MSIN6004 Accounting for Business Coursework 2016-17

1.

OVERVIEW
This report has a 20% weighting in calculating your overall module mark. It must be
electronically produced and submitted.
Group element: The release date of the group assignment will be Friday 25
November 2016 (Teaching Week 8), at 19:00 hours (7pm UK time). Group
coursework submission is due by Wednesday 07 December 2016 (Teaching
Week 10), at 13:00 hours (1pm UK time).
Coursework Group Logistics: Coursework groups/teams will consist of a
minimumof 3 members and a maximum of four members and will need to be formed
early on in the term. As part of the Group assessment, a mechanism is in place to
ensure FULL participation by ALL group members. Those not participating fully will
be penalised.
1. Standard UCL penalties for late submission apply. Additionally, where a maximum
length has been specified in terms of a word count or number of pages the
assessed work should not exceed this limit. Exceeding the word count/number of
pages will result in the deduction of 10 percentage points that is 10 marks, for
example a score of 65 would be reduced to 55.
2. The word count WILL include tables, diagrams and illustrations (and their captions)
and footnotes but NOT the appendices or bibliography. Appendices should not
contain any materials central to the core thrust of the coursework/dissertation and
their content will not be considered within the mark scheme.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is an extremely serious issue. All assignments will be processed via
TurnitIn. It is important that you read the following very carefully:
Plagiarism may be defined as the attempt to present the work of others as if it is
your own. This includes copying from others, using material taken from another's
assignment (with or without permission), using material from a published or pending
source or without acknowledging it, and/or using an essay or part of an essay you
have bought from a commercial essay writing company or similar research-for-fee
groups. Plagiarism also occurs when someone complicit to someone else's
plagiarism (so providing someone else with your work, which they then make use of
in their work, is plagiarism, as is selling or providing an essay to a commercial firm
that writes essays for others).
Plagiarism is a very serious academic offence, and if detected will always result in
serious academic penalties including, in more serious or repeated offences,
withdrawal from the University. ALL and ANY material that you have taken from
books, journals, websites and similar sources MUST be fully referenced, using the
guidelines supplied to you.

2.

SPECIFIC INSTRUCTION RELATING TO THE COURSEWORK

(a)

The coursework report should be circa 3,000 words.

(b)

For your guidance - the report should include the following:

-

Title/cover: Including the number of the group (as allocated by the module
leader), all student names within the group, the date and the word-count.
Page of contents
Main body of report (Parts one, two and three)
Bibliography (using Harvard style of referencing)
Appendices.

(c)

It should be noted that 10% of the marks are reserved for the quality of presentation
as reflected by the bibliography, reference citations in text and cross referencing.

(d)

Further intructions on how to submit your work through the Moodle site will be
announced closer to the deadline. Please ensure you follow the intructions
carefully.

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Guidance on referencing
Correct referencing is an academic skill that you will be assessed on.
Correct referencing demonstrates that you have read appropriately on the subject, shows
that you are acknowledging the sources you have used (that you are not trying to cheat)
and provide information on useful sources of information to your reader.
Doing it correctly demonstrates professionalism. Doing it incorrectly will lead to reduced
marks and possibly more serious action.
I do see cases where the student has clearly deliberately attempted to cheat. However,
most cases I see are where students have either referenced poorly or not bothered with
referencing at all. Sometimes good work often fails in these circumstances.
If you have any concerns about your referencing ask for help before submitting.

Points to note:
1. The source given in Turnitin may not be the source you used. Reference where you got
the material.
2. If it is a quote make sure you have used quotation marks and give the page number
from the source in your reference too.
3. If you have rewritten somebodys words (this is called paraphrasing) you must
reference the source. You may see this in your report as bits of matching text in a
paragraph.
4. If the match given is to another student (either at UCL or another University), you have
probably both used material from a textbook. Make sure you have referenced the
material correctly to the textbook you have used.
5. If it matches to another student because you have worked together you are almost
certainly going to have to remove it. In a group coursework it may be appropriate, but
check your submission requirements.
6. If you have used material from a source and the Turnitin check does not show it you
still must reference it. Thousands of new sources are added to Turnitin every day.

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Accounting for Business Coursework

You are required to prepare a report which is a financial comparison of two companies
listed on the FTSE. Your companies MUST be chosen from the list overleaf on page 6.
These companies have already been paired and if therefore you choose Tesco then you
must also choose Morrison etc.
PART ONE Introduction
The introduction should summarise the aims and objectives of your report together with
THREE limitations in this type of financial comparison. It should also give a brief profile of
each company, its markets and products and a brief commentary on its key operations and
recent trading background.
(20 marks)
PART TWO Analysis
Use a selection of appropriate accounting ratios (you must choose the ratios) together with
any relevant data to evaluate the relative performance and financial status of the two
companies.
The comparison should be made from the viewpoint of the companies key stakeholders
(management, investors and lenders).
You may use ratios published within the annual reports plus ratios calculated yourself (the
workings for which should be shown in an appendix).
The comparison must be year on year for each company (two years) plus a comparison of
both companies to each other.
This part of the report must give evidence of your understanding of the interpretation of
your chosen ratios and the data you are using. The chosen ratios should be kept to a
manageable number the emphasis should be on quality rather than quantity but I would
suggest a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 10.
(50 marks)
PART THREE Performance Factors
Research and discuss any factors (financial and non-financial relevant to these two
companies) that may have affected the companies performance during the periods under
review, with reasons. This must take into account the performance of the different
segments of the businesses as shown in the annual reports as well as other relevant
factors.
These factors must be specific to your chosen companies. This information can be
obtained from Annual reports; Company websites; Trade journals and the Financial press.
You must reference the source of the information that you use in this section.
(20 marks)
Overall Presentation (10 marks)
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LIST OF COMPANIES
1. BT Group PLC & Vodafone Group PLC;
2. First Group PLC & National Express Group PLC;
3. GlaxoSmithKline PLC & Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC;
4. Wm Morrison Supermarkets PLC & Tesco PLC;
5. Wetherspoon (J D) PLC & Whitbread PLC.

No other companies will be accepted. The annual reports used should be for the last
two complete years. If one of your companies has not yet reached its year end in
2016 then you must use 2014 and 2015 reports for both companies.

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Marking guide for Accounting for Business Coursework

Student Names:

Marks
available

Part One

(20)

A well-structured introduction
which summarises the aims and
objectives of your report.

Three limitations in this type of

financial comparison.

A brief profile of each company,

its markets and products and a
brief commentary on its key
operations and recent trading
background.

10

Part Two

Marks
obtained

(50)

Use a selection of appropriate

accounting ratios together with
any relevant data to evaluate
the relative performance and
financial status of the two
companies.

10

The report must show evidence

of your understanding of the
interpretation of your chosen
ratios and other data.

40

The comparison must be year

on year for each company for
two years plus a comparison of
both companies.

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Comments

Part Three

(20)

Research and discuss any

factors that may have
affected
the
companies
performance
during
the
periods under review, with
reasons. This must take into
account the performance of
the different segments of the
businesses as shown in the
annual reports as well as
other relevant factors.

20

These factors must be

specific to your chosen
companies.

Presentation

(10)

Bibliography and referenced

citations in text and cross
referencing

General
English.

presentation

and

Other Overall Comments

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Minutes of group meetings Each team must submit the minutes of all group meetings. The
minutes should explain how the work for the report was organised, what work was agreed
and completed by each group member. All group members must agree the group minutes
document. If, any issues such as freeriding should arise please contact the module
organiser, Barry McCarthy. The module organiser can only take action on formally
reported problems and cannot take retrospective action. Therefore, the onus is on each
group to report any significant problems as soon as they arise to the module organiser.
You may wish to suggest in the group minutes how marks should be allocated amongst
group members. The module leader will use this for guidance, but the module leader will
ultimately decide upon the allocation of marks to each group member.
The group minutes will be used to determine the appropriate mark for each group member.

Additional Guidance.
You will need to justify in your report: the analysis techniques you adopt.
All financial analysis undertaken must be on each companyies raw data. That, is to say,
you must calculate all ratios produced in the report yourselves (you may only use websites
and databases such as Yahoo! Finance and OSIRIS to check your calculations). You will
need to include in the appendix to your report all your workings showing which figures
were used in the calculation of each ratio.
You will also need to include in the appendix workings for any other analysis techniques
that your group refers to in your report.
Your report should include figures and diagrams to illustrate the results of your groups
financial analysis and comparisons. All figures and diagrams used in your report should be
constructed by your group and not taken from any other sources.
The purpose of this report is to ascertain whether or not your group can undertake a
financial analysis; therefore, it is paramount that all analysis included in the report is
prepared by your group members.
Only one group member needs to submit on behalf of their Group. However, all group
members must be clearly identified on the report title page. What to Submit: A PDF
document of your Group Report to the MSIN6004 submission link on Moodle under the
Submissions tab.

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