All business enterprises, governmental entities and not-for-profit organizations rely on accounting systems to produce essential information for management, control, informing external investors and for accountability. Such systems operate in complex settings involving both institutions and markets.
The Master Accounting and Control prepares you to embark on a career as preparer, user, or auditor of accounting information. By considering the technical aspects of accounting in relation to the institutional setting, in relation with ongoing developments in information technology and in the light of relevant academic research, you will learn to consider issues in accounting and control at an advanced academic level. Throughout the programme, you are encouraged to reflect on issues of responsibility for accounting information, including integrity, ethics and compliance.
The Master’s programme in Accounting and Control is offered in a full-time and a part-time version. The two versions are identical in terms of learning outcomes, course content and assessment, but may differ with respect to the scheduling and teaching formats. The full-time programme is taught in English. Class language in the part-time programme is mostly Dutch.
To break it down:
- You’ll take five mandatory courses:
- Accounting, Control and Society – An introductory course helping you to see how the many different aspects of the field relate to each other: financial and non-financial information; management, governance and accountability; information technology; and regulation and ethics. Learn to think about planning your own career.
- Corporate Reporting – Get up to speed in financial and non-financial reporting, and understand the current issues that reporting standards are trying to solve.
- Management Control – Understand how to design incentive systems that have the desired effect on employees. The course integrates general accounting principles with both an integrity/ethics component and an IT component.
- Data Analytics for Accounting and Control – Understand how information technology is changing accounting and develop hands-on skills in data analysis.
- Governance, Regulation and Compliance
- You’ll take at least two electives. For example:
- Advanced Auditing – Learn to consider key issues in auditing practice, by drawing on a rich toolbox of theoretical insights.
- You’ll also write your Master’s thesis and complete a portfolio of assignments aimed at developing professional skills .
The start date of the full-time programme is September 1st. The start dates of the part-time programme are September 1st and February 1st.