Advanced Financial Reporting and Ethics

This unit synthesizes advanced financial accounting topics including complex statement presentation, disclosure requirements, deferred tax and inventory adjustments, and ethical and forensic issues. Students will apply accounting treatments, prepare and interpret cash flow and equity presentations, detect and correct misstatements, and evaluate specialized accounting roles across governmental, nonprofit, and international contexts.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze comprehensive financial statements (balance sheet, income statement, statement of cash flows, equity section, and accumulated other comprehensive income) and produce common-size analyses and inventory worksheets to assess liquidity, solvency, and performance
• Apply appropriate accounting treatments and journal entries for deferred tax assets and liabilities, stock splits, capitalized versus expensed costs, inventory adjustments, and correcting entries for omitted or misclassified transactions
• Demonstrate procedures to detect, document, and resolve errors, fraud, and ethical breaches—including misclassified cash, deleted transactions, related-party disclosures, and period-of-recognition errors—using basic forensic and IT-audit techniques
• Evaluate the roles, reporting requirements, and disclosure responsibilities of specialized accounting functions (governmental, not-for-profit, income tax, international, and other specialized accountants) and recommend adjustments to ensure transparency and compliance