Business Administration: Accounting Major

Numbers tell the story of every business, and accountants are the people who read it first. Lakeland College’s Business Administration: Accounting Major is a two-year, four-semester diploma delivered at the Lloydminster campus that takes you from bookkeeping basics to the costing and financial analysis used by working accountants.

After a first year shared with Lakeland’s other business majors, the Accounting Major builds on AC 130 Accounting I and AC 230 Accounting II with a second year focused on managerial and cost accounting, financial management, business law and statistics. You learn to cost products and services, prepare budgets, analyse financial statements, weigh financing decisions and understand the legal rules behind contracts and business records.

Accounting Major students put their skills to work in Lakeland’s volunteer tax clinics, preparing returns for seniors, students, low-income families and newcomers to Canada; the clinics have grown from just over 400 returns a year to more than 600. The diploma is a recognised step towards the Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) designation, and graduates can stay at Lakeland for an Athabasca University Bachelor of Management in one more year or a Bachelor of Commerce in two, or use block transfers to NAIT, Okanagan College, Lethbridge, Regina or Saskatchewan.

Accounting Major graduates work as junior accountants, accounting technicians, payroll administrators, tax preparers, audit assistants and credit analysts in accounting firms, banks and financial institutions, government, manufacturing and merchandising companies and not-for-profit organisations. It suits precise, analytical students who enjoy working with figures and are thinking about a CPA career.