analyse and interpret data soundly, making effective use of computer software. These skills will help students demonstrate to prospective employers that they have practical skills that can immediately be put to good use to solve problems for organisations either in the public or private sector. The lecture materials and problems that students are asked to solve in tutorials relate to typical problems that organisations would have to solve in practical situations where data analysis skills are required.
Techniques based on mathematics and statistics can be extremely powerful tools in helping solve organisational problems and are widely used in practice. This module explains the business situations in which such techniques apply, and shows how to use the techniques and interpret the results to make better business decisions.
Five such techniques will be covered:
The third component of a three part module taught throughout your studies and consists of a project utilising basic skills required by most employers, such as report writing and IT skills within the context of a topic related to the sectors of finance, auditing, accounting, etc.
This module deals with accounting for complex entities, addressing concepts, issues and techniques.
It examines accounting for business combinations, goodwill and strategic investments (associates and joint ventures), and other aspects of consolidation, foreign currency translation, all within the context of modern accounting theory.
This module develops your ability to critically evaluate advanced financial accounting issues, placing this within the international accounting context. It focuses on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), with appropriate and relevant comparisons to US GAAP. Other topics covered include the accounting treatments of taxation, leases, pensions, provisions and contingent liabilities. The module also looks at empirical research on issues of relevance to accounting practitioners and accounting regulators.
Aiming to extend your understanding of management accounting, this module focuses on both specialised techniques and the particular contexts in which they might be applied.
In addition to introducing and explaining the use of quantitative methods such as simple and multiple regression, it covers topics such as advanced activity-based costing and customer profitability analysis, pricing for profitability, and flexible and activity-based budgeting.
This module examines corporate financing and investment decisions, focusing in particular on settings where companies’ assets and liabilities contain embedded options. Topics covered include valuation of options, investment appraisal, valuation of warrants and convertibles, capital structure, and mergers and restructuring.
This module provides knowledge that is important to those concerned with financial management in a multinational setting. Areas covered include the relationships between exchange rates, interest rates and inflation rates, forward, futures and options markets, and corporate exchange rate risk management.
The underlying objectives of this module are to explore how management and business can be treated as a global phenomenon – in other words, that management and business are not merely a collection of techniques from several disciplines, but rather have a coherent cultural core which corresponds to a system of values that have to be grasped and understood if management and business are to make sense at all. We will investigate some of the key themes of current management and business agendas in order to equip you with a wider understanding of the complex problems you are likely to face in your professional lives. First, we will examine together how the 21st Century is characterised by what has come to be known as the Knowledge Economy and examine the global reach of management. The idea of a new kind of global economy in which personal, organisational and social success is divided by the ability to access, mobilise and produce knowledge sets up a complicated, tense context for managerial work and asks new kinds of questions about the object and implications of management. Following on from this theme, we will consider some of the reactions in management and business to unprecedented environmental challenges, as well as the major ethical issues and demands facing business today and in the coming decades.
The Global Media Classroom is designed to offer an innovative, low-carbon approach to internationalisation and cultural exchange across Lancaster University and its international partner institutions (Sunway University, LU Ghana, BJTU [Weihai], and LU Leipzig). It offers a novel opportunity to learn about the theories and practices of media in a global context through interactive workshops with students and academics from classrooms across different countries and regions of the world.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this module will provide students with a diverse set of perspectives into media theories and practices, ranging from the role played by media in (re)making global participatory cultures, creative industries, film and documentary making, to business management and media marketing. In-depth case studies from different parts of the world will be included to illustrate complex cultural, social, political and economic forces at play in shaping the global media landscape.
Teaching is delivered via a combination of small group lectures and group-based tutorial coursework (oral and written presentation), and assessment is via individual coursework (oral and written presentation) and examinations.
You will be encouraged throughout to undertake independent study to supplement what is being taught/learnt and to broaden your personal knowledge.
BSc (Hons) Accounting and Finance students will receive their degrees from Lancaster University in the UK, with accreditations.
The degree is accredited by globally recognised accountancy body – Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). Graduates will be awarded seven out of nine exemptions from ACCA professional examinations.
Students interested in pursuing the full ACCA qualification should register with ACCA as a student member as the first step.
A degree in Accounting and Finance can open up a range of exciting career avenues, including the following roles:
