ACCT2343 - Accounting Data Analytics and Visualisation

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ACCT2343 - Accounting Data Analytics and Visualisation

Individual Assessment 3 – Part A

Due date: Friday 14 April 5:00PM

Overview

This final Assessment 3 - Part A (30%) has three sections (see below). In this assessment, you will analyse financial statements and visualise in Excel, find a dataset for use in your data analytics and visualisation using Tableau or Power BI as an aid to write a data story, and then present that story to nominated audience using a 3-minute video recording. This assessment will measure your ability as per the marking criteria described below. A rubric is provided as a general marking guide.

- Section 1: By using your learning throughout the course you will undertake financial statement data analytics and visualisations tasks in Excel. Datasets are provided.

- Section 2: By collecting own dataset you will prepare four (4) visualisations and a dashboard with two interactive features in Tableau or Power BI (your choice), describe the dataset as per assessment requirements below, and write a short story using the visualisations, dashboard and narratives.

- Section 3: By recording a 3-minute video presentation you will tell the story from Section 2.

Assessment Details 

- Section 1 (10 marks): Datasets are provided to you (see below). Use your learning throughout the course to undertake financial statement data analytics and visualisations in Excel. Undertake vertical and horizontal analysis of financial statements by preparing a Pivot table, an interactive/dynamic dashboard with visualisations (e.g., sparklines). You must submit your Excel file with answers to the assessment requirements and questions. You can create different tabs in the Excel file to answer different parts of questions.

- Section 2 (10 marks): You must collect your own dataset for this Section 2.  You need to describe the dataset by answering a few questions (see assessment instructions/requirements below), you need to prepare FOUR (4) visualisations and a dashboard with  two (2) interactive features in Tableau or Power BI and write a short story from the analysis and visualisations. You can choose your story based on your dataset and visualisations as long as there is an accounting aspect (variable) in your story. Accounting must be present in one of your visualisations and in your narrative story. You may link accounting (from any domain of accounting such as managerial, financial, audit, and taxation) with wider issues of sustainability, ESG, SDGs, climate change, environmental management, accounting profession, and other broader social, environmental and business/corporate issues for your story. Think about what interesting story you can tell with the analytics and visualisations from you dataset. Submit a written story in a Word document with four (4) visualisations along with the answers to the Section 2 questions in a word document as well as your Tableau or Power BI workbook.

- Section 3 (10 marks): Video stories provide deeper meaning behind the data analytics and visualisation. Video presentations make stories more meaningful and insightful. For this assessment task, you can have a bit of fun creating a 3-minute video clip for a target audience of board of directors and senior executives of an organisation. For this Section, submit a 3-minute video story based on the with data analytics and visualisations from Section 2 of this assessment but do not just repeat what you have written in the Word report in Section 2. See below for more information and guidance about video storytelling.

Assessment Requirements 

Section 1 (10 marks)

Overview

Create a dynamic financial statement analysis where values are pulled from a set of financial facts based on a company ticker.

Assessment Instructions & Criteria

To create a dynamic spreadsheet, you must first create a PivotTable (Excel) from the dataset and then create simple horizontal and vertical analysis with Sparklines to answer the following questions. For Section 1 you need to submit your Excel file with the answers to the following questions:

Question 1. Submit your excel file with the PivotTable. (2 marks)

Question 2. Submit your excel file with horizontal and vertical analysis with sparklines. (2 marks)

Question 3. Show the Net Income value for IBM & ABT in 2020 (Round to the nearest million dollars.) (1 mark)

Question 4. Show the Net Income value for HD & BIIB in 2020 (Round to the nearest million dollars.) (1 mark)

Question 5. Show the Net Income value for MSFT & CAT in 2020 (Round to the nearest million dollars.) (1 mark)

Question 6. Show the value of [Current Assets] or Assets Current for NKE & CVX in 2020 (Round to the nearest million dollars.) (1 mark)

Question 7. Show the direction of the cost of revenue trending for AAPL & MSFT. (1 mark)

Question 8. Show (in which of the three years analysed) in which year the operating expense highest as a percentage of revenue for PG & GE? (1 mark)

Download Dataset:

· Lab 8-1 SP100 Facts and Script.zip - 601KB Zip / 607KB Excel / 18KB Text

· Lab 8-2 SP100 Facts Pivot

 Note: If you have difficulty in download the data from here, please download from Assessment 3 Part A. If your file extension is .xls then please save it as .xlsx for analysis in Tableau or Power BI.

Section 2 (10 marks)

Overview

This section of the assessment task requires you to prepare a visualization storytelling report which includes four (4) visualisations from Tableau or Power BI using a publicly available dataset (e.g. ABS, World Bank etc) that you collected. The detailed description of this task is provided below where you need to demonstrate understanding of accounting data analytics and visualisations concepts covered in this course. Please provide a 700 word (+/- 10%) narrative that explores your question and shares a story that will benefit your audience. 

Assessment Instructions

Please include the following sections (note: visualisations and reference list do not count toward word count).  

1. Introduction and Background.  Discuss, in brief, your motivation for this dataset. Please include any sources that inspired you picking your topic. Give context and relevance. What do you want to learn and accomplish?  What questions do you want to answer? How will your project benefit others?

2. Datasets. Describe the dataset(s) that you are using (you need collect at least one dataset). For the dataset include: 

· Who collected the data?  Who funded the project that the data came from? Other important information about the dataset? 

· Why was the data created and for what purpose?

· What is the timeline or lineage of the data?

· Define and describe the variables included in the dataset.

· How large is the dataset (cases, how many and what are the variables)?

· What locations are included in the dataset?

· Describe how the datasets will help you achieve your goals/questions that posed in your introduction, including any limitations. 

 3. Data Story. The weekly exercises and examples shown in our workshops (Weeks 1-12) can help you craft your data story.

· Create at least four (4) visualisations and a dashboard in Tableau or Power BI. Please include at least one map, at least one bar, at least one table, and at least one line chart.   

· For each visualisation:

o Tell the reader which data set (if using more than one) each variable comes from, the units (or categories) of the variable, and any other additional information.  Please explore and reference accompanying documentation! Are there any limitations in the data set?  Are there any definitions to share?

o As mentioned above, make sure that your variables are clearly defined.

o Please paste these visualisations in your document at appropriate points in your story/narrative. 

o Demonstrate how the visualisations addresses your question/goal.

· Create a Tableau or Power BI dashboard that includes at least four (4) visualisations and at least two interactive features.

· Compose a story/narrative that describes your visualisations and tells your audience a story that meets your goals stated your introduction.

· Please apply the concepts and principles that we have covered in this course.

 4. Summary and Conclusions. 

 5. References. Please use quality references for in-text citations and end-reference list in your report.

 6. Submit Your Story in Word. Please submit in a word document with the copies of visualisations and a dashboard as well as the workbook from either Tableau or Power BI. Make sure all data sets and all charts are included with at least two interactive features.

Supporting Resources

Try to locate potential sources of relatively large dataset (with at least 5,000 rows) that are suitable for either Tableau or Power BI. You are allowed to use more than one dataset to prepare your visualisations for your storytelling. Please remember to check the terms and conditions associated with each dataset to ensure that it can be used for your assignment purposes. Remember that before using any dataset, you should understand its limitations and restrictions, and ensure that it is suitable and legal for your intended use. You should also preprocess and clean the data before inputting it into Tableau or Power BI, to ensure it's in the right format and doesn't contain any errors or inconsistencies.

Here are a few sources where you can find large datasets containing accounting variables that you can download for free and use in Tableau and Power BI:

data.gov.au: This is the central source of Australian open government data. You can search for various datasets including financial and accounting related ones.

https://discover.data.vic.gov.au/dataset/: Data.Vic is the place to discover and access Victorian government open data.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS): ABS is Australia's national statistical agency, providing trusted official statistics on a wide range of economic, social, population and environmental matters.

CSIRO Data61: CSIRO's Data61 is Australia’s data innovation network that transforms existing industries and creates new ones through the application of science and technology. They have a range of datasets available, some of which are related to finance and economics.

Kaggle: Kaggle is a platform for predictive modelling and analytics competitions. They host datasets in various formats, including CSV and SQL datasets, which can be integrated with Tableau or Power BI. There are several accounting and financial datasets available on Kaggle, contributed by users and organizations around the world.

UCI Machine Learning Repository: This repository maintains a collection of databases, domain theories, and data generators that are used by the machine learning community. Although not specifically focused on accounting, you may find some financial datasets here.

Data.gov: This is the home of the U.S. Government's open data. You can find federal, state, and local data, tools, and resources to conduct research, build apps, design data visualizations, and more. You can filter the datasets by topic or category to find accounting and finance related datasets.

Google Dataset Search: This is a search engine from Google that helps researchers locate online data that is freely available for use. You can search for "accounting datasets" or "financial datasets" to find data relevant to your needs.

EU Open Data Portal: This portal provides access to open data published by EU institutions and bodies. You can find various types of datasets including those related to economics and finance.

World Bank Open Data: This is a comprehensive resource for global development data. The World Bank's Open Data initiative provides access to financial, economic, and various other datasets.

Quandl: Quandl offers a vast collection of data from hundreds of publishers. It provides financial, economic, and alternative data that can be used in various data analytics tools. Some data are free, but for some others, you need a subscription.

Financial Modeling Prep API: This provides real-time and historical stock data, as well as other financial data. It’s free to use up to a certain limit.

Assessment Criteria

The case report (narrative story-telling in word document) will measure your ability to:

· Provide documentation/evidence about the original source of the dataset(s) (1 mark)

· Set clear question(s) that you are going to answer and your motivation for these questions, this topic, and analysis (1 mark)

· You MUST have an accounting variable in your data (for example, income/revenue/sales, expenses, price, profit, loss, budget, performance indicators, sustainability accounting indicators, ESG indicators, SDG indicators, etc.) (1 mark)

· Tell a short but clear story (3 marks)

· Have four (4) visualisations and a dashboard that support the story (2 marks)

· Discuss limitations of dataset(s). ( 1 mark)

· Make sure all data sets (excel and Tableau/Power BI) and all charts are included with at least two interactive features. (1 mark)

Section 3

Overview

Continuing from Section 2 (above), you are now required to present your data analytics and visualisation story to the board of directors and senior executives. Here, pitching to the appropriate audience becomes crucial, and this presentation must adopt suitable business presentation acumen and visualisation storytelling techniques to explain how your data analytics and visualisations using Tableau or Power BI address the question or problem. You need to focus on at least one aspect of accounting and its role in your story or the solution that you are proposing to address the question or problem that you wanted to answer or solve in Section 2. 

Assessment Details

After having successfully submitted your data analytics and visualisations story to your manager (Section 2), you now have the approval to present your work to your firm’s board of directors and senior executives for their consideration. Whilst being highly knowledgeable in their business domain, many members of the board and senior management team might not have the knowledge to grasp the technical aspects of your dataset, analytics, and visualisations; what they care about is for the data and insights to be presented in a succinct, digestible, and engaging manner using a 3-minute video presentation. They want to clearly identify the actionable insights which support their decision making regarding the question or problem that you set for your project in Section 2. 

Assessment Criteria 
This assessment will measure your ability to:
• Pitch your story to the appropriate audience (2 marks)
• Craft evidence-based video narratives that meet the needs and requirements of target audience (3 marks)
• Apply suitable storytelling techniques to present an engaging presentation (3 marks)
• Produce a quality presentation (2 marks) 

Supporting Resources

Consider the following in your 3-minute video preparation:

Suggested structure of video:
o Explain the question(s)/business problem(s)
o Incorporating your visualisation(s) into a visual narrative
o Provide your recommendations which include solutions and actionable insights based on your findings from Section 2
o Provide a conclusion
o Include reference source materials as necessary. Include full references under appendices at the end of your presentation material (e.g., on a single slide)

o Use and number of slides: It is your discretion. As a rule of thumb, we expect a 3-minute video but feel free to use your slides and visuals.

Things to avoid in the video:
• Presenting verbatim your full report and findings from Section 2. This presentation should be distilled version of your work in Section 2 and present only the relevant insights.
• Getting into the technical detail while explaining the dataset, analytics and visualisations – remember to tailor your presentation to your audience.
• Creating a recording that does not adhere to the specified time limit of 3-minute.

Tips for recording your video:
• Record in a quiet room with no distractions.
• Do a test run to check audio and video clarity. Seek feedback from peers

• Ensure that visual aids are of a readable size.
• Dress appropriately for the audience.

Video format:
• You may use a video or vodcast recording format of your choice (e.g. recorded PowerPoint, Loom recording, webcam and screen capture, mobile phone recording, Canvas studio recording).
• You may include visual aids in your presentation as per your choice (e.g. slides, screenshots, screen captures, posters).

• You need to be present in the video all the time, either in a corner insert or at times using the whole screen (the viewer needs to be able to see your gestures, eye contact, facial expression etc.).
• You will upload your presentation to Canvas as an MP4 video file.

Other supporting resources:
The following optional resources are available to assist you with your presentation:
• RMIT Learning Lab: Oral presentations
• Pitch tricks #3 Open like a pro (video; 01:03)
• Pitch tricks #5 How to end with a bang (video; 0:41)
• Your body language may shape who you are (video; 20:45)
• Turning your PowerPoint presentation into a video
• Canvas: How do I record media using the Rich Content Editor as a student?
• Canvas: How do I record a Canvas Studio screen capture video in a course?
• How to record a presentation with Loom

Penalties for late submission

All assignments will be marked as if submitted on time. Late submissions of assignments without special consideration or extension will be automatically penalised at a rate of 10% of the total marks available per day (or part of a day) late. For example, as this assignment is worth 30 marks and you submitted 1 day (or few hours) late, a penalty of 10% that is 3 marks will apply. This will be deducted from the assessed mark not from the total marks available for this assessment. Assignments will not be accepted if it is more than seven (7) days late, unless special consideration or an extension of time has been approved.

Assessment Policies

Referencing Guidelines

Use RMIT HarvardLinks to an external site. referencing style for this assessment.

You must acknowledge all the courses of information you have used in your assessments.

Refer to the RMIT Easy CiteLinks to an external site. referencing tool to see examples and tips on how to reference in the appropriated style. You can also refer to the library referencing page for more tools such as EndNote, referencing tutorials and referencing guides for printing.

Academic Integrity and Plagiarism

Academic integrity (Links to an external site). is about honest presentation of your academic work. It means acknowledging the work of others while developing your own insights, knowledge and ideas.

You should take extreme care that you have:

· Acknowledged words, data, diagrams, models, frameworks and/or ideas of others you have quoted (i.e. directly copied), summarised, paraphrased, discussed or mentioned in your assessment through the appropriate referencing methods

· Provided a reference list of the publication details so your reader can locate the source if necessary. This includes material taken from Internet sites

If you do not acknowledge the sources of your material, you may be accused of plagiarism because you have passed off the work and ideas of another person without appropriate referencing, as if they were your own.

RMIT University treats plagiarism as a very serious offence constituting misconduct.

Plagiarism covers a variety of inappropriate behaviors, including:

· Failure to properly document a source

· Copyright material from the internet or databases

· Collusion between students

For further information on our policies and procedures, please refer to the University website (Links to an external site..)

Assessment Declaration

When you submit work electronically, you agree to the Assessment declaration (Links to an external site.)

Extension application

· If you are prevented from submitting an assessment on time by circumstances outside of your control, you can apply for an extension for up to 7 days.

· To apply, click on the Assessment Extensions button in your course navigation bar. Provide your reason for extension and attach your supporting documents before clicking Submit.

· Your Course Coordinator will review your application and you will be notified of the result via your RMIT student email account.

· Please note, the application portal will automatically close one full business day prior to the due date, as per RMIT policy.

Special consideration

If you are applying for extensions for your assessment within five working days after the original assessment date or due date has passed, or if you are seeking extension for more than seven days, you will have to apply for Special Consideration, unless there are special instructions on your Equitable Learning Plan.

In most cases you can apply for special consideration online.

For more information on special consideration, visit the university website on special consideration.