The Graduate Certificate in Professional Accounting (GCPA) program consists of eight courses, for a total of 24 credits. There are four three-credit courses, three four-credit courses, and a zero-credit Exam Prep course. The program at Desautels takes 16 months to complete with courses offered lock-step over three terms: summer, fall, and summer. The program requires students to attend full-time in the two summer terms. In the fall term students normally attend school part-time; no courses are taken in the winter term. During the fall and winter terms students usually work as part of the training period required to meet the requirements of the CPA designation. In the final summer term of the program students enroll in the final course as well as the Common Final Exam Prep Seminar, an intensive preparation course for the CFE. Additional fees are required for this seminar.
The Program Structure*
Common Modules
ACCT 653
Issues in Professional Acct 1
3 Credits
Offered in the:
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Accounting: How fundamental concepts in financial accounting and reporting, including technically complex accounting issues and their audit, performance management, tax and finance implications, are integrated into decision-making.
Offered by: Management
- Restriction: Open only to students in the Graduate Certificate in Professional Accounting.
- **Due to the intensive nature of this course, the standard add/drop and withdrawal deadlines do not apply. Add/drop is the third lecture day and withdrawal is June 20, 2023.
- *Desautels GCPA Prog students only. Intensive course. Add/drop May 23, w/withdrawal Jun 20.
- Terms
- This course is not scheduled for the 2024 academic year
- Instructors
- There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024 academic year
ACCT 654
Issues in Professional Acct 2
3 Credits
Offered in the:
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Accounting: Fundamental concepts in financial accounting and reporting, including technically complex accounting issues and their audit, performance management, tax and finance implications, are integrated into decision-making and strategies through case scenarios.
Offered by: Management
- Restriction: Open only to students in the Graduate Certificate in Professional Accounting.
- **Due to the intensive nature of this course, the standard add/drop and withdrawal deadlines do not apply. Add/drop is the third lecture day and withdrawal is June 20, 2023.
- *Desautels GCPA Prog students only. Intensive course. Add/drop May 25, w/withdrawal Jun 20.
- Terms
- This course is not scheduled for the 2024 academic year
- Instructors
- There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024 academic year
ACCT 663
Strategic Aspects of Acct 1
3 Credits
Offered in the:
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Accounting: Corporate governance, strategy, risk management, and management reporting needs, with a particular emphasis on their integration with accounting practice, finance and taxation. Formulating deliberate and emergent strategies, and translating those strategies into specific objectives and actions which are used in decision-making.
Offered by: Management
- Restriction:Open only to students in the Graduate Certificate in Professional Accounting.
- **Due to the intensive nature of this course, the standard add/drop and withdrawal deadlines do not apply. Add/drop is the third lecture day and withdrawal is June 20, 2023.
- *Desautels GCPA Prog students only. Intensive course. Add/drop May 23, w/withdrawal Jun 20.
- Terms
- This course is not scheduled for the 2024 academic year
- Instructors
- There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024 academic year
ACCT 664
Strategic Aspects of Acct 2
3 Credits
Offered in the:
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Accounting: Corporate governance, strategy, risk management, and management reporting needs, with a particular emphasis on their integration with accounting practice, finance and taxation. Emphasis is also placed on competence required to build good monitoring and control systems and perform financial analysis for different types of entities. Case scenarios are used to integrate these concepts into decision-making.
Offered by: Management
- Restriction: Open only to students in the Graduate Certificate in Professional Accounting.
- **Due to the intensive nature of this course, the standard add/drop and withdrawal deadlines do not apply. Add/drop is the third lecture day and withdrawal is June 20, 2023.
- *Desautels GCPA Prog students only. Intensive course. Add/drop May 25, w/withdrawal Jun 20.
- Terms
- This course is not scheduled for the 2024 academic year
- Instructors
- There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024 academic year
Elective Modules
ACCT 683
Practice of Taxation
3 Credits
Offered in the:
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Accounting: Providing taxation services and guidance, including assisting individual and corporate entities to minimize taxes and meet their objectives while complying with tax laws and regulations. Addressing compliance and tax-planning issues for both individuals and corporate entities, as well as, to a lesser extent, partnerships and trusts. Recognizing the interrelationship between financial reporting decisions and taxation, and the importance of taking taxes into account when making business and investment decisions.
Offered by: Management
- Prerequisite(s): ACCT 653, ACCT 654, ACCT 663, ACCT 664
- Restriction(s): Open only to students in the Graduate Certificate in Professional Accounting (GCPA) program.
- Students who have received credit for this course prior to 201405 must take the course again to obtain credit for it in the Graduate Certificate in Professional Accounting.
- Terms
- This course is not scheduled for the 2024 academic year
- Instructors
- There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024 academic year
ACCT 687
Assurance Services
3 Credits
Offered in the:
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Accounting: Performing both internal audit projects and external assurance engagements; from
understanding how governance plays a key role, assessing the need for an engagement, to developing and performing the procedures, through to documenting and reporting results.
Offered by: Management
- Prerequisite(s): ACCT 653, ACCT 654, ACCT 663, ACCT 664
- Restriction(s): Open only to students in the Graduate Certificate in Professional Accounting (GCPA) program.
- Terms
- This course is not scheduled for the 2024 academic year
- Instructors
- There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024 academic year
Capstone Modules
ACCT 695
Integrative Analysis
4 Credits
Offered in the:
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Accounting: Integration of the enabling competencies and the six technical competency areas required of a CPA. Developing strategic leadership capabilities and the ability to bring an integrative perspective to decision-making including: professional and ethical behaviour, problem-solving and decision-making, communication (both written and oral), self-management, teamwork and leadership.
Offered by: Management
- Prerequisite(s): Any two of the following: ACCT 683, ACCT 685, ACCT 687, ACCT 689.
- Corequisite: ACCT 699
- Restriction(s): Open only to students in the Graduate Certificate in Professional Accounting.
- This is an intensive offering. In addition to Tuesday and Thursday evening classes, there will four (4) Saturday classes offered from 9 to 3 pm.
- **Due to the intensive nature of this course, the standard add/drop and withdrawal deadlines do not apply. Add/drop is the second lecture day and withdrawal is the fourth lecture day.
- *Desautels GCPA Prog students only. Intensive course. Add/drop May 17, w/withdrawal Jun 21.
- **Due to the intensive nature of this course, the standard add/drop and withdrawal deadlines do not apply. Add/drop is the third lecture day and withdrawal is June 21, 2023.
- Terms
- This course is not scheduled for the 2024 academic year
- Instructors
- There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024 academic year
ACCT 699
Exam Preparation Seminar
8 Credits
Offered in the:
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Accounting: Using complex and highly integrative cases that simulate real-life business issues to apply the technical and enabling competencies acquired throughout the CPA certification program. Practicing developing responses to business simulations and communicating a well-structured response.
Offered by: Management
- Prerequisites:Any two courses of the following: ACCT 683, ACCT 685, ACCT 687, ACCT 689.
- Corequisite: ACCT 695
- A fee of $2,000.00 is charged to all students enrolled in this non-credit course to cover the cost of case preparation, individualized debriefing sessions and a variety of seminars to deal with topics ranging from proper studying to technical refreshers on new standards. Students who have taken this course prior to summer 2014 must take the course again to satisfy the requirement for it in the Graduate Certificate in Professional Accounting.
- Restrictions: Open only to students in the Graduate Certificate in Professional Accounting.
- CFE Prep Seminar ACCT 699 for MG (Desautels Faculty of Management) only.
- This is an intensive offering.
- **Web add deadline is April 24, 2022, which is before the start of classes.
- **No web drop allowed.
- **No web withdrawal allowed.
- Terms
- This course is not scheduled for the 2024 academic year
- Instructors
- There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024 academic year
*Notes:
- Currently, for students admitted to the full-time GCPA Program at the Desautels Faculty of Management the only complementary courses that will be offered during the program will be those that allow CPA’s to practice Public Accounting (Practice of Taxation and Assurance Services). Students wishing to pursue other CPA paths such as Financial Analysis or Performance Measurement (management accounting) should apply to the National program.
Students who fail one course will be required to either write a second exam or repeat the course and will be placed on Probationary Standing. Students who fail two courses or one course and its second exam will be required to withdraw from the University.
