This microcredential will develop your understanding of how management accounting contributes to a successful business and improve your ability to make better financial decisions. Using best-practice approaches, you’ll gain new skills to interpret information, calculate costs, prepare a budget for planning and control purposes, and evaluate costing methods. Hands-on activities tackling real-world business problems will equip you with essential tools and techniques that can be applied to any organisation, regardless of the size or sector.
Key features
- Learn practical skills that you can apply to your work straight away
- Designed for non-financial professionals to gain confidence in understanding and using management accounting terminology
- Interact with co-learners and a course mentor to further support your learning
- Created by academic experts from The Open University’s triple-accredited Business School (AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS) with input from industry experts
- The course has a global focus and delivers transferable skills for diverse sectors and organisations
What you will study
This undergraduate microcredential will give you the practical, best practice skills you need to succeed in management accounting. During this 10-week course, you’ll cover the following topics.
- Key business concepts, what accountancy is and the differences between management accounting and financial accounting
- Financial information from a number of different perspectives – who needs to understand financial information and why
- The role of budgeting in helping organisations plan for and manage their activities and operations
- The budget process, including relevant models of budgeting and practical experience in developing budgets for different organisations
- Fundamental cost concepts and their relevance for planning, control and decision-making
- The practical application of tools to help support a range of decisions in different organisations and businesses
- Exploring the challenges involved in accurately costing a product or service
- Using costing information in management decision-making and the importance of non-financial information in making the right decisions
- How costing systems contribute towards financial and operational decisions
You will learn
By the end of this Continuing Professional Development (CPD) course, you’ll be able to:
- identify the need for accounting information when managing organisations
- prepare a budget for planning and control purposes
- calculate the cost of different types of products, processes and services
- interpret a variety of different types of information from different information sources
- evaluate and implement appropriate costing methods to make financial decisions.
Skills you will gain
- Applying financial information to improve efficiency and effectiveness
- Developing budgets for planning and control
- Assessing the different types of cost for decision making
- Understanding management accounting principles
- Identifying the importance of management accounting in organisations
- Problem-solving using management accounting techniques
- Understanding the importance of contribution in decision-making
- Identifying the break-even level of output
Vocational relevance
Materials include real-world examples and industry insight, ensuring your learning is relevant to the workplace. The course will particularly benefit:
- professionals who would like to progress to management level
- those who are new to an accounting role but lack formal qualifications
- senior professionals looking to develop their management accounting skills
- self-employed professionals looking to develop their skills and knowledge of management accounting.
Created by academic experts from The Open University’s triple-accredited Business School
- Sabine Tuckett is an associate lecturer in accountancy with the OU. She is a chartered accountant with experience working in practice and teaches at the University of Exeter.
- Paul Ranford is a chartered accountant and has authored many OU accounting module materials. He was awarded SFHEA for his teaching leadership in October 2017.
- Jay Naik is an associate lecturer at the OU. He has 16 years of experience with other institutions as a senior lecturer covering all business subjects at undergraduate, postgraduate, and professional levels.
- Mark Taylor is a consultant and educator whose interests include strategy, finance and management. In addition to teaching, he is involved in course design for companies and universities across the UK.
- Haider Ali is a senior lecturer in marketing at the OU. He has consulted and taught globally and has been published in the Journal of Marketing Management.
Entry
This undergraduate-level microcredential is ideal for business professionals who wish to broaden their understanding of management accounting. You don’t need any prior experience or qualifications to enrol. The course has been designed to reflect learners’ differing accounting experience and mathematical skill levels. All required skills and foundational knowledge are covered within this microcredential.
Please note
- The course material doesn’t assume learners are working. Past experiences will be just as relevant.
- All teaching is in English, and your English proficiency needs to be adequate for undergraduate study. As a guide, this corresponds to Level 5.5 of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). However, you won’t need to provide a formal English language score to enrol.
Course length
This 10-week course requires approximately 10 hours of self-paced learning per week, totalling around 100 hours for completion.
If you have a disability
The course is delivered online and makes use of a variety of online resources. If you use specialist hardware or software to assist you in using a computer or the internet, you can contact us about the support that can be given to meet your needs.
To find out more about what kind of support and adjustments might be available, contact us or visit our disability support pages.
Study materials
What's included
All learning materials, exercises and activities are delivered entirely online.
While certain content can be downloaded, some content is exclusively accessible online, requiring a reliable internet connection for viewing. Please consider this if you are travelling.
Teaching and assessment
Study support
- Learn 100% online on the OU’s learning platform with a mix of video, audio and written materials
- Engage in interactive learning through self-assessment questions, polls, tasks and reflection
- Share ideas and experiences in discussion with other learners, building skills, confidence and knowledge
- Receive support from mentors who guide discussions and answer questions
- Study at a time that suits you with the flexibility to access the course from your desktop, tablet or mobile device
Assessment
You’ll take part in weekly tasks and discussions with co-learners to support and consolidate your learning. Towards the end of the course, you’ll submit a project or assessment demonstrating the skills you’ve acquired. This will be marked and graded by subject matter experts and make up 100% of your final mark.
What you will gain
10 UK credits at undergraduate level from The Open University*. Academic credits are awarded on passing the final assessment. These will be at undergraduate level 6 of the Framework for Higher Education (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) / level 10 of the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework.
*Academic credit may be used towards selected OU qualifications. For more details, including eligible qualifications, visit Counting microcredentials towards OU qualifications. The credit awarded may also be used at another university, subject to the agreement of the receiving institution.