For the Dutch version, click here My name is Steffie Nuijts, I am 23 years old and I live in Tilburg. Since September 2018 I have been working as an Associate Accountant at PwC, the same place where I have written my thesis before finishing my studies. Next to working I am also busy with the Post-Master Accountancy at Tilburg University. After receiving my VWO-diploma in 2014, I chose to study Business Economics in Tilburg. I went to live in a house with different students and became member of a student association. During that time, I was still unsure about what kind of job I wanted to do, the only thing I knew then was that I wanted to do something with business and that I was good with numbers. Despite the busy student life, my bachelor’s in business economics went well and after a semester abroad in Sydney the moment to choose a master’s degree came closer. I decided to attend different activities from A&F and EBT and got to learn more about the different topics to study and about different types of companies. I applied together with a friend for the PwC Women’s Event in Amsterdam and this was the first time I got acquainted with PwC and its culture.At the event we got to know the people who work there in accounting as well as the recruiters. I immediately got to know people who could tell me exactly what a job in Accountancy is like and what you can expect from it. I stayed in contact with one of the people I met at this event and in little time I applied for an internship opportunity to write my thesis at PwC in Eindhoven. ”I knew pretty fast that I wanted to work for a Big-4 accounting company, the reason for this is because you get the opportunity to learn a lot and also a lot of opportunity to keep growing within the company.” During my internship at PwC I got to know a lot of people who also started the same year at PwC as me. What really got my attention during my internship was the informal atmosphere at the office, I liked this a lot. Thus, I decided to work for PwC immediately after my internship. Why PwC? I knew pretty fast that I wanted to work for a Big-4 accounting company, the reason for this is because you get the opportunity to learn a lot and also a lot of opportunity to keep growing within the company. The reason why I chose for PwC was eventually based on my instincts. I matched with the people who I got to know during my internship. The atmosphere and the culture were exactly what I hoped to get for my future job. My first year at PwC In September 2018 I started as an Associate at the Assurance department at PwC in Eindhoven. You start immediately with an introduction during the first two weeks where you get to meet all the others who are also starting at the same time at PwC from your office as well as from other offices in the Netherlands. Besides learning a lot here, you also get to know your colleagues in an informal way really fast. These first two weeks are also the start of a so-called Associate Academy: a 2-year training program where you will develop yourself with the help from a coach, a lot of working experience, internal trainings and social events. After the somewhat scary stories about working at a Big-4 firm, my fears were especially focused on the fun stuff that I was going to miss forever from my time as being a student. Fortunately, the opposite was true. Of course, people work very hard now and then, but I still have enough time for my busy social life and there are a lot of fun activities organized by PwC. Last year I went on a ski trip with PwC and we often have activities, drinks or sport events together for the whole office and the Christmas party is always a fun activity. Furthermore, the bond that you create with the others in the Associate Academy really becomes a strong one. We often go for a drink after classes on Fridays and we also go out often after a busy period at the university or work. My tips for Students What I want to especially advise you all as students: orientate yourself broadly enough! Attend as many activities that are organized as possible and get to know the organizations that you meet well. Talk to the people who are already working there and ask them for their opinions. Lastly: follow your instincts!
Working At Van Oers
For the Dutch version, click here Self-Introduction My name is Silvie Tax, I am 26 years old and I currently live in Breda. I have been working at Van Oers Audit for the past three-and-a-half years. I am also still busy with my studies, namely the post-masters in Accountancy, which I follow at Nyenrode. Van Oers Audit is situated in Breda as a department of Van Oers Accountancy & Advice, with over 350 employees divided over five locations in western Brabant. We now work with 55 colleagues in our department, which makes us one of the larger regional control practices. We have a young and enthusiastic team and mainly serve the SME (profit)-sector. Our clients mainly come from the Tilburg-Rotterdam-Zeeland triangle region. In addition to my work and my studies, I like to go into the city for a drink, I do sports and I make music. Career I started my career at Van Oers Accountancy & Advies. I first started here during my dual studies at Avans university in Breda. With this good foundation I started working at Van Oers Audit, where I also started working full time after my studies at the Avans. What I like about the audit department is the variety in working with different clients and colleagues at various locations. After my studies at the Avans I started my (pre)-master at Nyenrode University. Abroad Last year I had the opportunity to work abroad for three months (August to October), namely in Sydney (Australia). This opportunity came because Van Oers is affiliated with the international partnership; Leading Edge Alliance (LEA). The company that I worked for in Sydney is also affiliated with this partnership and it has similar offices as Van Oers with three offices in New South Wales, in Sydney, Newcastle and Brisbane. For the audit team, the busy season was during this period. Due to the opposite seasons, most financial years are closed on the 30th of June instead of on the 31st of December. The first two months we visited many customers for the audit. As for the last month, we ended at the office in Sydney. During this period, we had the time to complete all checks. This was a super beautiful and educational experience! I have been able to get acquainted with the Australian GAAP (which is closely aligned with international legislation; IFRS) and with Business English. “In addition, lots of fun activities are also organized, such as drinks (both with the department and the entire office) and running events.” Activities I work as a Senior Staff in the Audit Department. In my role I manage the Staff-members on the control team and I report to the Supervisor / Manager on the team. We often work as a team for the customer. My daily activities are therefore very diverse. Van Oers I got to know Van Oers through an In-house day that was organized by Avans. The feeling that I had of Van Oers was immediately a positive one. The atmosphere within the organization is very pleasant and personal. Because we are relatively large in size, there is also a professional atmosphere in which there are many opportunities and possibilities to develop yourself. There is also a lot of attention for personal development. For example, Van Oers has recently started its own Van Oers University. In addition, lots of fun activities are also organized, such as drinks (both with the department and the entire office) and running events. My ambitions My ambitions are to complete my post-master and then to complete the practical internship needed to become a Chartered Accountant. Ultimately, I would like to grow into the person responsible for assignments. My advice Would you like to work for a professional organization with a personal approach? Would you like to work at an organization with a customer-focused approach, where you get many opportunities and possibilities to grow? Then I would definitely take a look at Van Oers.
IT a threat to the accountancy sector? No way!
The future for the accountancy sector seems very bright, although the World Economic Forum predicts that the profession comes to an end in 2020. The current rapid developments in society, and in particular those of IT, would be to blame. In other words, the accountancy sector must actively respond to the social developments identified by the World Economic Forum, otherwise, the World Economic Forum will indeed be right. Developments in IT are extremely rapid. I refer to the development in robotics, for example Sophia, a robot who recently received civil rights in Saudi Arabia [1]. Sophia is a robot built entirely from the artificial intelligence perspective and can answer all kinds of questions that are not programmed in advance. Or to Molly, a robot that is built by the Maastricht UMC+ and that can independently diagnose and prescribe medications to cardiac patients. And what to think of a supermarket without cash desks and surveillance. So self-learning and independently operating robots it is. Can we use these kinds of robots in the future for the work of an accountant? When I asked an exam candidate what question she would ask if she was confronted with a ‘Sophia’ who had full access to the organization’s automated information system during an audit meeting with an organization’s CFO, she asked another question. ‘Mr. Verkruijsse, you don’t think that I am going to the conversation alone, do you? Of course, I’m bringing my own Sophia with me, who’s name is Patrick by the way and he can chat with Sophia’. This candidate, who graduated without any doubt, left me as examiner speechless for a little while. Singularity is a concept that is often used in connection with rapid developments. Singularity is derived from the Latin word singulus, which means extraordinary or one of a kind. Singularity is used in several branches of science when the ordinary rules are not applicable. Ray Kurzweil, one of the directors of Google, leading futurologist with a track record of many accurate predictions and co-founder of the Singularity University defines singularity in his bestseller ‘’The singularity is near’’[2] as: A future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed. The start of the transformation is according to Kurzweil from the moment that computers become smarter than human beings, which he predicts to be in 2029. From that moment on all technological advancement and in particular artificial intelligence will lead to machines that are smarter than human beings. That such developments are currently strongly a topic of interests is evident from recent publications in het Financiële dagblad, ‘De financiële robot komt er, ooit[3], ‘Retailinspiratie Robotisering [4]’, ‘Op blockchainsafari in China[5]’ and ‘Na Jaren is hij er echt; de digitale accountant[6]’. “Accountants are better than anyone in giving the requested certainty. At first it was only providing certainty regarding financial data, nowadays certainty is given for many more things, including automated systems.” Based on the above I state the following description of the concept singularity: Singularity is the future period in which the current laws and regulations are insufficient both in terms of objectives and applicability because of social and technological developments. The demand for reliability of information and data is increasing. The question is if it is realistic to use the information and data retrieved from automatization in decision-making processes without further research. Accountants are better than anyone in giving the requested certainty. At first it was only providing certainty regarding financial data, nowadays certainty is given for many more things including automated systems by the issue of the IFAC Standard 3402 statements and their involvement in issuing certification marks form the ‘Stichting Zeker Online’[7]. These certificates have a bigger future-oriented certainty than the Standard 3402 statements that only look at the past periods. Due to the rapid IT developments, it becomes easier to exchange data between systems. This clears the way for a paradigm shift, namely from document exchange to data exchange. If all data is easily exchanged between systems then there can be built from that data to the required information for example in decision making. But then, the data must have an equal level of certainty. This implies that there will be a shift from the statements of accountants from the so-called image statement to a data-level assurance statement. The statements that the auditor will issue are only on the individual data and can, therefore, cover the correctness aspect of reliability. Because of the rapid development in technology and the expectations that this speed of development will only accelerate further, it is possible to realize a ‘Framework of Continuous Control’[8]. The work of the internal audit function will be substantially expanded at the expense of that of the external audit function. This means that there is a revolutionary turn in the thinking of managers, stakeholders, regulators and auditors. With this, the singularity point is bypassed, but at every singularity point there is a revolutionary turn. After all, in the period that follows the singularity point, the laws and regulations are absolutely not the same as the laws and regulations that applied in the period before the singularity point. This rapid development is recognized by the government, as evidenced by the recently presented Digitization Strategy[9], with which the government responds to the speed of digitization and its impact on society. Altogether, I conclude that the future of the accountancy sector is bright, at least if that sector goes along with the rapid developments in IT. The accountancy sector is reminiscent of the deity Janus, the Roman God of the beginning and end depicted with two faces each looking the other way. If the accountancy sector only continues to look at the period behind us, The World Economic Forum will be right. If she looks ahead and seizes IT developments to also go in the direction of data level assurance, then a bright future lies ahead. [1] https://youtu.be/Io6xuGmS5pM [2] Kurzweil, R. (2006), The singularity is near,
Working At EY
First, a brief introduction of myself. Just like any other lost high school student, I chose the bachelor business economics because it was quite known that there are broad career opportunities after you completed this study. After completing the bachelor, I chose to follow the master accountancy to gain more knowledge about a new field of interest of mine: the audit/control practices. In addition to this, it appealed to me to work at a bigfour accounting firm in the future. During this master I attended an in-house day of every bigfour firm. With that being said, I experienced the in-house day at EY as the best one. As a result, I managed to be hired for a thesis internship at EY Eindhoven. I had a nice, pleasant and educational experience at this thesis internship. Afterwards, this formed a fair reason for me to start my career at EY. On the day of writing this article, November 20, 2019, EY Eindhoven is dealing with a 23-year-old starting accountant named Robin Hu. A day at EY is different for each colleague and mainly depends on the client you are working on. For example, you may have to go to a client with the team to carry out the control. Besides this, you can also work with the team at an EY location if it is not necessary to work at the client. This occurs, for example, when all required documents and information have been received from the client. For me, the day looks slightly different than for most accountants at EY. So far, I have only been working with one client, the largest client at EY Eindhoven. Due to the fact that it is a big client, this requires some time and it also explains why I have only had one client so far. It is important to mention that I requested this prior to my start at EY. I saw that this was possible and saw it as a challenge for myself, to start with the largest client. My team and I mainly work from the EY Eindhoven office. It is a large team and most colleagues are already quite experienced. Because of the fact that we are often together as a team, we have the opportunity to discuss a lot with each other and to support each other well. Although my work is fairly new to me, my more experienced colleagues help me a lot to carry out all my tasks. At the same time, I learn a lot about the field and about the client with the help of my supporting and supervising experienced colleagues. They believe that it is important for me to learn a lot and that I also develop myself. To EY, the development of its employees is extremely important. EY offers me many opportunities to develop myself as a person, for example the time EY offers us to study. Each person is also assigned a coach and a confidant. These people support me with the work-study-life balance and any problems that I experience both in business and in my private life. Moreover, informal and formal courses are given internally at EY to help you with your development, such as accounting courses and work-life balance courses. “I don’t really see working at EY as “working”, but more as an experience to develop myself as a person and an accountant, and to have fun and work hard together with my colleagues at the same time.” EY has a lot to offer, but what do I think of EY? It will probably sound very cliché, but in the end it’s all about the pleasant atmosphere ad culture within EY. The bigfour firms offer almost similar conditions, but the atmosphere and culture can be very different between these firms. The atmosphere and culture that I have been able to experience at EY (Eindhoven) is open, warm and informal. I am very happy with all the colleagues I have met so far. It is also often very pleasant and fun at EY, and everyone is willing to help each other. After all, we all work together. Furthermore, we also work very hard at EY and there is also space to do this. EY organizes periodic events where we get to know each other as colleagues in a different way. I have experienced these events very positively. Finally, I want to mention that you do not notice much of a hierarchy, which I also like. Whether you talk to a manager or a partner, you do not notice a certain dominant attitude. Finally, I want to give some advice to the students. -Start with or keep connecting with new people. This helps you a lot to ultimately find your optimum workplace. Moreover, it is always nice to meet new people and to share things. -Participate in events that are organized by both Asset and the accounting firms. Try to be as diverse as possible and to visit as many events as possible. Of course, this takes some time, so it is recommended to compile a top x list of offices that appeal to you the most. -If this article doesn’t provide enough information about my experiences at EY, don’t hesitate to contact me via LinkedIn! -Don’t rush through your studies! Enjoy your student time and think about taking a little longer on your studies because you will be working enough soon. This comes from someone who has completed his master in one year.
On the role of auditors and data science companies for assessing non-financial risks
The role of an auditor is to help outsiders to develop a true and fair view of a firm’s performance. In a more extended form, the true and fair view of a firm’s performance refers to the true and fair view of a firm’s strategy development and strategy implementation. For decades, the focus of auditors to enable the outsiders’ true and fair view was on the firm’s financial numbers. Such a financial audit happens within the boundaries of a standardized reporting format, implying that every firm, irrespective of its industry and strategy, reports the same financial metrics. As a result, deciding which metrics a firm should disclose to give a true and fair view is a competency that is not trained intensively among auditors during the last decades. The consequence of this evolution is that auditors lost sight of the link between a firm’s strategy and the financial numbers. Admittedly, educational institutions are guilty too! For instance, the link between a firm’s strategy and its management control system is a cornerstone in management accounting courses but is almost nonexistent in financial accounting courses. During the last decade, the increased attention for corporate responsibility has increased the demand from shareholders and stakeholders for more non-financial numbers in order to develop a better view of the firm’s strategy development and implementation, to assess the non-financial risks of the firm and to assess the consequences of a firm’s behavior for society. Importantly, the relevance of non-financial numbers to develop a better insight into the firm’s strategy development and implementation is conditional on the firm’s strategy and is thus difficult to standardize. Stated differently, the demand for more non-financial numbers requires that auditors consider the firm’s strategy when judging the relevance of the non-financial numbers that the firm wants to disclose. Given the auditors’ focus on the standardized reporting format for financial audits, judging whether the disclosed non-financial metrics give a true and fair view is often a struggle for auditors. “I would like to invite you to turn the question upside down and ask yourself what auditors need to do to reinforce their position when it comes to assessing non-financial risks.” Next to the struggle that auditors experience when doing non-financial audits, progress in data science has given data science companies opportunities to exploit the auditors’ struggle. Specifically, data scientists exploit the possibilities of machine learning to develop tools that give a quantified estimate of a firm’s non-financial risks. For instance, Datamaran, which is a business intelligence tool developed by eRevalue, uses information from corporate reports, global regulations, social media, stakeholder surveys and online news to assess a firm’s non-financial risks. An easy conclusion could be that those data science companies will drive audit firms out of the market for assessing non-financial risks. Admittedly, when learning about the tools offered by several data science companies and working with their data, I was quick to make this easy conclusion. At this point, I would like to invite you to turn the question upside down and ask yourself what auditors need to do to reinforce their position when it comes to assessing non-financial risks. A first answer could be that regulation can save the position of the auditor. I am not a big fan of relying on regulation to safeguard a particular competitive position. As an example, regulations have long protected the position of licensed cab-drivers and hotels but regulations have not been able to stop the success of companies like Uber and Airbnb. A second argument is grounded in the observation that the predictive validity of rankings for firms’ environmental, social, and governmental (ESG) activities, such as those developed by data science companies, is lower than usually claimed. For instance, many firms on Fortune’s Change the World List, which is a list of firms that are delivering profit-driven social impact, do not achieve top positions on ESG rankings developed by data science companies but outperform the MSCI World Stock Index by an average of 3.9 percent in the year following the inclusion in the Change the World List. “Of course, the entrance and pressure of data science companies in the market for assessing non-financial risks should still be a wake-up call for audit firms. It is thus crucial that audit firms revitalize the link between a firm’s strategy and its non-financial and financial numbers.” The reason for the lower predictive validity of ESG rankings is quite intuitive. Even though most rankings rely on machine learning, some standardization is needed to make such tools effective and efficient, which implies that the list of non-financial metrics used by machine learning tools requires standardization. As a result, most tools insufficiently capture the idea that assessing non-financial risks preferably happens conditional on the firm’s strategy. Importantly, the point is not that the ESG rankings are completely useless but that the conclusion that data science companies will drive audit firms out of the market for assessing non-financial risks is too far-stretched at the moment. Of course, the entrance and pressure of data science companies in the market for assessing non-financial risks should still be a wake-up call for audit firms. It is thus crucial that audit firms revitalize the link between a firm’s strategy and its non-financial and financial numbers. Relatedly, audit firms could more clearly communicate their judgment regarding the relevance of the non-financial metrics chosen by the firm conditional on the strategy of the firm. Importantly, auditors should be trained in making such judgments, implying that the role of firm strategies should get a more prominent role in (non)-financial accounting courses. In the MSc Accountancy of Tilburg University, which runs in an updated form since the academic year 2019-2020, we are already training future accountants to make judgments regarding the relevance of non-financial metrics by offering a course focused on developing, auditing, reporting, and using non-financial metrics!
Interview with Daan and Roel – Post-Master Accountancy
To gain a better understanding of life after the Accountancy master’s program, we spoke with two Post-Master students who are at the beginning of their Accountancy career. Daan and Roel, both living in Tilburg. Daan is 24 years old and currently works at KPMG in Breda. Daan obtained his bachelor’s degree in Wageningen and he went to Utrecht for an Accountancy minor. He completed the Accountancy master in Tilburg, where he is now a student of the Post-Master. Roel is 25 years old and currently works at PwC in Eindhoven. Roel obtained his bachelor’s degree in Den Bosch and he finished the pre-master and master Accountancy at Tilburg University. Just like Daan, Roel is now a Post-Master student at Tilburg University. Work Daan and Roel are both second-year students of the Post-Master Chartered Accountant and therefore already have been working for a while as an accountant. We asked them how their activities currently look like. They both agree that every day is different. “I spend a lot of time working at the location of the client, way more than working at the office,” says Daan. “Most of the activities are done at the location of the client to shorten communication lines. This is more practical than working at the office,” confirms Roel. There is also quite some variation in the teams you work with. Roel: “Currently I have eight different clients and therefore I work with eight different teams, with quite some variation in the size of the teams. When you are part of a team consisting of five persons you see each other a lot, which is definitely not the case when you are part of a team consisting of thirty persons.” Daan prefers to work in smaller teams and therefore chose to work at Breda since this office is smaller compared to the one in Eindhoven. He enjoys working with smaller and less formal clients. He says that the work at these clients is somewhat broader, but less deeply. Daan: “Currently I have eleven clients and therefore I work in eleven different teams with most of my clients located near Tilburg.” Daan and Roel both agree that their work is very social since the place of the location where you have to work differs almost every week and therefore you are working with a lot of different colleagues. The combination of work and study At first it seems nice: still being a ‘student’, but also working and earning money. But is this even to combine? We asked Daan and Roel about their experiences. Currently, they both work 4 days a week and they have classes on Fridays at Tilburg University. “It is doable, but it’s still quite intense”, says Roel. “Self-study takes about six hours a week and this has to be done in the evening hours or during the weekend. Besides the classes on Friday, you have deadlines every week. If I am having a busy weekend, I have to do most of the self-study during the evening hours.” Daan continues. “Of course your employer understands that it can be quite hectic combining work and your study. They will give you some space if needed, especially during the first six months. If you mention that you need some extra time in advance, this will be taken into account in the planning.” Roel agrees. “You get the time off of work as long as you mention it in advance. The company then takes it into account. What a big advantage of the accountancy profession is, is that you get a lot of vacation. You get about thirty vacation days. “This is mainly because the company can usually miss some accountants during the summer,” Daan says. “It is a nice reward for all the hard-working during spring.” “If you raise the alarm in advance, there are always people at our large offices who are willing to help you.” They are both satisfied with the amount of free time they have left. “In the business season at the accounting firms, you do not have lectures from January till March,” says Daan. “The University then takes into account that it is already busy enough. Busy season, therefore, feels more like you have some extra free time. You do work more hours per day, but you have less on your mind. You don’t have to focus on your study, so you can purely focus on work.” Furthermore, there is also enough room for other, informal activities at both companies. Daan and Roel, for example, mention ski trips with colleagues, staff parties, sports tournaments, and gala events. From master to Post-Master Most students who have obtained the master’s’ degree of Accountancy continue their studies with a Post-Master’s degree. But is this entirely complementary? We asked Daan and Roel about their experiences. “The connection between the masters is not very good.” They both agree. “During the master program, you only get theoretical subjects, but not really the reasoning behind it and tasks you are going to do. You only learn this during the post-Master or during work,” says Roel. “In the post-Master, everything falls into place and there you learn courses that you can immediately apply into practice. That makes it a lot more fun,” Daan continues. Workload It is no secret that people think that junior accountants are often being thrown into the deep. The idea of working more than 60 hours a week prevails over the Big Four in particular. To get a definite answer about this, we asked Daan and Roel for their opinion about the workload at their company. “Yes, the workload of accounting firms is high,” Daan starts. “However, you can control this by yourself. If you raise the alarm in advance, there are always people at our large offices who are willing to help you.” Daan also indicates that, as mentioned earlier in this article, they are not or are not yet able to perform all the work activities, which means that the workload is especially high
