Course Overview

After you’ve covered the basics of journals, ledgers and double entries, you’ll learn about financial statements and accounting adjustments - everything you’ll need to progress onto further study.
You’ll learn-to-earn, by gaining an in-depth understanding of the subject through various practical examples.

Pre-requisites

No previous experience required to access this course.

Qualification

ICS Diploma in Book-keeping & Accounts

Support and benefits

• ICS Diploma can be shown as proof to employers of the professional skills you’ve mastered
• Access to a dedicated tutor and student advisors to guide you through your studies
• Professionally developed study units
  

Key topics

a) Book-keeping and Accounts

• The Ledger, the Cash Book, the Sales Book and the Purchases Book

Examine the most important book of account, the ledger, in-depth. Explore the cash book and learn how to balance it. Learn how to record sales and purchases in the sales and purchases books.

• Double Entry Book-keeping and Trial Balance

Learn how to conduct double entry book-keeping and how to post to the ledger from other books of account. Discover how to extract a trial balance.

• Other Subsidiary Books of Account

Examine the petty cash book, the returns outwards book, the returns inwards book, credit notes, statements of account, and receipts.

• The Bank Account and Bank Statements

Explore bank accounts and learn how to reconcile bank statements.

• The Journal

Learn how the journal is used.

• Profits, Losses and Final Accounts

Examine the profit and loss account and the trading account.

• The Balance Sheet

Discover how to prepare the balance sheet.

b) Finance and Accounting

• Introduction to Finance and Accounting

Examine management accounting and consider its uses for management. Learn how businesses can raise finance from different sources. Examine in detail the different internal and external sources of finance. Consider how the three main factors in the working capital cycle can be controlled.

• Accounting for Business Managers

Examine the underlying concepts and conventions on which accounting systems are based. Learn how to prepare company final accounts. Discover what accounts and financial statements are contained in a set of company accounts. Consider how stock is valued and examine methods of calculating depreciation.

• Accounting Control Systems

Examine budgetary control and consider the objectives it hopes to achieve. Learn how budgets are prepared. Consider how standard costing compares with budgetary control. Explore variance analysis and its relation to standard costing.

• Financial Analysis

Explore the use of ratio analysis in the interpretation of financial information. Learn how a cash flow statement is constructed. Examine discounted cash flows and consider how they are used in capital investment appraisal. Study cost benefit analysis.

Course Code

N77

Hours of study

12 months / 90 hours

Technical requirements

None

Outline

You’ll complete nine assessments during your course and a final assessment on completion of your course. These assessments can be submitted to ICS online via the Student Community, or they can be posted to ICS. It is recommended that you submit your assessments online as you will receive your results more quickly this way. Please note that, due to their nature, some of your assessments may need to be posted.

Assessment Breakdown

• Assessment 1: 2 short answer questions
• Assessment 2: 2 scenario-based questions
• Assessment 3: 1 scenario-based question and 1 short answer question
• Assessment 4: 1 scenario-based question
• Assessment 5: 1 scenario-based question and 1 short answer question
• Assessment 6: 4 (out of a choice of 5) short answer questions
• Assessment 7: 5 short answer questions
• Assessment 8: 2 short answer questions and 3 scenario-based questions
• Assessment 9: 3 scenario-based questions and 1 short answer question
• Final Assessment: 3 scenario-based questions and 1 short answer question

Notes

Many questions have multiple-parts (i.e. Question 1 a, b, c, etc.).

Short answer questions normally require you to write between a sentence and a paragraph.

Scenario-based questions test that you can apply the knowledge you have learnt from the course to imaginary scenarios. For example, you may be given some information about an imaginary business and then be required to prepare its accounts.