Instructor weaves experience in private sector to modernize accounting course material

Advanced Financial Reporting was originally an extension of the department's Intermediate I and II courses, touching on topics such as equity, accounting for income taxes, stock-based compensation and earnings per share.

“After benchmarking with other schools and reviewing our curriculum, we reorganized both of the Intermediate courses to ensure all necessary material could be covered within two semesters,” Crawley said. “This freed time to allow us to focus on other technical skills in Advanced Financial Reporting.”

Crawley noted that the course has been kept online this year to build students’ competency when working virtually on their own and in groups. She also said student feedback regarding the course changes has been positive, particularly when it relates to jobs and preparing to sit for the CPA exam.

According to Crawley, a “pervasive” theme to the course is learning to communicate the following in a clear and concise manner: 

• Financial Accounting Standards Board codification – to help students both with their CPA exam preparation and familiarization with generally accepted accounting principles research.

• Microsoft Excel – to ensure students can synthesize and organize data efficiently and draw conclusions.

• Financial statement analysis – teach students to calculate key ratios to determine efficiency and effectiveness.

• Data analytics – comparing and contrasting the types of accounting data analytics and understanding the types of accounting data analytic software.

“It’s one thing to be able to perform accounting work,” Crawley said, “but the true power and strength lies in sharing this information in a useful manner.”