School of Accounting and Finance

AFM 244: Analytic Methods for Business 3

Spring 2022
Course Syllabus
Course Instructor:
Name: Haaris Mian
Email: mail@haarismian.com

Section number Lecture time Room

001 Mondays 11:30AM – 2:20PM PAS 2083
002 Mondays 2:30PM – 5:20PM PAS 2083

003 Tuesdays 11:30AM – 2:20PM PAS 2083

004 Tuesdays 2:30PM – 5:20PM PAS 2083

Course Description:
Why Accounting Analytics Matter: Data analytics is the discovery of patterns/knowledge from data.
However, accounting students are not here just to learn about data analytics, they are here to learn
data analytics in order to make better accounting and business decisions. Hence, the intent of this
course is to provide an intuitive and practical introduction to data analytics tools/concepts using
problems/applications in financial and managerial accounting, auditing, taxation, and accounting
information systems. The primary tool used will be R, Excel and Tableau. Applications of data
analytics in accounting include topics such as:

● Financial Accounting: Compare competing strategies (product differentiation and cost

leadership) through ROA decomposition, establish a company’s relative position (competitive
advantage, parity, disadvantage) versus its peers.
● Managerial Accounting: Understand how we translate data into the information needed to
monitor the performance of a business. For example, work with a retail business to analyze
their sales and develop an interactive business dashboard.
● Auditing: Audit client records to identify fraud and assess inventory valuation.
● Taxation: Analyze client data for compliance with IRS rules.
● Accounting Information Systems: Evaluate payoffs from technology investments.
Understand emerging technologies (e.g., cloud computing, blockchain) and predict rate of
adoption.
BAFM Program Level Learning Outcomes

Each of the School of Accounting

and Finance’s Program Level
learning outcomes identifies a
knowledge, skill or value of a
financial professional. These
outcomes are organized into
seven areas as reflected in the
graphic. The puzzle pieces
reflect the integration of all areas.
All outcomes are developed
through experiential learning.

Course Learning Outcomes

Programs delivered by the School of Accounting and Finance (SAF) are designed to provide
students with the competencies, professionalism and practical experience that they need to excel in
their chosen careers. By the end of the course, the students should be able to achieve the following
objectives:

1. Business Understanding: Identify business applications where we can use data analytics
concepts and tools to answer questions and solve problems.
2. Data Understanding and Preparation: Identify sources of data, collect and extract data, get
familiar with data structure, identify quality issues, clean and transform data for analysis.
3. Modeling: Explain data mining classification and/or prediction models in plain English, using
simple examples and tools.
4. Evaluation: Leverage mathematical (i.e., test statistics) and logical techniques to evaluate
how valuable a model is, what it has found, and what you may want to do with the results.
5. Deployment: Communicate your results and use the new insight to answer questions and
solve problems.

This course will pursue these objectives by discussing the basic theory of data analytics and
implement data analytics using R in a business context, using real-world data sets (in the measure
possible) and with a view of developing professional skills.

This course’s learning outcomes map to the Program Level learning outcomes as follows:

Intended Learning Knowledge Communicati Problem- Fluency in the Ethical Leadership Attributes /
Outcomes Base for a on Solving Languages of Conduct and and Qualities of
Financial Capabilities Capabilities Business, Social Collaboratio a Financial
Professional Entrepreneurs Responsibility n Professional
By the end of the course hip and
you will be able to: Technology
1. Business X X X X X X X
understanding
2. Data understanding X X
& preparation
3. Modelling X X XX
4. Evaluation X
5. Deployment X X X X X

Intended Learning Outcomes Learning Activities

1. Business Understanding Business cases, discussion and presentations
2. Data Understanding and Preparation Programming exercises
3. Modeling Programming exercises
4. Evaluation Programming exercises
5. Deployment Business cases, discussion and presentations

Course Resources:
● Textbook – Stratopoulos, T. (2022). Analytic Methods for Business: Foundation of Data
Mining. Waterloo, ON.

Other Materials:
1. R – a programming language that is platform agnostic and free to acquire – installation
instructions to be given
2. Excel for Microsoft 365, available to all students via UW’s Office 365 subscription

Course Evaluation:
Assessment Date Percentage
Method
Weekly Quizzes See schedule for dates but typically Fridays at 3:00PM EST 10%
– 3:30PM EST

Class Participation Throughout term – Due during class time 15%

– Top Hat
Midterm exam – See schedule for timing - Times subject to change 20%
Open book/note
Final exam – Open TBD by Registrar’s office 25%
book/open note
Group project Friday July 29, 11:59PM EST 30%
100%
Class Participation
Active participation leads to higher retention and understanding. Students should review assigned
material before they come to class. Participation includes, during lecture, answering questions,
making comments, and asking questions that help students understand the material, as well as
working individually and in teams on class assignments/presentations.

To facilitate class participation and class interaction in lectures, we will use Top Hat as well. The
most important component in these exercises is the opportunity to participate and if necessary,
discuss the question within your team.
● There are no make-ups for attendance and participation missed.
● Impersonation, including the use of someone else’s Top Hat account carries a penalty of zero
in class participation and will be reported as a violation of academic integrity

Each in class participation contribution (asking a question, answering a question asked in lecture,
adding some relevant insight to the class) or question answered on Top Hat will constitute a point.

Your participation grade will be based on the sum of the Top Hat questions you have answered
during the semester as well as the number of contributions during class time.

Weekly Quizzes
Weekly online quiz on topics and concepts covered in class. The quiz questions may be multiple
choice, true/ false, or numeric (based on completion of R script analysis of assigned data sets)
questions.

Quizzes will be on the dates listed in the schedule, from 3:00 PM EST to 3:30PM EST

Team Assignment
This team project is designed to help you develop your analytics mindset. By way of a reminder, an
analytics mindset is the ability to:

1) Ask the right questions.

2) Extract, transform and load relevant data.
3) Apply appropriate data analytics techniques.
4) Interpret and share the results with stakeholders.

More specifically, I will provide you with an accounting analytics case and you will have to work on
this with your team. The project has two deliverables: the data analytics component, and the
communication component. You will have to use R to complete the data analytics part and create a
presentation. Details to be given during the semester.

Students are allowed to make their own groups of 5, but students who have not by May 30, will be
auto-enrolled into a group.
Team Peer Evaluations
At the end of the course you will be asked to complete a summative peer evaluation of each of the
members of your team along with a self-evaluation. These will impact your team assignment grade.
Significant group issues that cannot be remedied by the peer evaluation should be raised to be
resolved as early as possible.

Case-Based Exams
There are two case-based exams (midterm and final). Both exams may include material from the
text, assigned additional readings, assignments, and lectures Both exams are cumulative, open book
and open note. Further details on each exam will be provided ahead of the scheduled exam date.

Both examinations must be the exclusive work of the individual student.

Late Submission Policy

All submissions that are any time after the required submission date, that have not been granted an
exception based on extenuating circumstances – with documentation, will be considered late. Late
submissions are reduced by a nominal 10% of the mark. For example, consider a submission due
June 17, 2022 11:59PM, deserving of 80%. If submitted June 18, 2022 12:00AM would receive a
mark of 70%. Every subsequent day will be an additional 10% deduction.

Submission Times
Please be aware that the University of Waterloo is located in the Eastern Time Zone (GMT or UTC-
5 during standard time and UTC-4 during daylight saving time) and, as such, the time for your
activities and/or assignments are due is based on this zone. If you are outside of the Eastern Time
Zone and require assistance converting your time, please try the Ontario, Canada Time Converter.

Re-grade Requests
In order to receive a timely response to a re-grade request, written requests for (examinations,
assignments etc.) should be made within one week after the examination/assignment return day.
For all re-grade requests, a written re-grade request must be submitted to the course instructor
indicating the reasons for believing that the assessment was improperly graded. The instructor
reserves the right to re-grade the entire assessment; as a result, marks may increase, decrease or
remain the same, upon re-grade. Policy 70 dictates the challenge process.

Turnitin Policy
Turnitin.com and alternatives: Text matching software (Turnitin®) may be used to screen
assignments in this course. Turnitin® is used to verify that all materials and sources in assignments
are documented. Students' submissions are stored on a U.S. server, therefore students must be
given an alternative (e.g., scaffolded assignment or annotated bibliography), if they are concerned
about their privacy and/or security. Students will be given due notice, in the first week of the term
and/or at the time assignment details are provided, about arrangements and alternatives for the use
of Turnitin in this course.
It is the responsibility of the student to notify the instructor if they, in the first week of term or at the
time assignment details are provided, wish to submit the alternate assignment.

Course Schedule – Tentative

Date Textbook Chapter Quiz
Week Topic

May 8 and Chapter 1 - Introduction May

1 Introduction
9 12
May 15 Applying stages of the Chapter 2 - Integrated Case: May
2
and 16 CRISP-DM process Industry Analysis 19
May 22
3 Victoria Day – no class
and 23
May 29 Applying stages of the Chapter 3 - Integrated Case: June
4
and 30 CRISP-DM process Telco Customer Analysis 2
June 5 Chapter 4 – Integrated Case: June
5 Database theory
and 6 Bibitor Internal Audit 9
June 12 Chapter 5 – Integrated case:
6 Audit Data analytics
and 13 Bibitor Inventory
Midterm
6
June 16 Stage 1 (synchronous) - 12:00PM-12:50PM
Midterm
6
June 16 Stage 2 (async) - 2:00PM-10:00PM
June 16- Midterm
6
17 Stage 3 (async) – June 16 11:00PM- June 17 7:00PM
June 19 June
7 Tax analytics Chapter 6 – Tax analytics
and 20 23
June 26 Chapter 7 – H&S forecast June
8 Regression analysis
and 27 revenues 1 30
July 3 and July
9 Canada Day – no class
4 7
July 10 Chapter 8 – H&S forecast July
10 Dummy variables
and 11 revenues 2 14
July 17 Chapter 9 & 10 – Apple Forecast July
11 Time series forecasting
and 18 Quarterly sales 1 21
July 24 Chapter 10 – Apple Forecast July
12 Time series forecasting
and 25 Quarterly sales 2 28
July 31
13 and Final review
August 1
TBD Final
University of Waterloo and School of Accounting & Finance Policies:

Details regarding School of Accounting and Finance (SAF) policies and University of Waterloo
policies can be found on the SAF LEARN site “My SAF Community” at: My SAF Community Policy
document- accessible for Learn - updated April 2022 - My SAF Community (uwaterloo.ca) within the
Learn – SAF Course Syllabus – Policies for Students folder.

These policies are an integral part of this course syllabus. They have been posted on the SAF
LEARN site as they are not course specific but are common for all SAF program courses. Please
ensure that each term you are informed regarding these policies. They include:

School of Accounting and Finance Policies:

• Accommodations for missed assessments

• SAF Process for Requesting Accommodation for Missed Assessments
• Recording of Lectures
• Textbooks and Intellectual Property Rights
• Attendance at the Registered Section

University of Waterloo Policies:

• Academic Integrity
• Grievance
• Discipline
• Appeals
• Academic Offenses and Implications
• Accommodation for Students with Disabilities
• I-clickers
• Mental Health Support
• Territorial Acknowledgement
• Chosen/Preferred First Name