AC101: Managerial Accounting and Financial Control

In today’s competitive world, effective performance measurement and management are essential for business success. Firms must assess financial performance, navigate industry challenges, and identify opportunities for innovation.

This course introduces you to the critical role of management accounting in achieving performance targets and enhancing competitive advantage. You will explore how to analyse costs, evaluate decisions from a financial perspective, and understand resource allocation across the organisation. By leveraging cost analysis and performance evaluation, you’ll learn to strengthen a firm’s strategic position.

Focusing on two key areas, the course equips you to analyse and manage costs to improve strategic outcomes while also managing and motivating employees to ensure their efforts align with organisational goals.

Our approach is practical and highly applied. You will work with real-world cases and master both established and emerging tools in management accounting and financial control. By the end, you’ll be prepared to apply these insights to real business challenges.

Prerequisites: There are no prerequisites for this course

Level: 100 level. Read more information on levels in our FAQs

Fees: Please see Fees and payments

Lectures: 36 hours

Classes: 18 hours

Assessment: Two written examinations

Typical credit: 3-4 credits (US) 7.5 ECTS points (EU)

Please note: Assessment is optional but may be required for credit by your home institution. Your home institution will be able to advise how you can meet their credit requirements. For more information on exams and credit, read Teaching and assessment

This course is ideal if you are seeking a practical understanding of accounting and financial control fundamentals that help managers to be effective in fast-changing business environments. If you are targeting a career in consulting or business management, you should consider this course. It will also be useful if you are starting a MSc. or MBA and wish to learn introductory concepts in the area. 

• Understand how strategic, market, and technological factors affect management accounting and financial control practices

• Show how to apply management accounting and financial control techniques within firms

• Analyse organisational and cultural issues affecting management accounting and control

• Apply modern techniques including cost estimation, activity-based costing, variance analysis, balanced scorecards and target setting to real-world cases.

The design of this course is guided by LSE faculty, as well as industry experts, who will share their experience and in-depth knowledge with you throughout the course.