Welcome to the Business School's introductory accounting course. We trust that you will find your study of this course interesting, enjoyable and ultimately valuable in your career. This course is designed to meet the needs of all business students and aims to provide accounting students with not only an appreciation of the fundamental concepts of accounting and an understanding of some of the basic accounting processes, but also how these can be useful in a business setting.

The course does work through some accounting processes to ensure that students understand the underlying concepts of accounting that drive these processes. Just as it is difficult to understand road rules until you drive a car and have put them into practice, it is difficult to understand accounting concepts until challenged to apply them with processes and numbers. As a result, the assessment in this course will consist of both discussion of accounting concepts and demonstration of an understanding of those concepts by applying them in practice.

Regardless of your expected career path, an appreciation of the importance of fundamental accounting literacy and understanding is important. Examples of where an understanding of accounting information might be required include:

• Marketing managers who need to determine the number of units of goods sold, whether they are priced to cover full costs or marginal costs and market share. 
• Human Resource Managers, who are responsible for the major expense in service based industries including the mix of staff and corresponding salary packages. 
• Recreation and sports managers may potentially end up managing large sporting clubs that deal with millions of dollars in player contracts, club facilities and, increasingly, poker machines. On a smaller scale, sports and recreation students may have to prepare budgets and costing for sporting camps and work within budget constraints.
• Entrepreneurs and Innovators, who need to identify and create new business ideas and bring them to commercial reality.

Any business graduate working for a firm that is trying to maximise profit and increase shareholder value will find that one of the major measures of their own personal success will be the impact of their work on the profitability of the firm. All of these above examples suggest that to be truly successful in your chosen area of business, you need some basic understanding of the concepts and processes of accounting. In this course, the maths/numbers don’t get any more difficult than adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing or calculating percentages. These are mathematical skills that should be well developed by the end of year 9 high school and we all use them regularly in transactions when (for example) we go shopping. Very few students cannot do the maths involved in accounting. What some find difficult is explaining in words what the numbers they have just calculated actually mean. This is a more difficult but important skill, and one that we hope to develop during this course.

If you have any questions or queries regarding the course which you feel are not appropriate to post to the discussion board, please contact us via ACCT1008.Enquiries@unisa.edu.au. This account will be monitored on a regular basis by the Accounting for Business team, and using this address will assist us in providing you with timely advice and feedback. Please remember that University policy requires that the official method of student communication is via your student University email account, so please ensure that you use this account in all course related correspondence. Use of other accounts (Gmail, Live, etc.) will result in your mail being returned.

The University's Assessment Policies and Procedures Manual (https://i.unisa.edu.au/policies-and-procedures/codes/assessment-policies/), paragraph 1.2.2 suggests that a university level course should require 157.5 hours study. This course is taken over 15 weeks (including the mid-break and exam period) and therefore requires 10.5 hours study per week. This is the benchmark against which you should measure your efforts in this course, not other courses that may take you less time as they better match your academic strengths.

I would like to wish you all the best in ACCT1008, and here's to a successful study period!

Heather Prider
on behalf of the ACCT1008 course team

• Accounting and the business environment
• Accounting information and its role in decision making for management and external stakeholders
• Recording, reporting and analysing business transactions within the accounting cycle
• Analysis and interpretation of financial statements and cashflow for business users
• Use of accounting information for business planning

MAJOR REFERENCES 

Not required to be purchased:

• CPA Australia [annual update]. Accounting handbook, Sydney, Pearson Prentice-Hall., OR
• Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia [annual update]. Financial reporting, Brisbane, John-Wiley & Sons.
• Bazley, M & Hancock, P 2013, Contemporary accounting, 8th edition, South Melbourne, Cengage Learning.
• Birt, J, Chalmers, K, Beal, D, Brooks, A, Byrne, S & Oliver, J 2008, Chapter 8 `Statement of cash flows’ in Accounting: business reporting for decision making, 2nd edition, Brisbane, John Wiley and Sons.
• Fleet, W, Summers, J & Smith, B 2010, Communications skills handbook, 3rd edition, John Wiley & Sons Aust Ltd, Brisbane
• Horngren, CT, Harrison, WT, Bamber LS, Best P, Fraser D, & Willett R 2010, Accounting, 6th edition, Sydney, Pearson Prentice-Hall.
• Jackling, B, Raar, J, Wines, G, & McDowall, T 2010, Accounting: a framework for decision making, 3rd edition, Sydney, McGraw-Hill.
• Juchau, R, Flanagan, J, Mitchell, G, Tibbits, G, Ingram R, Albright, T, Baldwin, B & Hill, J 2007, Chapter 5 `Reporting cash flows’ in Accounting information for decisions, South Melbourne, Thomson.
• Kimmel P, Carlon C, Loftus J, Mladenovic R, Kieso D & Weygandt J 2006, Accounting: building business skills, John Wiley and Sons Australia, Ltd.
• Trotman, K, Gibbins, M & Carson, E 2013, Financial accounting: an integrated approach, 5th edition, South Melbourne, Cengage Learning.

Weekly Online Quizzes are an essential part of the course that will encourage you to keep up-to-date with your studies. They are compulsory online activities that you need to do each week on the ACCT1008 learnonline website.

Please note that regardless of the 'final' due date for each quiz, you should aim to complete each quiz by the end of the topic week it relates to.

In order to allow for unforeseen circumstances, each quiz has an 'automatic' extension of one week included. This means that the final listed 'Due Date' for each weekly activity visible on the learnonline website is the end of the topic week for the activity plus an additional one week extension.

In summary - the listed due dates in the Study Schedule located at the end of the Course Outline are the absolute latest that your quiz attempt can be submitted, and you should be aiming to complete each quiz in the topic week it relates to.

Each weekly online quiz will be available to access until 6:00pm (Adelaide time) on the listed 'Due Date', and if you choose to leave it to the last minute you face the risk of taking longer than anticipated to complete the quiz or not having access, and it will close before you have had a chance to submit your answers.

IMPORTANT: due to the extension already included (see above) NO further extension of time will be available for this assessment piece and you will lose the marks for that week. You are expected to keep up with this weekly piece of assessment.

Your best 6 attempts of the 9 quizzes available will count toward your total assessment.

Please refer to the document 'ACCT1008 - Online Quiz Information' available in the "Assessment" tab on the course website for important information regarding these quizzes. 

The assignment in ACCT1008 will be completed in two parts.

Assignment Part A is due on Monday of week 5 by 9.00 AM (Adelaide time). The assignment Part A materials will be made available on the course (learnonline) web page under 'Assessment' by the end of study week 2.

Assignment Part B is due on Monday of week 10 by 9:00 AM (Adelaide time). The assignment Part B materials will be made available from the course (learnonline) web page under 'Assessment' by the end of study week 7.

Assignment Part A will assess the topics 1-2 of the course, and Assignment Part B will assess the topics 1-7. The standards by which this will be assessed are the correctness of the answers and the student’s ability to communicate their understanding of the topics.

Please note that the assignment involves multiple questions over a series of topics. The purpose is to enhance your learning of a substantial part of the course. It is therefore advisable to attempt the relevant questions soon after covering the relevant topics. Students who leave doing the complete assignment until the last minute risk not completing the work in time and incurring late submission penalties.

Re-submission is not available for this course.

The exam will assess all of the topics in the course.

The duration of the exam will be 3 hours + 10 minutes reading time.

The standards by which the exam will be assessed are the correctness of the answers and the student’s ability to communicate their understanding of the content of all the topics.

In accordance with the Examination Procedures 6.1.7, unless it is permitted in the course outline or in an agreed variation, a student must not take items into the examination room that could provide an advantage to
them or any student. Examples include but are not limited to:

    a. books, including dictionaries
    b. mobile telephones or other electronic devices
    c. notes or other documents
    d. personal items
    e. examination answer booklets, attendance slips or any paper

6.1.8 Items that are allowed in the examination room must not be enhanced or tampered with in a way that has the potential to provide an additional advantage to any student.

In this course, the following exceptions are authorised by the examiner:
    - an unmarked paper based bilingual dictionary that is not of a technical nature
    - a non-programmable calculator.

No other materials are allowed to be taken into the exam.

Approved ENTEXT students are granted 30 minutes extra time for the examination.

Toward the end of the study period, sample examination questions (and solutions) will be provided via the course website under the revision tab.  You should examine these questions to give you an indication as to:
    - the types of questions likely to be asked
    - the level of difficulty you should be prepared for
    - the time in which you should be able to complete a question

Though the questions in your exam will be similar, do not assume that the sample questions are representative of all the types of questions that could be asked.

To minimise the possibilities of experiencing the unexpected shock of a low mark because an answer was missed in marking, ensure that you follow the instructions in the examination paper regarding where to record your answers.

Students will receive advance notice of scheduled examination. All students are required to sit their examination at the scheduled date, time and location irrespective of any conflict with a planned holiday or special event.
Internal students are required to sit their examination on-campus or at the central exam venue.
More information about examination procedures and arrangements for students can be found by consulting the relevant policy http://i.unisa.edu.au/policies-and-procedures/codes/assessment-policies/ (Section 6)

Extra time in exams and the use of a dictionary (ENTEXT) is available to some students (for example, Aboriginal peoples and those of non-English speaking background) as follows:

• extra time for reading or writing. This will be an extra ten minutes per hour for every hour of standard examination time, and
• the use of an English language or bilingual print dictionary (without annotations). (APPM 7.2.2)

More information about variation to assessment is available in section 7.2 of the Assessment Policy and Procedures Manual. http://i.unisa.edu.au/policies-and-procedures/codes/assessment-policies/ (section 7)

Students with an Access Plan may also be eligible for variations to exam arrangements. For more information please refer to Students with disabilities or medical conditions.

Supplementary assessment or examination offers students an opportunity to gain a supplementary pass (SP) and is available to all students under the following conditions unless supplementary assessment or examination has not been approved for the course:

1. if the student has achieved a final grade between 45-49 per cent (F1) in a course
2. if a student who has successfully completed all of the courses within their program, with the exception of two courses in which they were enrolled in their final study period, a supplementary assessment or examination may be granted where the final grade in either or both of these courses, is less than 45 percent (F1 or F2) and all assessments in the courses were attempted by the student. Supplementary assessment will not be available for a course under investigation for academic integrity until the investigation is completed, and determined that it did not constitute academic misconduct.

More information about supplementary assessment is available in section 7.5 of the Assessment Policy and Procedures Manual.
http://i.unisa.edu.au/policies-and-procedures/codes/assessment-policies/

Students with disabilities or medical conditions or students who are carers of a person with a disability may be entitled to a variation or modification to standard assessment arrangements.  See Section 7 of the Assessment Policy and Procedures Manual (APPM) at:  http://i.unisa.edu.au/policies-and-procedures/codes/assessment-policies/

Students who require variations or modifications to standard assessment arrangements should make contact with their Course Coordinator as early as possible in order to ensure that appropriate supports can be implemented or arranged in a timely manner.

Students can register for an Access Plan with UniSA Access & Inclusion Service. It is important to make contact early to ensure that appropriate support can be implemented or arranged in a timely manner. See the Disability Hub for more information:  http://www.unisa.edu.au/Disability/Current-students

Students are advised there is a deadline to finalise Access Plan arrangements for examinations. Further information is available at:  http://i.unisa.edu.au/campus-central/Exams_R/Before-the-Exam/Alternative-exam-arrangements/

Deferred assessment or examination is available for the course.

Special consideration is available for this course. Note: Special consideration cannot be granted for a deferred assessment or examination, or a supplementary assessment or examination. APPM 7.7.6

Variation to assessment methods, tasks and timelines may be provided in:

Unexpected or exceptional circumstances, for example bereavement, unexpected illness (details of unexpected or exceptional circumstances for which variation may be considered are discussed in clauses 7.8 - 7.10 of the Assessment Policy and Procedures Manual). Variation to assessment in unexpected or exceptional circumstances should be discussed with your course coordinator as soon as possible.

Special circumstances, for example religious observance grounds, or community services (details of special circumstances for which variation can be considered are discussed in clause 7.11 of the Assessment Policy and Procedures Manual). Variations to assessment in expected circumstances must be requested within the first two weeks of the course (or equivalent for accelerated or intensive teaching).

Students with disabilities or medical conditions please refer to Students with disabilities or medical conditions.

EXTENSIONS

In accordance with university policy, assignments submitted late without an approved extension will attract the following penalty:

For every day late or part thereof (including weekends), 10% of the total possible marks will be deducted. Assignments more than seven days late without an approved extension will not be marked.

Extensions to assignment due dates will only be approved in exceptional cases and for reasons that could not have been foreseen at the commencement of the study period. All applications for extensions must be submitted via the 'Extensions' link provided on the course website. Requests must include an explanation of the circumstances under which the extension is sought. Written evidence supporting the application must be provided.

Please note that tutors cannot grant extensions.

Extension requests not lodged via learnonline (i.e. made by email or other form of correspondence) will not be considered. All applications must be made prior to the due date and time and third party evidence must be provided by the student with the initial application.

Heavy workloads or holidays are not grounds for extensions as you are expected to plan your study period with due dates in mind.

Students granted an extension on assignments will:
- Be granted an extension up to the maximum of seven days (subject to evidence), to minimise the impact on exam revision.
- Have to supply a medical certificate or an employer’s letter or third party evidence to the course coordinator to support their claim for an extension.
- May not receive their assignments back when the students who submitted on time receive theirs.

IMPORTANT:
Please make sure you have checked the file you will upload via the course learnonline page, BEFORE you submit. We have had instances in the past when students have submitted the wrong version of their assignment. It is expected that students have checked the file before uploading and final submission. If the wrong version of the assignment has been uploaded and the deadline has passed, students will not be able to submit a new file. The file which has been submitted by the deadline will be the one which is marked. If however, a replacement file is submitted, penalties will apply from the original due date until the replacement file has been submitted.

Special Consideration Exams
The Assessment Policies and Procedures Manual (APPM 2019) defines 'Unexpected or exceptional circumstances are those which were outside the control of the student and/or for which there was no opportunity to prepare in advance.' Special consideration will only be granted where something unforeseen and unexpected happens either on the day of the exam or during the exam. For example, students who are ill for the first time before the exam begins and choose to sit the exam will not be granted special consideration as they have had the opportunity to apply for a deferred exam instead.

A special consideration application will be assessed if:
1. An Exam Incident Report is completed in conjunction with the exam invigilator; and
2. The student leaves the exam early; and
3. The student does not complete the exam or a significant proportion of it.

More information regarding special consideration and deferred exams, including application forms, is available here.

Arrangements if you wish to view your exam
The following arrangements have been made to assist students who wish to view their examination. School of Commerce students on this campus who wish to view their examination need to do the following AFTER the release of results:

• Make an appointment via the following website: https://i.unisa.edu.au/students/business/commerce/exam-revision-workshops/
• Please book at least 2 working days in advance. Appointment dates and times are included on the booking site.
• In line with University policy, students have the right to sight their examination scripts. Your Course Coordinator will determine if additional materials, for example examination solutions, will be provided.
• If you simply ‘turn up’ on the day without an appointment, you will be unable to view your exam.
• If you are an external student and you do not live locally, you will need to contact your Coordinator directly to make an alternative arrangement.

If you have any questions about the process or experience any issues with the online form, please email commerce@unisa.edu.au.