UBC Diploma in Accounting Program

Curriculum

Your path to success

The UBC Diploma in Accounting Program (DAP) consists of 11 core courses, which together lay the theoretical and practical foundation for a career in accounting and business.

The curriculum emphasizes critical thinking, analytical skills, and strategic communication tools required to succeed in today's business world.

All 11 core-courses are required to qualify for entry into the CPA Professional Education Program (PEP). In addition to the 11 core-courses, students must complete 3 additional courses (business electives) in order to meet CPABC's entrance requirements: Statistics, Economics, and Strategic Management. The 3 business electives are not required to complete UBC DAP, but they are mandatory prerequisites to qualify for CPA PEP. For more information, click here to review the UBC DAP/ CPABC Transfer Credit Guide.

View DAP program schedule

View the UBC DAP – CPABC Transfer Credit Guide

Getting you prepared

UBC DAP offers an optional Quantitative Methods Preparation (QM Prep) course designed to help students with limited or no experience in math or accounting acquire the quantitative skills necessary to be successful in UBC DAP.

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Core Courses

Foundation level

BUSI 293: Introduction to Financial Accounting
Financial Accounting introduces the concepts, principles, and conventions used in preparing financial reports and interpreting financial statements. Students will develop an understanding of accounting policies, their rationale, and the implications for users of financial accounting information.
BUSI 294: Introduction to Managerial Accounting
Managerial Accounting focuses on the use of accounting systems in for and not-for-profit organizations to facilitate and influence decision making. The development of analytical skills pertaining to the identification and use of decision-relevant accounting information is emphasized.
BUSI 335: Management Information Systems
This course examines the use, structure, principles of operation, underlying technologies and components of Transaction Processing Systems. Transaction Processing Systems are the backbone of any information-driven activity in a modern enterprise and are used to support business decision- making, regulatory oversight, intelligence and commercial transactions. Students will explore strategic considerations in information system development and gain an understanding of data capture and organization, user interface, internal controls, e-commerce technology, and risk management.
BUSI 370: Finance
Business Finance focuses on the theory and practice of corporate finance. Students will develop a working knowledge of financial markets and the quantitative and critical thinking skills required to analyze and evaluate individual and corporate financing and investment decisions.
BUSI 393: Commercial Law
Commercial Law introduces the legal environment in which business operates. Students explore legal issues encountered in business, strategies to avoid legal problems, and develop an understanding of the legal principles used by the courts to resolve disputes.

Senior level

BUSI 353: Intermediate Financial Accounting I
Intermediate Financial Accounting I examines the environment and conceptual framework of financial reporting; the accounting for assets; revenue and expenses; International Financial Reporting Standards by publicly accountable enterprises; and accounting standards for private enterprises. Students develop critical assessment skills for existing, competing, and proposed accounting standards in the context of investors, lenders, management, and other users/stakeholders of financial statements.
BUSI 354: Cost Accounting
Cost Accounting focuses on the decision-facilitating role of management accounting and how it is used as a tool to provide information that is useful in predicting the consequences of alternative actions and in structuring the descriptions of those consequences. Students are exposed to the tools needed to find the relevant data necessary for good business decisions.
BUSI 355: Introduction to Income Tax
This course examines Canadian tax principles for individuals and corporations in Canada. Students will gain an understanding of the general structure of the Canadian Income Tax Act and be introduced to tax planning opportunities for individual and corporate taxpayers.
BUSI 450: Intermediate Financial Accounting II
This course focuses on the application of the comparative treatments and presentations of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and Private Enterprise Standards as they apply to liabilities, equity, and related complex measurement issues and presentations. Students will become conversant in the accounting theory and end user financial information needs which underlie the two sets of Canadian financial reporting standards and attain the technical depth required to deal with more advanced measurement and disclosure issues.
BUSI 453: Advanced Financial Accounting
This course examines advanced financial accounting including inter-corporate investments, transactions and balances in foreign currencies, and accounting principles applicable to not-for-profit organizations.
BUSI 455: Principles of Auditing
This course develops the student's understanding of the importance of the auditing profession to society and the ability to apply auditing principles and concepts using real life cases and scenarios. The development and application of professional judgment in conducting an audit will be emphasized.

Electives

In addition to the 11 core-courses, CPA Western School of Business requires applicants to complete 3 additional courses in order to qualify for entry into CPA PEP: Statistics, Economics, and Strategic Management. Students can complete these courses with UBC DAP or at another CPA-approved post-secondary institution.

BUSI 291: Application of Statistics in Business
BUSI 295: Managerial Economics
BUSI 493: Strategic Management