Accounting Graduate Certificate

This course covers US GAAP rules related to accounting for investments, income taxes, and leases, as well as accounting changes and errors, fair value accounting, notes to the financial statements, and the statement of cash flows.

This course will focus on accounting for state and local governments, accounting for private non-profit organizations, and accounting for bankruptcy and legal reorganizations. Students will also learn the modified accrual basis of accounting used by state and local governments and certain types of other nonprofit organizations, the budget accounting and the fund accounting standards set by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB). Analyzing comprehensive cases, critical problem solving and reading professional and academic journals will be the integral parts of this course.
Prerequisite: Take AC-221 AC-331 AC-332

This course will focus on advanced level financial accounting topics, such as derivatives and hedge accounting and financial valuation methods and decision models. Students will also learn about the FASB's accounting standard setting procedures, classification and interpretation of the notes in financial statements, emerging reporting frameworks, as well as how to make informed decisions.

This course introduces the basic principles of taxation common to all types of taxpayers, with special emphasis on business taxation and planning. Topics include tax policy issues, tax planning, computation of business taxable income, and an introduction to the taxation of corporations, S corporations, partnerships, and limited-liability companies.

This course will focus on individual tax planning considerations for gross income, inclusions and exclusions, adjustments and deductions to arrive at adjusted gross income and taxable income, and passive activity and at-risk loss limitations. Students will also learn tax planning considerations for the computation of tax, estimated taxes, and tax credits, as well as topics related to loss limitations and tax attributes.

The objective of this course is to analyze sale and exchange property transactions and calculate gains for federal tax purposes. Emphasis will be placed on related party transactions (including imputed interest) and tax planning strategies for entities. Students will also learn about the tax classification of qualified joint ventures, consolidated tax returns and transactions between a shareholder and a corporation, and resulting gains and losses.

In this course, students will learn individual tax planning, including tax reduction/management techniques, timing of income and expenses, tax consequences of various charitable/philanthropic giving options, and professional standards. The course will also focus on various retirement vehicles available and how they fit into financial planning, review the limits and tax consequences of contributions to or distributions from retirement plans, & determine cash requirements to realize retirement goals, as well as planning for the post-retirement succession of a closely held business.

This course will explain and apply various tax research techniques, the importance of tax research, and appropriate techniques for conducting tax research in real world contexts. Students will learn how to apply research techniques to resolve basic to intermediate tax compliance issues and to distinguish primary versus secondary authority in the tax areas, as well as about the hierarchy of federal tax guidance.

Examines advance issues in auditing including in-depth review of the following: forensic accounting and fraud examination, litigation support and expert witness services, the use of statistical sampling in auditing, internal auditing, assurance services, and extending the attestation function. The course makes use of cases, articles, and current pronouncements in the field.

This course will explain information technology (IT) governance and strategy and awareness of IT standards. Students will learn the basics of hardware, software, databases, networks, mobile technology, etc., used by entities internally, externally, and through outsourcing arrangements. Emphasis will be placed on relevant IT standards and assurance-related research and techniques. Students will learn about IT systems, controls, and resources to identify risks to information systems and the organizational risk.

In this course, students will learn how to analyze and evaluate the flow of transactions in a system interface diagram to identify risks, determine logical access controls, and prepare results of appropriate tests of security. The course will also focus on how to perform tests and report on the results of change management controls, the designing of appropriate tests of application controls related to business processes, and additional procedures needed to obtain sufficient appropriate evidence through data analysis procedures.

This course is designed to acquaint the student with the business valuation process. Topics to be discussed include business valuation overview, valuation standards, various types of reports, appraisal theory, appraisal engagement, market approach, asset approach, income approach, discounts and capitalization, premiums, and completing the engagement.

Students will learn how to recognize the basics of cybersecurity and risk management, common cybersecurity frameworks and standards, and cybersecurity testing approaches

This course is designed to acquaint the student with the field and practice of forensic accounting. Topics to be discussed include fraudulent financial reporting, employee fraud, indirect methods of reconstructing income, money laundering and transnational financial flows, various courtroom procedures and litigation support, and cybercrime

This course provides a practical foundation to understand the impact of Data Analytics on Accounting, Auditing, and Financial Reporting. The student, through a hands-on methodology, will learn how to identify business questions that can be addressed with data, and then testing the data, refining the testing, and finally communicating the findings.

In this course, students will demonstrate the ability to extract, transform, and load data, apply data mining techniques to a data set, and interpret appropriate predictive and prescriptive analysis. The focus will be on the designing and interpretation of the results of a Key Performance Indicators (KPI) dashboard, what-if analysis, and the assumptions about and evaluations of data models for appropriate checks and balances. Students will also be introduced the concepts of audit analysis and the skills needed to extract, manipulate, analyze, and summarize tax data to solve tax problems.