Take My SNHU MS Accounting Classes

The six courses on SNHU's MS in Accounting page are all in scope.

ACC 550 Cost Accounting revisits costing at graduate depth: activity-based costing and management, standard costs and variance analysis, joint and by-product costing, transfer pricing between divisions, target costing and the use of cost data in pricing and outsourcing decisions.

ACC 640 Auditing covers the audit from engagement acceptance to the report: professional standards from the AICPA and PCAOB, independence, risk assessment, materiality, internal control over financial reporting, audit evidence and sampling, substantive procedures and the types of opinions.

ACC 645 Advanced Auditing goes further into specialized areas: fraud risk and the auditor's responsibility under AU-C 240 and AS 2401, auditing accounting estimates and fair values, IT general controls, group audits, attestation and review engagements and recent PCAOB inspection findings.

ACC 690 Advanced Topics in Financial Reporting takes on the hardest parts of GAAP: revenue recognition under ASC 606 for complex contracts, leases under ASC 842, business combinations and goodwill impairment, consolidations, income taxes, derivatives and hedge accounting and the differences between US GAAP and IFRS.

TAX 655 Federal Income Tax of Corporations and Partnerships covers C corporation formation and taxation, distributions, S corporations, partnership formation, basis, allocations under Section 704(b), distributions and the Forms 1120, 1120-S and 1065.

QSO 511 Business Analytics teaches descriptive and predictive analytics, regression, data visualization and how analytics supports business and audit decisions.

Each course has its own pages, linked from the table on this page.

Graduate accounting builds on itself, so the plan begins with where you are: which of the six remain, which CPA exam sections you have passed or scheduled and whether your work is in audit, tax, industry or government.

Each course goes to the CPA whose practice matches it. A cost accountant at a manufacturer takes ACC 550; an audit senior manager from a regional firm takes ACC 640; a former PCAOB inspector turned audit quality director takes ACC 645; a technical accounting director at a public company takes ACC 690; a partnership tax manager takes TAX 655; an audit data analytics lead takes QSO 511.

One client can carry through several courses. A fictional private equity-backed manufacturer of commercial HVAC units, for example, can be costed by product line in ACC 550, audited in ACC 640 with a risk assessment and sampling plan, examined for revenue fraud risk in ACC 645, run through an acquisition and goodwill test in ACC 690, structured as a partnership in TAX 655 and analyzed for unusual journal entries in QSO 511. Instructors then see one set of facts mature across the program.

Board posts are drafted ahead of each week; memos and workpapers land several days early.

The client file travels to the next CPA when a course ends.

Every specialist on the MS Accounting bench is licensed or credentialed in the area they handle. The ACC 640 audit work is done by a senior manager who signs off on engagements for private companies and nonprofits. The ACC 645 work comes from an audit quality director who once inspected firms for the PCAOB. ACC 690 goes to a technical accounting director who writes position papers on new standards for a listed company. TAX 655 goes to a partnership tax manager who prepares hundreds of K-1s each season. ACC 550 goes to a plant cost accountant, and QSO 511 to an analytics lead who builds audit data tests.

Beyond the CPA, credentials include the CMA, CFE, CISA and CIA.

Their memos cite the codification, the auditing standards or the Internal Revenue Code by section, and their workpapers carry references the way a firm's do.

Every calculation is reworked by a second CPA before it reaches you.

Matching goes past the course code: a governmental audit question goes to someone who has audited municipalities, and a partnership question about real estate funds goes to someone who prepares those returns.

Technical density is the first challenge. ACC 690 compresses topics that each take weeks in practice, from multi-element revenue contracts to hedge accounting, and instructors expect the codification cited and applied correctly.

Audit judgment is the second. ACC 640 and ACC 645 ask students to assess risk, set materiality, design procedures and evaluate evidence, which is very different from preparing statements.

Tax mechanics are the third. TAX 655 partnership basis and allocation problems are among the most error-prone calculations in accounting, and one wrong adjustment changes every partner's result.

Analytics is the fourth. QSO 511 asks for regression and data visualization that many accountants have never done.

Most students also work in accounting, where busy season, quarter-end close and tax deadlines fall exactly when graduate assignments peak, and many are studying for CPA exam sections at the same time.

Course prices come from each syllabus. Financial reporting and entity tax are the heaviest two; the auditing pair is in the middle; cost and analytics are lighter.

You choose the scope. Auditors often keep ACC 640 and hand over TAX 655; tax staff often do the reverse; many hand over ACC 690 regardless.

When each syllabus arrives about ten days before its term, the CPA can read the whole course first; a course already under way is joined at its current week.

Timed and publisher platform quizzes, proctored exams, CPA exam sections and any real client data stay with you. Your degree audit helps confirm how the MS courses count toward your state's 150-hour requirement, which your board of accountancy decides.