Accounting with Business Analytics

Advances your understanding of how to use financial information to value and analyze firms. Uses an understanding of a firm's strategy, what is contained in financial reports, why firms report certain information, and how to be a sophisticated user of this information. Evaluates current performance and its future sustainability, forecasts future profitability and risk, and values businesses using earnings and book value data. Develops a foundation to effectively communicate financial information.

Investigates and evaluates techniques for identifying and measuring business risk and for devising strategies incorporating risk analysis into strategic planning. Ties strategic objectives, risks, internal controls and critical success factors to business performance measurements to evaluate an entity's progress toward achieving strategic goals. Includes both quantitative and qualitative measurements and emphasizes effective communication of financial information.

Examines major international dimensions of financial and managerial accounting. Discusses national and cultural influences on accounting and on the accounting profession. Investigates financial regulation and IFRS accounting and financial reporting standards. Investigates corporate decisions related to methods of currency translation and accounting for gains and losses from exchange rate fluctuations. Explores managerial accounting issues raised by international organizations.

Students will explore how technologies like cloud computing, blockchain, and non-generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) are revolutionizing the field of accounting by automating accounting processes, enhancing accuracy and efficiency in financial reporting, and ensuring compliance with evolving regulations. The course also addresses critical issues like cybersecurity, data privacy, and ethical considerations specific to the accounting profession. Future trends will also be explored.

Focuses on complex frauds (including financial statement fraud, tax fraud and money laundering), and on non-fraud forensic accounting engagements (including cases of patent infringement, commercial damages and anti-trust.) Covers related investigation methods and legal issues, valuation models, reporting and communicating findings, testifying as an expert witness and other litigation advisory services.

Students will focus on the application of technologies in auditing and how the technologies change the audit processes and the audit profession. The course covers data-driven audit methods, the use of AI and machine learning in the audit processes.

Students learn to create powerful reporting tools, to forecast data behavior, and to explore its use in business. This class has a hands-on approach, developed in the context of the application of analytics to business, allowing students to develop the skills necessary to create relevant tools for data-driven organizations. All hands-on work assumes the existence of a technology infrastructure, and no prior knowledge on how to install or maintain the software used in the labs is required.

Students apply the business analytics skills to specific business areas. Students will explore techniques and develop tools that model consumer behavior, supply and demand, and financial performance, in order to predict data evolution in different conflicting scenarios. Students will also apply business analytics to HR decision making such as recruiting, performance measurement, or compensation.

Students will integrate learning and competencies from the Business Analytics program into a single data-based project.? Given a data set, students will ask such questions as why is the data organized as it is, what are the benefits and limitations of the data set, what appropriate visualization elements should be developed, and what business recommendations should be made.