ACCT 250 (Accounting for Managers) is a three-credit introductory accounting course that focuses primarily on how to provide managers with the management information they need for making informed decisions and introduces the role accounting plays in providing reports to external bodies, such as the federal government, banks, and other lenders of money. ACCT 250 emphasizes the importance of using advanced information systems such as the use of accounting software for small businesses and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for large companies in managerial accounting and decision making. ACCT 250 has no prerequisites and it has a Challenge for Credit option if interested.
Accounting for Managers comprises nine lessons, fifteen quizzes weighing three percent each for a total of forty-five percent of your final grade, and a final examination worth fifty-five percent. The nine lessons within the course cover interesting topics such as cost behaviour and analysis, capital investments, capital budgeting, and interpreting financial statements. The final examination for this course must be taken online with an Athabasca University approved exam invigilator at an approved invigilation centre. It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that the chosen invigilation centre can accommodate online exams. To receive credit for ACCT 250, students must achieve a course composite grade of at least a “D”, or fifty percent, and a grade of at least fifty percent on the final examination.
Gerard Baptist began studying at AU in 2018 and is currently enrolled in the Bachelor of Management program. He briefly introduces himself, stating “I’m 38 years old and I’m originally from Edmonton, AB but moved to Calgary back in 1995 and have been in Calgary ever since. I currently work for a company in the oil and gas industry called DistributionNOW. It’s a global distributor of products and services in the energy sector. I’ve been working with them since 2011 and enjoy the company and my day to day job. I also wanted to bring this up as they were and continue to be a big supporter of me pursuing my business degree. In my spare time, which is becoming more and more limited due to our family expansion in the addition of my newest son (2 months old), I enjoy skiing and playing hockey in the winter, golfing in the summer and of course spending time with my wife of 8 years, my 2-1/2” year old daughter and as I mentioned, my new 2 month old son.”
When asked what he likes or dislikes about the Bachelor of Management program, he states “So far, I’ve really enjoyed the program and the freedom of online learning. It’s given me the opportunity to study when is most convenient. I travel a bit with my work and it’s a huge advantage that I can study, work on assignments, and write online quizzes wherever an internet connection is available. If this wasn’t an option, I don’t know if I would be able to work on completing a business degree. Specifically regarding my program, I’ve enjoyed learning about and exploring some of the financial metrics that our company uses and that you hear about from day to day but don’t always necessarily understand. Even in the first course I took, I found topics and concepts that are discussed daily in my job that I was able to apply a more confident understanding of, almost immediately.”
Gerard explains the course, stating “ACCT 250 focuses on basic management accounting that gives managers the information they need to make important managerial decisions. There are fifteen chapters covering a large number of topics. These include everything from a basic introduction to accounting including accounting terms and verbiage typically used to introducing financial analysis, and working within financial documents including balance sheets, income statements, and company scorecards.”
When asked to explain how the course works, he states “The structure of the course is very straight forward. There are no assignments or a midterm. There are however fifteen quizzes, one for each chapter. These quizzes are extremely involved and do take a lot of time to complete. I probably spent on average anywhere from three to six hours of total time per quiz, which is probably the only issue I had with the course. I feel that the fifteen quizzes worth forty-five percent of your mark, or three percent each, doesn’t equal the time required to complete them. I would think that a quiz where, at a minimum, probably 3 hours is required to complete it, the value of that grade should be worth more. However, I feel fairly ready to write my final examination having spent a lot of time on each quiz and I hope those have prepared me appropriately to write the final exam.”
He continues, “The physical textbook was the other part of the course I found frustrating. I found it to be very well written and helpful when I referred to it, though the course outline and chapters do not follow along with the actual physical textbook. You must refer constantly to the e-text that’s available to make sure you are working on the correct chapter as the physical textbook doesn’t line up with the course outline. In addition, it appears the personnel responsible for compiling the course material have included chapters, mainly for the financial accounting documents, from other text sources. So, while the text was very good, it didn’t include everything for the course. These were available in the e-text but for someone like myself that likes the hard copy of the text, it was a bit frustrating. With this said, and having now completed the course, I found as I worked through the course I relied less and less on the texts available and spent more time utilizing the homework, study tools, and additional documents available in in the “My Accounting Lab” learning platform.”
When asked if he would recommend the course to other students, he states “I would recommend the course. Although very time consuming and difficult at points, I found the information to be very interesting and applicable to my current job and work responsibilities. As mentioned in the previous question, the most difficult part were the quizzes due to the time required to complete each one. Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed the course and would definitely recommend it.”
As for any tips and tricks, he states “The main thing I recommend to help completing this course is, if you can, set aside a certain amount of time per day for this course. You should be able to complete one chapter per week, but this will give you a bit of a buffer in case you either get behind or require slightly more time for a certain chapter. I took a couple weeks on a few chapters. The best link I found is: https://www.edspira.com/. This is an amazing website I found, unfortunately, later in the course. It’s totally free and covers numerous topics from this course along with other courses that you are required to take in this program.”
And as for tutors? Gerard states “While I didn’t have to communicate to often with my tutor, I found the few times I had to that she was very prompt in getting back to me. The few times I had to email her, she got back to me usually within a few hours to half a day which was very appreciated. The tutors don’t mark quizzes. The quizzes are completed through the “My Accounting Lab” and are multiple choice, usually consisting of fifteen to twenty questions. The positive to this is being that they are online and multiple choice, meaning that you get your mark back instantly when you hit submit on the quiz. The downfall to this method of working through an online learning portal such as “My Accounting Lab” is that there is no communication or feedback that you might otherwise receive if you were to take the class in a group setting and had to submit certain assignments, quizzes etc. However, that might be the trade off of with online learning. The feedback you get might be the quick responses to the online quizzes.”
Whether ACCT 250 is a degree or program requirement of yours, or the topics discussed above are of interest to you, this course will have you learning interesting material surrounding the topic of accounting for managers.