BUU22530: Introduction to Accounting 2025/26
(5 ECTS)
Lecturer:
Seamus Crosbie
Email: scrosbie@tcd.ie
Office hours: Please email to make an appointment for an online appointment.
Module tutors: Anna Ni Chinseallaigh Email:nichinsa@tcd.ie and Hongjing Yang Email: yangho@tcd.ie Two additional tutors yet to be announced.
Available to exchange Students
Pre-Requisites:
BUU11570 Enacting Sustainable Development &
BUU11580 Fundamentals of Management and Organisation
Module Description:
-
This module deals with the construction and interpretation of five key financial statements. The initial focus will be on three of these statements – the Statement of Financial Position, the Income Statement, and the Cash Flow Statement. Later in the module, the two remaining statements, which have been introduced relatively recently, will be considered. These are the Statement of Comprehensive Income and the Statement of Changes in Equity. Throughout the module, underlying theoretical concepts related to matching, income measurement, and asset valuation will be explored in detail, and the principles of sound financial management will be developed as the course proceeds. Emphasis on double-entry bookkeeping will be minimized as far as possible.
The overall goal of the course is that students obtain a sound understanding of “money in organisations” and – more specifically – learn how to analyse and judge (a) whether organisations are performing well and are financially healthy or (b) whether there are weaknesses in their financial performance / financial structure.
Course Content - Introduction to accounting
- Measuring, reporting & evaluating financial position
- Measuring, reporting & evaluating financial performance
- Accounting for limited companies (issue of shares, accounting standards etc)
- Measuring, reporting & evaluating cash flows
- Analysis & interpretation of financial statements (especially of public limited companies) Financing a business & the management of working capital
Learning Outcomes:
Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:
- Explain and discuss the fundamental concepts underlying the construction of the key financial statements;
- Prepare a set of basic accounts (the 3 key financial statements) for a commercial enterprise;
- Evaluate the financial performance, position and cash flow of an enterprise [based on published financial statements of Public Limited Companies (plcs)];
- Recommend appropriate policies and strategies for funding and managing an enterprise’s resource base, (re)investment requirements and funding needs.
Relation to Degree
A clear knowledge of accounting principles, together with an ability to construct relatively simple financial statements and interpret complex published financial statements (e.g. of large plc enterprises) is considered essential for all business graduates – regardless of whether the degree taken is a BBS (single honor), or one of the ‘joint honor’ degrees within the TR081 (BESS) suite, or one of those degrees which combines business with a language or law or computing. This second-year course is a pre-requisite for the subsequent study of accounting – whether in Trinity College or abroad as an exchange student. The course also complements studies in the area of finance, and is a valuable knowledge base for analysing financial information that may appear in other courses, especially Strategic Management in the final (senior sophister) year.
Recommended Texts/Key Reading:
Required core course textbook:
- Scott, P (2024), Accounting for Business, 4th
General Supplemental Readings
- See lecture slides for supplemental readings.
Student preparation for the module
In advance of each lecture, students must read the required material to familiarise themselves with the new accounting concepts. Students must prepare the required questions in advance of the lectures and tutorials.
Assessment:
Final Assessment [100%]: 2-hour examination to be taken in April/May 2026. Precise venue and time to be announced in due course.
In order to successfully complete this module, the student must obtain an overall grade of 40%.
Re-Assessment
- Re-assessment occurs when the student fails to obtain an overall grade of 40% in this module.
- Re-assessment involves retaking a 100% examination during the re-assessment period for 2025/26 academic year.
Workload
| Content | Indicative Number of Hours |
|---|---|
| Lecturing hours (11 weeks x 2 hours) | 22 |
| Study of lecture notes, textbook material, examples and exercises (11 weeks x 2 hours) | 22 |
|
Attendance at tutorials (10 weeks x 1 hour) |
10 |
| Preparation, in advance, of tutorial assignments/exercises (10 weeks x 1 hour) | 10 |
| Review of materials/solutions covered during tutorials (10 weeks x 1 hour) | 10 |
| Preparation for + sitting end-of-year examination (2 hour exam) | 46 |
| Total | 120 |
Course Communication
Please note that all course related email communication must be sent from your official TCD email address. Emails sent from other addresses will not be attended to.
Administrative information changes (e.g., dates, times, venues, groups, deadlines, etc.) will be posted on Blackboard. Students are responsible for checking their College email and Blackboard regularly.
Biographical Note:
Seamus is a Big 4 trained Chartered Accountant with many years' experience in both practice and industry. Prior to completing his professional accounting examinations, he obtained a Bachelor of Civil Law with Economics Degree from University College Dublin and Post Graduate Diploma in Accounting from Technological University Dublin. Prior to joining the faculty at Trinity, Seamus spent a number of years lecturing at Technological University Dublin across a range of modules at the School of Business, in addition to being actively involved in course and syllabus design. Seamus is currently working towards his doctorate. His research interests centre on the areas of Entrepreneurship and the impact of Distributed Ledger Technologies on SCM.