Depending on the demands of your personal and professional life, you can pursue the MSA as a full-time or part-time student. Full-time students attend classes year-round, including summer, and can complete the 30-credit hour program in 12 months. Part-time students typically finish in 18 to 24 months.
Master of Science in Accounting
Preparing for the CPA exam
Earning the MSA is a great way to help you meet the 150 credit hours you need to become a licensed CPA. And our program’s 100% career success rate means MSA graduates leave Kelley Indianapolis as top candidates for the jobs they want. Discover 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 a master's degree that is proven to provide career security and financial stability. Take MSA courses at an undergraduate rate through our +1 MSA 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.
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Ready to advance your accounting education?
Apply now to enroll in the MSA Program.
Admission requirements
Applicants must have a minimum undergraduate GPA of 3.2 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 Financial Accounting & Reporting I (3 cr.)
- A325 Cost & Performance Measurement for Decision Making (3 cr.)
- E201 Intro to Microeconomics (3 cr.)
- E270 Intro to Statistical Theory in Economics and Business (3 cr.)
- F300 Intro to Financial Management (3 cr.)
- K201 The Computer in Business (3 cr.)
- 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 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 MSA.
LIPE is a required course for international students who secure an internship, and we highly recommend it for 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 considers advanced financial accounting problems, including those related to consolidated financial statements, business combinations (mergers and acquisitions), branches, foreign operations and nonprofit organizations.
This course discusses the pathology of fraud (who commits fraud, why they commit it, how they commit it) the different types of fraud, how fraud can be deterred and detected, and how forensic accounting tools can be used to investigate and prove fraud.
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.
In this course, emphasis will be on the concept of highest and best use and the creation of value through the development process, as well as a large emphasis on developing a practical understanding of real estate valuation methods and techniques and the ability to apply them.
This course provides a broad introduction to real estate topics, including real estate interest and title, mortgage finance, brokerage, appraisal, property and asset management, development and investment analysis.
Taxation electives
This course builds on and expands on the materials and concepts introduced in A525 Pass-through Entities I.
The course introduces students to the taxation of regular corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies, and S corporations.
This course examines federal tax issues related to foreign transactions, including issues affecting U.S. citizens and residents working, investing in or doing business overseas, and foreigners working, investing in or doing business in the U.S.
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.
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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 create a customized accounting degree path to meet your career goals.