MBA Tutoring for B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis (Cost Accounting) at Columbia Business School

B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis is an elective offering for MBA and EMBA students at Columbia Business School. This accounting course is offered by the accounting department of Columbia Business School. B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis introduces students to accounting information and analysis used in management decisions, including understanding product profitability, pricing, customer profitability analysis, make or buy decisions, break-even points, managing product-line portfolios, operational investments, etc.

Our MBA & CPA accounting tutors can provide one-on-one online tutoring for B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis and other similar courses from the Accounting Department at Columbia Business School.

Alternatives for B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis

In a traditional MBA or EMBA program, the B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis course is cost accounting or management accounting. At the Columbia Business School, this course is also an alter ego of “B8122 Accounting for Consultants” (AFC), which draws on similar content.

Prerequisite for B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis

While no mandatory prerequisite exists, B5001 Financial Accounting or B6001 Financial Accounting is recommended alongside or prior to B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis because this is a complimentary course. This page describes the difference between financial accounting and cost accounting or management accounting.

The B5001 Financial Accounting course provide a comprehensive, graduate level, introduction to
financial reporting. The required text book for B5001 Financial Accounting course at Columbia is Financial Accounting for MBAs, by Easton, Wild, Halsey & McAnally (EWHM). This is also the course in the international MBA program with the London School of Economics.

Target Audience B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis

B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis is recommended for anyone interested in investing, owning or operating businesses. Anyone who may use financial statements to understand a business’s performance or valuation will benefit from taking B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis.

B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis Course Objectives

According to the B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis course website, the “main objective of the course is to equip you with the knowledge to understand, evaluate, and act upon the many financial and non-financial reports used in managing modern firms.” In Professor Tim Baldenius words “The main objective of this course is to develop an understanding of how accounting information can be used for decision-making and performance evaluation.”

The B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis course aims to give Columbia MBAs a graduate-level introduction to cost accounting or management accounting. B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis covers vital management accounting concepts and the cost accounting process involved in management decision-making and profitability analysis.

B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis hopes to cover topics seen in most cost accounting or management accounting courses in a traditional MBA or EMBA program.

Product costing
Activity-based costing (ABC)
Profitability analysis,
Contribution Margin Ratio (CMR)
Degree of Operating Leverage (DOL)
Cost Volume Profits (CVP)
Break-even analysis
Customer lifetime value
Budgeting and variances
Decentralization and performance metrics
Capital budgeting
Balanced scorecards
Internal controls

Remember that all professors are free to meld the course to a large extent.

B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis Teaching Format

The B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis course teaching format comprises approximately half lecture sessions and half in-class case discussions. This is an ideal mix where the faculty can provide a lot of guidance and apply cost accounting theory in real-world management accounting decision-making environments. Students are expected to prepare well for the management accounting case discussions in the CBS classrooms. Learning happens in teams, so there is a lot of mutual teaching and learning. The B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis course at Columbia Business School aims to balance theoretical cost accounting principles and their practical application in accounting departments.

In addition to the above, B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis also assigns problem sets to students to test their understanding of key concepts in a time-efficient manner.

B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis Course Plan

According to the B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis course website, this course covers the following topics:

Designing managerial information systems to support an organization’s strategy.
Determining which financial and non-financial metrics are necessary for success in various competitive environments.
Evaluating profitability of products, services, assets, and customers.
The capabilities and the limitations of various reporting systems in guiding value-maximization, cost-control, and improvement efforts.
The limitations of traditional cost-estimation systems.
Activity-based costing and activity-based management.
Estimating and managing the costs of capacity resources.
Relevant costs and relevant revenues in business decisions.
The information necessary to evaluate long-term business decisions.
The incentives created by various performance-evaluation techniques.

Please note that every professor has the discretion to change the course plan.

B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis Faculty At Columbia Business School

B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis has been taught by several Columbia faculty members, including Igor Vaysman, Tim Baldenius, Julian Yeo, etc., in recent years.

Textbook for B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis

There is no mandatory textbook for B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis course. Some professors of the course B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis course like Professor Julian Yeo, use the textbook Cost-Accounting, a Managerial Emphasis by Horngren, Datar, and Rajan. Professor Igor Vaysman has Managerial Accounting by Garrison, Noreen, and Brewer as an optional B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis course textbook. Others use no textbook. For example, Professor Tim Baldenius does not use textbooks and provides all class materials. All professors have additional material posted on the course website, such as slides, articles, annual reports, etc.

B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis Cases Used

B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis uses many HBS and Ivy case studies to show MBAs the application of cost accounting concepts in real world settings. Some of the cases used include Seligram ETO and Adapconn for Allocating indirect costs, Wilkerson, Seligram and Coffee Services Company for Activity-based costing, Kanthal, Ethical Drugs, Monsoon, Infinity Bank, Bankinter and Sippican A & B for customer profitability, Cafes Monte Bianco and Dummy Jeans for variance analysis, Falco Scooters A & B, Denim Finishing and Liza Davis for decision making, etc.

B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis Evaluation

The final exam in B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis tests your ability to apply the management accounting and cost accounting concepts you learnt in class with numerical questions and case studies. The final grades in B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis reflect the teaching goals, with case write-ups accounting for 30%, final assignment 50%, and class participation for 20% of the final grade. This varies by professor.

Tutoring for Other Columbia Business School Courses

Graduate Tutor provides tutoring support for many of the courses of Columbia’s Executive MBA programs including the following courses. Here is a list of recent Columbia Business School courses we have tutored MBA & EMBA students on.

What distinguishes Graduate Tutor from a variety of other online tutoring service providers is that Graduate Tutor staffs itself with current and former faculty, teaching assistants, Ph.D. students, or CPA / MBA tutors. Try us out and we are sure you will find it beneficial.

Management or Cost Accounting Tutoring for B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis at Columbia Business School

There are several tutoring options provided by the Columbia Business School administration. If you don’t find the assistance you are looking for our graduate level cost accounting tutors can assist you with tutoring for B8007 Financial Planning & Analysis at Columbia Business School or other accounting courses including Financial Accounting B6001 Faculty At Columbia Business School. Email or call us, and we will happily set up a tutoring session.