Pursue our Master of Science in Accounting (MSA) degree full time or part time, depending on the demands of your work and personal life. Our courses are offered in the evening in downtown Indianapolis to accommodate your busy schedule. Students can complete this 30 credit hour program part time, including summers, in as little as 18 months.
Master of science in accounting
Preparing for the CPA exam
Earing the MSA degree is a great way to help you meet the minimum 120 credit hours you need in order to sit for the CPA exam. And our program’s 100% career placement rate means MSA graduates leave Kelley as top candidates for the jobs they want. Learn more about how our curriculum successfully prepares you to become a CPA.
Fast-track your master's with the +1 MSA
By adding just one year to your Kelley Indianapolis bachelor’s degree, you can earn the MSA degree that is proven to provide career security and financial stability. Jump-start your path to a master’s in accounting degree and take MSA courses at an undergraduate rate through our MSA +1 degree path for Kelley Indianapolis students.
Discover how Fernando Borges-Chavez, BS’22, MSA’22, added one year to his undergraduate studies to earn an MSA.
Ready to advance your accounting education?
Apply now to enroll in the next semester of the MSA Program.
Admission requirements
Applicants must have an overall undergraduate GPA of 3.2 or higher when applying to the MSA program. Students with GPAs between 2.8 and 3.2 may be admitted with permission from the Graduate Accounting Programs faculty chair.
To ensure your success, we ask you to complete the following courses — or their equivalents — before you begin the MSA Program:
- A201 Intro to Financial Accounting (3 cr.)
- A311 Intermediate Accounting I (3 cr.)
- A325 Cost Accounting (3 cr.)
- E201 Intro to Microeconomics (3 cr.)
- E270 Intro to Stat Theory Econ and Business (3 cr.)
- F300 Intro to Financial Management (3 cr.)
- K201 The Computer in Business
- L203 Commercial Law I (3 cr.)
- P300 Intro to Operations Management (3 cr.)
MSA required courses
If you've previously completed one of the accounting courses below and used it toward another degree, you may replace it with an approved elective.
Prerequisite: A311/A510 (Intermediate Accounting I) or equivalent
Application of intermediate accounting theory to problems involving long-term liabilities, corporations, earnings per share, tax allocation, pensions, leases, and cash flows.
Prerequisites: A511 and A523
This course addresses the concepts and procedures of external and internal audits for businesses, including issuance of the audit report, reviews of internal control, statistical sampling, EDP systems, the company's business cycles, forensic accounting, auditing for fraud, and other assurance services. Many topics covered are included on the CPA exam.
Co-requisite: A551
This course focuses on the income taxation and tax planning for individuals, introducing students to U.S. federal income tax law. The basic treatment of other entities also is considered, including the taxation of corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies, trusts, and estates. In addition, a portion of the course is devoted to tax research, enabling students to appreciate the sources of tax law such as the Internal Revenue Code, regulations, administrative pronouncements, and case law.
Prerequisite: A515 or concurrent
This course covers how to access the primary and secondary sources of tax law, including the Internal Revenue Code, regulations, and other administrative pronouncements and judicial decisions, with an emphasis on how to read and interpret those source materials.
An overview of accounting systems and their existence within businesses. The course includes discussions of system controls, transaction processing, business cycles and issues related to development and installation of automated accounting systems.
Prerequisite: A515 or equivalent
Introduction to the taxation of regular corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies, and S corporations.
Focus on the role that ethics plays in the accounting profession. The ultimate goal of this course is for students to develop a passion for acting ethically in their profession and possess the tools to live out this passion.
Prerequisite: L203 or equivalent
This course examines concepts of law as applied to the accounting profession, including contracts, agency, forms of organization, property, wills and trusts, securities regulation, consumer protection, antitrust, secured transactions, negotiable instruments, commercial paper, payment systems, bankruptcy, and related subject areas.
Learning in a Professional Environment (LIPE)
We understand real-life work experience is essential to success outside of the classroom. Learning in a Professional Environment (LIPE) allows you to earn up to three hours of graduate credit for work experience you obtain while earning your MS in Accounting.
Learning in a Professional Environment is a required course for international students who secure an internship, and we highly recommend it for those students who come to the MSA Program without previous work experience in accounting. LIPE provides a way to put accounting skills into practice while developing professional acumen.
MSA elective courses
Accounting electives
Financial statement analysis is a problem-solving case course designed to teach and understand the techniques used to evaluate the financial dynamics of businesses.
This course examines the security and control of information systems (IS) from the perspective of management, including the IS assurance process. The emphasis is on technical, professional, and regulatory best practices in information systems security and assurance. The course is designed to meet the IS security information needs of both managers and IS security assurance professionals. As such, the course is structured to cover most topics in the common body of knowledge (CBK) for professional examinations with an information security component, including the CPA, CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor) and CIA (Certified Internal Auditor) exams.
This course examines advanced issues in auditing, including in-depth review of forensic accounting and fraud examination, litigation support and expert witness services, the use of statistical sampling in auditing, internal auditing, assurance services, and extending the attestation function.
This course introduces basic concepts of internal auditing, emphasizing business process controls as well as entity-level controls. The course is taught from a corporate governance perspective, which stresses the role played by internal audit in assisting management and the board in evaluating and improving the effectiveness of risk management, internal controls, and the governance process. The course also includes an introduction to audit software.
Business electives
This course focuses on the application of financial concepts and techniques to the analysis of real estate financing and investment alternatives.
Taxation electives
This course builds on and expands on the materials and concepts introduced in A525 Pass-through Entities I.
This course builds upon the introductory material included in BUPA-A539 Advanced Taxation I: Entity Issues pertaining to the U.S. federal income taxation of corporations taxable under Subchapter C of the Internal Revenue Code.
The course introduces students to the taxation of regular corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies, and S corporations.
This course provides a brief overview of the basic concepts of the laws and regulations governing NFP organizations. Specific topics include: the formation and dissolution of a NFP entity, the operation and governance of the NFP entity, tax exemption issues, unrelated business income tax, and charitable contributions.
This course provides a very detailed focus of several concepts of the tax laws and regulations governing NFP organizations. Specific topics include: operation of NFP entities, regulation of charitable solicitation, and the unrelated business income tax. This course has a web site that was created with Canvas, a set of tools that assists professors and students to use the web to provide content, communication, and evaluation.
Madelyn Heron, MSA’22, Tax Senior at EY The MSA gave me the opportunity to choose my path through tax and accounting while gaining a well-rounded education.
Questions?
Contact us to discuss how to create a customized accounting degree path to meet your career goals.