MSc Accounting and Analytics Curriculum
The programme consists of eight taught modules, assessed through a combination of written examinations and continuous coursework. Modules are taught over two terms, Michaelmas term (September to December) and Hilary term (January to April) with the final Trinity term (April to August) being dedicated to your practice-based project.
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September-December Michaelmas Term |
January-April Hilary Term |
May-August Trinity Term |
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Note: Modules offered each academic year are subject to change. The modules listed above and below are the modules and timetable for 2025/26.
Module Descriptions
Financial Reporting (10 ECTS)
Learn to prepare, analyse and critique financial statements using international standards. From double-entry to consolidation, this module sharpens your technical skills while expanding your critical thinking on regulatory and ethical dimensions.
How this fits your MSc journey: Builds a strong technical base for interpreting financial performance and sustainability disclosures.
Learning outcomes:
- Apply core accounting skills: Prepare accurate statements for varied business types.
- Use international standards: Align reports with international accounting and sustainability standards .
- Analyse performance: Use ratios and analytics to interpret financial statements.
- Understand ethics and regulation: Critique reporting within its broader context.
- Consolidate accounts: Master the preparation of group financial statements.
Management Accounting (10 ECTS)
Build the financial insight to drive smarter business decisions. Learn how to use cost and performance data to shape strategy, control operations, and improve profitability. From core techniques to advanced tools, you’ll master the language of internal finance. How this fits your MSc journey: Provides the analytical backbone for internal decision-making and resource optimisation.
Learning outcomes:
- Make smarter decisions: Apply management accounting techniques, to planning and decision-making scenarios.
- Master cost systems: Distinguish between a traditional management accounting system and strategic cost management.
- Control performance: Build and assess budgets, variances, and divisional metrics.
- Set transfer prices: apply various pricing approaches and advise management on optimal transfer pricing strategies.
- Think strategically: Measure and optimise organisational performance using appropriate strategic performance measurement techniques.
Foundations of Business Analytics (5 ECTS)
Unlock the power of data in decision-making. Learn how to collect, analyse and interpret business data, no coding experience is required. You’ll explore the statistical foundations behind modern analytics and apply them to real business questions.
How this fits your MSc journey: Establishes essential quantitative and analytical skills you’ll build on throughout the programme.
Learning outcomes:
- Collect and analyse data: Understand how to extract insights from structured information.
- Apply statistical tools: Use descriptive stats, probability, and regression in context.
- Generate business insights: Translate data into informed recommendations.
- Build analytical confidence: Apply core methods using practical software platforms.
- Frame better decisions: Recognise the drivers of business outcomes through data.
Company Law (5 ECTS)
Gain legal knowledge in the frameworks that govern business. You’ll move from foundational legal principles to company-specific regulations, learning how to interpret legislation, advise on legal risks, and navigate corporate structures with confidence.
How this fits your MSc journey: Equips you to interpret and apply the legal context behind financial and strategic decisions.
Learning outcomes:
- Understand the legal landscape: Explain the regulatory environment that shapes firms.
- Advise on structures: Clarify legal rules around business formation and governance.
- Evaluate capital rules: Understand corporate obligations for equity and debt.
- Apply employment law: Know where the law meets HR in real-world scenarios.
- Explore insolvency law: Identify legal routes through financial distress and liquidation.
Financial Management (10 ECTS)
Think like a CFO. This module gives you the tools to appraise investments, manage risk, and optimise corporate finance strategies. You’ll learn how firms raise capital, structure deals, and create value, skills vital for any finance professional.
How this fits your MSc journey: Elevates your strategic finance capability and prepares you for high-level financial decision-making.
Learning outcomes:
- Understand financial roles: Navigate stakeholder needs and economic dynamics.
- Appraise investments: Apply specialised skills to assess project viability.
- Value businesses: Apply techniques for equity and asset valuation.
- Analyse deals: Explore the mechanics of mergers and acquisitions.
- Manage risk: critique risk management techniques including hedging and derivatives.
Taxation (10 ECTS)
Demystify the tax landscape and sharpen your technical skills in Irish and EU tax law. You’ll learn how to compute liabilities across income, capital gains, corporation tax and VAT, while developing ethical judgement and policy awareness.
How this fits your MSc journey: Equips you with practical and strategic insights into how tax impacts personal and corporate decisions.
Learning outcomes:
- Navigate Irish tax law: Understand core rules for individuals and businesses.
- Prepare computations: Accurately calculate tax liabilities across different areas.
- Explain capital gains: Analyse reliefs and exemptions with confidence.
- Understand VAT: Apply rules for compliance and reporting obligations.
- Critique tax policy: Assess how tax design shapes strategy and behaviour.
Audit (5 ECTS)
Master the skills to assess risk, gather evidence, and form sound audit opinions.You’ll apply auditing concepts to real-world scenarios, using simulated audit files and structured audit documentation tasks. Engage with professional materials, codes of ethics and auditing standards to develop the analytical and communication skills required in professional audit environments.
How this fits your MSc journey: Aligns with professional standards and deepens your professional readiness in assurance roles.
Learning outcomes:
- Assess audit risks: Apply analytical tools to build effective audit strategies.
- Evaluate controls: Spot weaknesses and recommend improvements using professional methods.
- Design substantive tests: Develop audit procedures for key financial statement items.
- Justify audit opinions: Interpret evidence and apply ethical and regulatory frameworks.
- Exercise judgement: Build the confidence to act decisively in complex audit scenarios.
Corporate Governance and Ethics (5 ECTS)
Step into the boardroom and see how ethical leadership shapes corporate success. Examine real-world failures and best practices to understand what good governance looks like, and how to build it. You’ll gain tools to evaluate risk, embed ethics, and assess internal controls that stand up to scrutiny.
How this fits your MSc journey: Helps you connect financial skills with ethical leadership in a regulatory context.
Learning outcomes:
- Define good governance: Articulate what makes governance effective and resilient.
- Apply best practice: Explain best practice within common corporate governance.
- Assess ethical risk: View decisions through a professional and moral lens.
- Design controls: Devise and assess internal controls across corporate contexts.
- Champion transparency: Promote responsible reporting that earns stakeholder trust.
Analytics for Accounting (30 ECTS)
Build confidence using cutting edge tools in real world scenarios. Delivered by Deloitte professionals, this immersive summer school gives you hands-on experience with technology and analytical tools, audit analytics, and data visualisation. You will work on applied projects with real data, guided by industry experts.
How this fits your MSc journey: Designed as the capstone module, this intensive experience builds on your accounting and analytics knowledge to prepare you for professional practice.
Learning outcomes:
- Apply data analytics: Use analytical tools to solve accounting and commercial problems.
- Evaluate ethics and security: Explain and critique ethical and security issues in data analytics.
- Understand emerging technologies: Demonstrate awareness of AI, RPA, and programming languages that are reshaping the profession.
- Enhance audit assurance: Apply analytics to the audit and assurance of financial and non-financial information.