ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL STATEMENT ANALYSIS

The course contributes to the educational objectives of the Bachelor's Degree Program, which aims to provide the knowledge needed to critically analyze economic phenomena at various levels (macroeconomic, market, company), to know decision-making processes of economic organizations and to address entities’ economic problems. Therefore, these objectives require also adequate capacity about entities’ representation and evaluation through accounting information.
For this purpose, the course deals with the study of traditional tools for the financial statement analysis that are used to read and interpret business performances in order to assess the financial and economic status of the entity. Therefore, the course presents the key features of financial statements drawn up according to the Italian civil law and IFRS, the main approaches to classify the income statement and the statement of financial position, the principles for preparing the cash flow statement and the ratio analysis.

1 KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
As students of the ECONOMIA E COMMERCIO - Bachelor's Degree Program have to know and understand how entities implement their decision-making processes to face economic problems, at the end of this course students will know financial statements and the other tools to support decisions. Therefore, they are expected to understand:
- the composition of the financial statements;
- the general structure of the balance sheet and income statement prepared in compliance with the Italian civil law and with IFRS;
- the structure and composition of the cash flow statement;
- the criteria for the reformulation of financial statements and the main aggregates and intermediate results deriving from them;
- the financial ratios to be used for the analysis of profitability and financial position of the entity.
2 APPLYING KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
Since students in the ECONOMIA E COMMERCIO - Bachelor's Degree Program must be able to provide an adequate analysis and economic-financial interpretation of business processes, at the end of this course the student will be able to:
- identify the main information contained in the financial statements;
- reformulate the balance sheet and the income statement;
- draw up a cash flow statement and understand the financial dynamics of the entity;
- calculate the financial ratios and understand the determinants of the financial and economic status of the entity;
- identify relationships among financial ratios and more generally the impact of the change in a financial ratio on an entity’s performance and financial position.
3 MAKING JUDGEMENTS
Since students in the ECONOMIA E COMMERCIO - Bachelor's Degree Program must be able to provide an adequate analysis and economic-financial interpretation of business processes, at the end of this course the student will be able to express a judgement on the ability of an entity with respect to the conditions of economic and financial equilibrium as well as on the improvement or deterioration of its situation and its economic-financial performance.

To tackle the course, it is necessary to have already learnt the basic concepts and language of the economic analysis of business processes and the basic skills of accounting for business events and preparation of financial statements, which have been developed in the Business Administration course.
Those who have not passed the Business Administration exam cannot take the Accounting and Financial Statement Analysis exam.

Viewing the business through the financial statements.
The economic-financial model and the financial statements.
Objective and contents of the financial statements.
The legal form of the financial statement according to the Italian civil law.
The financial statement presentation complying with IFRS.
Alternative presentation formats of the statement of financial position.
Alternative presentation formats of the income statement.
The cash flow statement and cash flow analysis.
The ratio analysis.

U. Sostero, P. Ferrarese, M. Mancin, C. Marcon, L'analisi economico-finanziaria di bilancio, III ed., Giuffrè editore, Milano, 2018, excluding the following parts:
- par. from 5.1 to 5.3;
- par. 6.7 and 6.8.3;
- cap. 7.

The exam is written only. During the exam the student will have to solve some exercises concerning various parts of the program and answer some open-ended theoretical questions aimed at ascertaining the achievement of the expected learning outcomes. The overall grade derives from the sum of the evaluations attributed to the solutions of the exercises and to the answers to the questions.

The course includes lectures during which the theoretical aspects are presented and examples of the analysis tools are carried out.
The course is associated with tutorials that insist on the most applicative aspects of the program.

REGISTRATION FOR EXAM. Online registration is COMPULSORY. In case of registration problems, students are required to contact the economic campus a reasonable number of days BEFORE deadline.

written