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Employment is projected to rise in 17 of the 19 industries over the five years to May 2023. Around two thirds of new jobs during this period are expected to come from four main industries, including Professional, Scientific and Technical Services (106,600, or 10.2%) with accountants comprising the biggest occupation group of this industry.
The accountancy profession is being moulded by large-scale changes ranging from globalisation to automation, cloud accounting and artificial intelligence. Australian companies in a recent survey conducted by the World Economic Forum, identified the following emerging skills: creativity, originality and initiative, analytical thinking and innovation, active learning, technology design and programming, complex problem-solving, critical thinking and analysis, leadership and social influence, emotional intelligence, reasoning and resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility. The Master of Professional Accounting will seek to equip students with a number of the above skills to qualify for membership to professional accounting bodies. and provide graduates with an internationally recognised set of credentials and employment opportunities both domestically and globally.
The Master of Professional Accounting (MPA) is designed principally for students from non-accounting backgrounds who wish to make a career change or simply to develop an understanding of the technical and social role accounting plays in contemporary business. As such, the MPA is a broad-based qualification that integrates the core accounting studies with authentic learning experience gained through participating in a Business Internship as a work integrated learning unit.
This program will help students develop the skills and expertise they need for a rewarding career in accounting. Students are expected to develop the knowledge and expertise to future-proof their career, where they will undertake advanced learning in both theory and professional practice and learn to solve critical accounting and business problems in innovative ways.
A 2019 publication by the Department of Education, Skills and Employment, Australian Jobs 2019 provides an overview of trends in the Australian labour market to support job seekers and providers, career advisers, people considering future training and work and people interested in labour market issues. According to this report, accountants represent the biggest occupation group in Australia making up over 39% of the employed occupation groups. More than three quarters of this group hold a bachelor’s degree or higher qualification. Accountants represent the second biggest occupation group after registered nurses and followed by primary school teachers
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Study Mode Face to face |
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Duration Full-time, 2 years (4 trimesters) |
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Location Ground, 123 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, VIC. 3000 |
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Course Requirements 14 core units plus 2 electives |
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English Entry Requirements Domestic School Leavers: n/a International Students: International applicants are required to provide evidence of sufficient English language skill to enable them to successfully complete a degree course. To demonstrate that they have met the English language requirements the applicant must show evidence of: – Successful completion of the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) B program (20 weeks) at Ozford English Language Centre or other English Language Centres endorsed by The NEAS (National English Language Teaching Accreditation Scheme) Quality Assurance which will meet the IELTS outcomes equivalent to IELTS 6.5 to enter the Master’s Degree; or – Completion of an AQF Level 7 (or higher) qualification that was studied in Australia in English within the past two years; or – Completion of a higher education qualification in English awarded by a recognised university in which English is the primary language. Academic Entry Requirements 2. Applicants with no formal qualifications 3. International Students • Completion of an Australian Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) in any discipline; or Students must be minimum eighteen years of age prior to commencing a course at the Institute. Age Entry Requirement |
This unit improves the students’ ability to understand the cause and effect of recording business transactions both through manual and computer based systems and produce the relevant accounting reports that are the outputs of the accounting process. It requires the students to use, adapt, evaluate and manage available accounting software that support the overall accounting functions. The students will learn how to use relevant accounting software (e.g., MYOB or QuickBooks or Xero) to record payroll, accounts receivable/accounts payable, inventory, GST, superannuation, PAYE transactions and prepare journal, ledger, trial balance, income statement, balance sheet and other relevant statements using accounting software. The unit also aims at providing students with the skills and techniques to select financial information relevant to particular business decisions and analyse and interpret accounting data to evaluate the financial status of a business. In general, this unit will lay a solid foundation for further studies in accounting.
This unit equips students with an in-depth understanding of the concepts and techniques of using cost and financial accounting information for planning, organising, evaluating and controlling activities in an operational environment. It is designed to provide the students with the skills and competence required to contribute to the strategic decision-making and the management and achievement of organisational objectives.
This unit provides an understanding of the regulatory and conceptual frameworks which underpin accounting for corporate entities and provides an in-depth look at the general purpose financial reporting and how more complex and industry specific issues are accounted for and reported in Australia and internationally. Topics covered in this unit include regulatory reporting environment, theories of accounting, financial statement reporting requirements and specialist reporting requirements involving the application of accounting standards involving measurement. This unit is aimed at broadening the horizon of accounting knowledge of students to general and industry specific accounting and reporting issues that they might encounter in accounting practice.
This advanced financial accounting unit enhances students’ knowledge and skill to handle accounting and reporting requirements of large corporations and builds on the areas covered in ACC6903 Financial Reporting. The unit exposes students to the application of the national and international financial reporting standards (IFRS) in measuring and reporting on a range of balance sheet and income statement items. Students are exposed to specialist topics which require the application of accounting standards involving professional judgement. The unit deals with some of the more complex areas of financial accounting, including accounting for income tax, leases, business combinations and consolidations, as well as foreign currency issues. This unit provides student with the conceptual understanding, practical techniques and methods for approaching some of the most challenging accounting problems of the corporate world.
Auditing and Compliance introduces the underlying concepts, objectives and the authentication and reporting functions of the auditor. In this unit students are exposed to the audit process by exploring key ideas of auditor independence and ethical issues. The unit deals with the theoretical, practical and ethical aspects of auditing. The aim is to synthesise and integrate the concepts of auditing with practical and team approaches taken by the auditor so that the students gain a thorough understanding of the audit process and legal implications of the auditors’ work.
This unit is designed to give students the skills to effectively communicate clearly and coherently to engage and interact with a range of stakeholders in a business environment using appropriate language and communication strategies. Through class presentations, role-play and interactions in the class, students will develop skills and knowledge for technology-based effective oral and written presentation and articulate the most appropriate communication style that pays due attention to contextual, social, health and safety, ethical and cultural considerations. Students will also be introduced to research methods and writing research reports which will be required for research-related assessment tasks for students who progress to the Master of Business Administration or Master of Professional Accounting. Developing excellent communication skills is extremely important to your career success, whether you are already working or are about to enter today’s increasingly digital workplace. Employers often rank communication skills among the most requested competencies. Communication skills include writing, reading, listening, nonverbal, and speaking skills. This unit is aimed at improving students’ oral and written communication skills and raise their team spirit.
This unit examines the operation of the economy at the micro and macro-economic levels. Students will examine the factors that influence the behaviour of consumers, firms and markets. At the micro level, it covers the fundamental economic concepts of scarcity, utility, demand, price, cost, supply, laws of diminishing marginal utility, laws of demand and supply and price, and pricing under monopoly, oligopoly and perfectly competitive markets. At the macro level the students will examine the factors that affect the whole economy such as, national Income, GDP, GNP, economic growth, inflation and unemployment and the role of the government, the national budget, and the Central Bank in managing economic fluctuations. Emphasis is placed on the interrelationship between real world situations and the application of economic theory to practical scenarios.
The aim of this unit is to foster a robust financial awareness in students of the fiscal and institutional environment and enable them to apply the essential mathematical skills needed for analysing the trade-off between risk and return in sourcing short-term and long-term capital from debt and/or equity and also for valuing single investment as well as a portfolio of assets. It is designed to cultivate appropriate financial skills for selecting the right information for the problem in hand and focusing on the issues from the perspective of competitive challenges, financial prudence, market imperatives, technological shifts, strategic fits and global trends. It helps students to maintain a high standard in taking timely, ethical and effective financial decisions in sourcing capital, evaluating future acquisitions and allocating resources in a complex global environment.
Students will examine how information, knowledge, data and enterprise information systems can be used strategically for improvement of business processes. Students will learn how to develop innovative and practical solutions for business problems, while gaining expertise on e-commerce, information and knowledge management, business intelligence and decision making, and business process management and innovation. This unit will develop students’ ability to design, implement and operate information and enterprise resource planning systems, database management systems, computer-based accounting systems and cyber security systems, within an ethical, legal and social framework.
This unit introduces students to the Australian legal environment and examines a number of commercial laws that are central to business, such as, Contract Law, Laws of Agency, Consumer Protection Law, Insolvency Law and Law of Tort. Emphasis will be placed on the understanding of legal reasoning and on the application of legal principles to actual business situations and entrepreneurial activities. It also introduces students to corporate regulation in Australia and a range of legal issues faced by incorporated entities in Australia. Important issues that will be examined include formation, registration and legal status of companies; company constitution, legal rights, duties and obligations of creditors, shareholders and directors; corporate governance, meetings and voting; Disclosure documents and ASIC lodgement; company restructuring and liquidation; rights of creditors and division of assets.
Taxation Law aims at providing students with practical working knowledge of all aspects of Australian taxation law. It is designed to enable students to understand and apply the basic taxation legislation (the Income-Tax Assessment Acts, 1936 and 1997 and amendments thereof) and analyse relevant taxation cases and rulings. The primary focus is the interaction between legal principles and administrative rules that determine the personal and corporate income tax, fringe benefit tax, capital gains tax, and goods and services tax in Australia. Key areas covered include assessable income and allowable deductions for individuals and a variety of business entities including companies. Emphasis is placed on the application of legal principles to actual business situations including the general anti-avoidance provisions.
Business Ethics and Corporate Governance unit introduces learners to the essential concepts of business ethics and corporate governance and exposes students to principles and concepts of ethical decision-making at personal and organisational levels. Ethics and governance are intertwined concepts in professional life for business leaders and this unit offers a rich and dynamic examination on ethics and governance from the viewpoints of different stakeholders such as business, employees, the government, suppliers and customers. Key areas covered in the unit include: business, society and corporate citizenship; fundamental issues and theories of ethics and governance; ethics and global business, public policy and technology; ethics and internal and external stakeholders; and consumer rights and environmental expectations. Case studies and extensive class discussion using audio-video clips will be used to enrich the learning process.
This unit introduces students to the concepts of data analysis and data visualisation techniques for solving business problems. The importance of data visualisation as part of data analysis and for the communication of results is also covered. Students will review statistical data including sampling and probability distribution in forecasting from time-series data, hypothesis testing and regression analysis. Students will develop their problem-solving skills by using various mathematical, data analysis and data visualisation techniques with computer software to effectively communicate the results of this analysis.
The Business Internship unit is a core unit of both the Master of Professional Accounting and the Master of Business Administration courses and is designed as a project-based work-integrated learning activity for students. The unit is designed to ensure that all students not only have contemporary industry-related experiences but are also engaged in higher-order work-related learning and competency development, particularly in the areas of project development, project analyses and project management, including interpersonal negotiation, oral and written communication skills. It is expected that students in undertaking this unit will perceive themselves as creative problem solvers who can transform information into innovative solutions and strategies with sound ethical and moral and scholarly foundations. It is also expected that students in meeting the requirements of this unit, students will comply with all legal and regulatory requirements and promote sustainable business practices. The unit is clearly designed to provide an overarching reflection, demonstration and application of the knowledge and skills gained from previously studied units. Students will normally be assigned to a project team prior to placement. Some team members may be part of the workplace and not involved in enrolled in the course or undertaking the internship unit. Students who are currently employed or working in a relevant course-related role will be able to have a suitable negotiated and approved work project recognised. The unit will be under the academic supervision of WIL coordinators, informed by an agreed workplace supervisor, to provide the intellectual and scholarly base necessary to successfully complete the project.
Global Trade and Markets provides students with basic tools for analysing economic issues in today’s global marketplace. The unit will explore the law of comparative advantage, economic growth and redistribution, privatisation and migration. The unit will also explore contemporary phenomenon such as the “Trump” factor where the Trump administration has recognized the global trade status quo and sought to address inequities; and Brexit and the EU which has created much chaos disruption. International trade agreements have been the engine of global growth for many years as capitalism has spread and even communist countries have accepted the system as the engine of growth and the most efficient way to allocate resources. But free trade agreements have been anything but free and fair. The unit will explore this important and emerging issue too.
This unit introduces students to core entrepreneurship theory and concepts and applies these to the realities of entrepreneurial activity and decision making and a contemporary global context. The unit investigates business strategy and entrepreneurship and provides a framework for understanding relevant theory and its application. This unit focusses on developing skills and knowledge necessary for the planning, development and implementation of entrepreneurial ventures or enterprise. Students will apply advanced knowledge of legal, marketing, and financial principles with reasoning and creative skills to identify business opportunities at venture or enterprise level, and present and develop entrepreneurial propositions.
Global Human Resource Management provides an overview of global HRM and provide a range of in-depth applications for all the major functional areas of HRM.
Global Human Resource Management (HRM) focus on specific areas of global HRM policies and practices, such as global leadership, global compensation, global staffing, and global labour relations. This unit provides students with a foundation knowledge for HRM in global context and gives an overview of all the major areas in the field of international human resource management.
The students will learn about cross-cultural management: examining human behaviour within organisations from a global perspective. Furthermore, students will be able to describe, compare, and analyse HRM systems in various countries. Finally, students will be exposed to aspects of HRM in multinational firms and to explore the implications that the process of globalisation has for the activities and policies of HRM, in particular, how HRM is practiced in multinational enterprises.
The unit also aims at providing students an accurate view of the global realities of operating in the international business environment. Obviously, cross-cultural management issues are important when dealing with the cultural aspects of foreign operations. (Cultural context of HRM in the host country context), International industrial relations and the global institutional context)
This unit looks at the role of data in strategic business decision making. The spread of the internet and information technology has made business analytics very relevant in the current digital age. Business analytics covers the technologies, applications, skills, and practices used for the investigation of past business performance to improve understanding of this performance. This unit is designed to equip students with methodologies and tools to identify, research and analyse business problems.
The unit will examine aspects of business analytics such as business intelligence tools for data analysis and look at data mining where data is explored to find new patterns and relationships; predictive modelling and predictive analytics to forecast future results; and decision making under conditions of uncertainty. The unit takes a quantitative methods approach where students learn how to gather useful data from various sources and implement descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytics to analyse data.
*Elective units’ availability is subject to minimum number of students.
This unit explores the importance of leadership and change management at an individual and organisational level. Contemporary organisations are faced with a range of challenges from globalisation to technological advancement, which require transformational leadership to encourage and motivate employees to innovate and create change that will help grow and shape the future success of the company. Leadership and change management are therefore increasingly seen as key factors affecting the performance of contemporary organisations. The unit will investigate organisation development inventions covering people and processes and structure and strategy. The unit will also explore organisation development for economic, ecological, and social outcomes. Effective leadership and change management of organisations are important to global organisations, public sector organisations, not-for-profit organisations and professional practices.
Global projects involve team members from various cultures and organisations, spread in locations across countries and time zones, and speaking different native languages. There are no longer physical obstacles to performing global projects. Instantaneous global collaboration, inexpensive resource transportation, and near-global access to knowledge have expanded organisations’ horizons and consumer markets. However, many organisations struggle to reach the required levels of quality and effectiveness from global projects because their methods, tools, and practices are not adapted to a global multicultural environment, where most communication is asynchronous and involves different cultures and languages. This unit explores the nature and scope of global project management, including examining the global project management framework, building global teams, understanding why some projects fail while other succeed, and looking at alternative approaches to global project management.
Global business strategy can be defined as the business strategies engaged by the businesses, companies or firms operating in a global business environment and serving consumers throughout the world. Global business strategies have emerged as a result of globalisation and internationalisation of established domestic companies which is purported to increase the value of the company in question. Increasing pressure of globalisation and the rising global competition have prompted managers and academicians to rethink the formulation of global business strategy. This unit will investigate important aspects of globalisation and business strategy including external environment analysis, competitive rivalries, merger and acquisition strategies and governance issues. The unit will also examine several case studies of global business strategies.
Globalisation is the process by which firms operate on a global basis, where they view the world as a single market. Global marketing can be defined as the process of adjusting the marketing strategies of a firm to adapt to the conditions of other countries. Marketing strategies are different in different countries reflecting culture, economic and social circumstances of those countries. A marketing strategy that works in one country may not necessarily work in another. The challenge for marketers is to develop strategies that can address global and local markets, taking into account aspects that are similar and those which are different. This unit will investigate cultural and political environments, the important of marketing research, and assessing global marketing opportunities in different global regions.
Assessment methods used for each course will vary depending on the individual unit of study. Generally, the assessment will comprise one or more assessment items with different percentage weightings being applied to each. Types of assessment items include (but not limited to):
