For the Dutch version, click here. As Treasurer, you are responsible for the financial affairs of Asset | Accounting & Finance. In addition, you coordinate the Activities, Sports, Lustrum and Investment Night committees. In this article, I describe my experiences as Treasurer of Asset | Accounting & Finance and why I chose it. Why did I choose a board year at Asset | Accounting & Finance? After spending my first semester just studying, I wanted to do something in addition to my studies. In the second semester, I decided to do a committee at Asset | IB&M because I thought it would be really fun to organize something with other students and get to know a new set of people. After a year there, I went to Asset | Accounting & Finance, because I already knew I wanted to go in one of those two directions, and because I already knew a few people there. I had a great time here for a year and a half doing committees when I finished my bachelor’s degree. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to spend a full gap year doing something completely different from studying, and after Corona I did need a fun year. During this year I can also focus on what I want to do later and have the chance to get in touch with all kinds of companies. What are you actually doing all day? Treasurer is a pretty internal job, which means that most people don’t see the immediate results of what you spend all day doing. One of the main tasks is creating and keeping track of the budget. You do this right at the beginning of the year and in doing so, you set a lot for the rest of the year. This budget is constantly updated, so you know whether there is still room for a spontaneous drink or a beer bike, for example. You are also responsible for the general bookkeeping of A&F, which you keep up to date. I do this with our accounting program Twinfield. Especially at the beginning of the year I regularly had to call my predecessor to get me through the maze. But soon I had learned this. Everything costs money, so you also know a lot about what is going on within the association. Besides the financial part, you are also the coordinator of A&F’s four most fun committees: The Activities, Sports, Investment Night and Lustrum Committee. Throughout the week, you’ll be busy putting on all kinds of events with these committees. From the Meals on Wheels, to the Mario Kart Tournament, to a fat symposium. The many informal committees are also a nice contrast to the fairly formal work you do on a daily basis as Treasurer. Together, it’s a super fun combination to fill the week! It is a unique experience that you can experience in very few places. Once a quarter the cash control takes place. Then the treasurers of the last three years come together to review my accounts and give advice for the coming period. Then I can ask all the questions I have. It’s also fun to compare what everyone ran into in their year and what is still the same now or what is going differently. In addition, A&F is part of Asset Tilburg, so we work together a lot. This year I am the vice treasurer of all of Asset, which means that I am involved a lot in the financial decisions of the association. Every week we also meet with all the treasurers of the departments to discuss matters within Asset. Of course, it is also nice to catch up with the other treasurers once a week. What are the highlights so far of your board year? It’s hard to pinpoint one moment because so many different things happen in a year like this. Some of the best are the first activity with the members, which this year was the Activities Committee’s Meals on Wheels. The Department Members Meeting was also a special moment, because that’s when you reflect on the past six months and also say goodbye to the Winter Enlightenment. But even smaller moments are still fun to think back on, such as when the Investment Night Committee brought in its first speaker, and the announcement of the new Winter Board. The year is really made up of an awful lot of little moments that together make it a wonderful year! Would you recommend a board year to anyone else? Absolutely!!! It is a unique experience that you can experience in very few places. You basically run a small company with five other people while still being a student. You have a lot of responsibility, but also a lot of freedom to set up this year and organize fun events and activities. Because of the combination of the formal and informal activities, you actually never get bored. You also get to know many new people from other associations and experience many fun things. Of course, you’ll also be at plenty of get-togethers and parties to fill your evenings. All in all, it’s a fantastic experience and definitely worth doing. I’ve never doubted my choice to apply. You get the chance to meet lots of people, experience fat things and still be able to catch plenty of parties. All while still being a student. I can only recommend this year.
A board year as Secretary at Asset | Accounting & Finance – Lars van Maris
For the Dutch version, click here. As secretary, my responsibilities include taking minutes at meetings, the association’s incoming and outgoing communications and annual planning. In addition, I have organized the Audit Activity and coordinate the StudyTour and Faces Online committees. In this article I share how I have experienced my year as secretary of Asset | Accounting & Finance so far, what challenges I still see for my final months and why I made the decision to do a board year last year! Who am I? I am Lars van Maris, 21 years old and currently a 4th year Bachelor Economics & Business Economics student. In my free time I like to play field hockey, or sit outside somewhere quiet to read. After I finished my VWO in Eindhoven, Tilburg seemed like a nice city to study, and when I found a room in Tilburg 2 weeks before TOP-week I started to build my own place. My choice for Asset | Accounting & Finance During TOP week, like many before me, I walked past the tables of Asset and then joined them. Unlike others in my TOP group, I did not then become active in a department. I did join Vidar then, and it is here that I met someone who later told me about the Accounting & Finance Department. Besides planning to study Finance myself after my bachelor’s, the activities and events I heard about also seemed very nice to me, so then I contacted the then Vice-Chairman to become active. The reason I finally decided to put myself in as secretary for a year When I started college, I already knew that I would not or did not want to run nominally with my studies. Your student time is a period in your life where you can learn so much that I knew very quickly that I wanted to make the most of it. Besides, it also looks very good on your resume if you have done some things besides your studies. So from year one I became active at Vidar and SHOT, and about two years later also at Asset | Accounting & Finance. Within Vidar and SHOT I had already come into contact with people who did or had done a year in those associations, and after talking to them about this I thought it would be a very valuable addition to my time as a student. As I learned more about what each position does within A&F and talked to then directors about serving on boards in general, it quickly became clear to me that the secretary position would suit me best. This is where my orderliness really comes into its own and where I can learn the most from everyone else. “What do you do as Secretary on the Board and why are you always so busy?” As Secretary, of course you have the classic tasks such as taking minutes of the meetings and managing incoming and outgoing communication via email, for example. In addition, as Secretary I am responsible for 2 committees, namely the StudyTour committee and the Faces Online Committee. Also, together with our Vice-chairman Julia, I am currently responsible for maintaining our website and the events and activities we have on it. Other than that, I don’t really have very big tasks anymore, but so this does mean that I have the time to take on some more of the smaller tasks that are left between us from time to time. I also continue to play field hockey actively at SHOT during my board year and I still have to work quite often on the weekends. This all together ensures that I generally have a nice full schedule. “So what kind of ‘smaller’ tasks do you have?” One of the most common smaller tasks on the board in designing promotion and social media. For this we generally use the design programs Indesign or Canva. Throughout the year, I have used these to create promotional materials for such events as the StudyTour, Faces Online, and several other events and activities. I also occasionally take over other small tasks from other board members when they don’t have time for this, such as drafting a message for our group app or an email. I also sometimes went with the externs to the meetings with our partners during the summer to support them here and take notes of the discussions. Picking up all these small tasks gave me the opportunity to learn a lot of new things and to be able to watch and learn from many different aspects of our board. “I wouldn’t have missed this for anything and I have absolutely no regrets about my choice.” Faces Online was in the beginning a task I often spent all morning with on Wednesdays but over the months I have learned to handle this much faster and more agile and learned a lot about and from this. As Secretary, I am also responsible for the StudyTour, and although this is one of the busiest and largest committees in all of A&F, I am very happy that it falls under my position. The committee is great to work with and the satisfaction that will soon be there when we have successfully put on and completed this event is something that makes all that effort more than worth it. In addition, I have had the opportunity to attend events and activities that you can hardly find anywhere else and partly through the events and activities I have been able to greatly expand my network. “What moments will you never forget from your board year?” The first moments that will stay with me forever are the night I was told who I was going to form a board with, and the first board weekend we all went to. On both occasions I got to know the rest of my board better than the entire time before that in which I already knew them. On the weekend we
Working at PwC
Trang Tran Assurance Financial Services – Digital Accelerator For the Dutch version, click here. What exactly do you do at PwC? Besides being an accountant in the Financial Services Business Unit, I am also a Digital Accelerator where I help innovate and digitize the Assurance practice. What does your working day look like? In the morning I start up with the Digital Associates where we discuss the status of the projects and brainstorm where necessary on how we are going to build the digital solutions. We do this by drawing everything out on a jam board and constantly adjusting where necessary. Then the Associates get to work and I have meetings with audit teams to see where I can support them in terms of automating work. I then write out a digital approach per digital solution and guide the Digital Associates with building the digital solutions. When the Digital Associates are done building, I review the digital solutions to ensure we are meeting quality standards and audit guidelines where necessary. Then I schedule meetings with the audit team to hand over the digital solution. There are also major projects in between that I am also involved in. In addition to coming up with new tools that can help the practice, I also help roll out existing tools throughout the practice. And, of course, I also do regular audit work. Depending on the period we are in, I also spend several hours a day on audit work. During busy season then I do work on audits the whole period. Trang Tran | Senior Associate | Digital Accelerator What do you like about your work? That I can let my creative juices flow and that the possibilities are endless. And all within a field where everything seems so rigid. As a Digital Accelerator you are completely let loose within your own audit practice to rethink everything and see how we as accountants can do things differently and thus save time and at the same time increase quality and deliver more added value to the client and society. Tell us something about the Digital Accelerator program. What opportunities do you get here? And how do you apply these in your daily work? After an intensive but fun training where you learn technical skills such as basic coding and data analysis and visualization, you will help the audit teams to digitize. During your training you will also receive soft skills training where you will learn how to ”sell” change and the importance of being agile. These soft skills are very important if you want to bring about change within an audit firm. At my own clients, I try to automate all manual and repetitive work by deploying software that enables automation or by building robots, for example. This leaves more time for the really interesting topics such as fraud, continuity, estimating items and other topics that you as an accountant also want to spend your time on. What role do you think innovation/new technology plays within accountancy? Accountancy is changing and it is only a matter of time before much of our work is fully automated. This does not mean that we as accountants are no longer needed but this means that we as accountants are going to need a different skill-set and add value in a different way. Because of the amount of data that our clients have available today, we as accountants will have to learn how to analyze the data and how we can thereby replace our traditional auditing work by, for example, performing integral data analysis and zooming in on the outliers. This also means that we as accountants will only add more value in the future because by building smart algorithms into our data analyses, for example, we can detect fraud faster and through predictive analytics we can serve clients better. In addition, I also believe that we will move more towards continuous auditing which will allow accountants to actually add value at any time of the day and not just after the financial year. And perhaps soon we will all work on the blockchain and we as accountants will no longer validate the transactions but the blockchain itself. What role do you think innovation/new technology plays within PwC? Innovation is very high on the agenda at PwC and PwC invests a lot in upskilling its people. PwC also invests an awful lot in developing new tooling and making existing tools available. Often people think that innovation is not possible at a Big 4, but precisely because PwC is not a startup and there are sufficient resources available, we can innovate and make the impossible, possible.- Tell us something about your development/coaching/mentoring The way I develop myself is by making mistakes. The skills I need to build digital solutions, I teach myself by just doing it and gradually learning from my mistakes. And the moment I don’t know where to start or if I get stuck then google is my best friend. Google, Youtube tutorials, forums and asking others to think with me. These are the ways to learn the fastest. However, PwC does have enough training courses so that you have at least the basic skills. These are online courses through Udacity and internal courses where you are adequately guided in developing these new skills. “I can let my creative juices flow and the possibilities are endless.” What would you like to say to your future colleagues? We are the future and we are ultimately going to make a difference for generations to come. The world is changing, our clients are changing, and therefore we as a profession need to change as well. The technological revolution is happening right now at this very moment and that’s why it’s just incredibly cool to become part of this change right now.
Is there any perspective on the housing market?
For the Dutch version, click here. Buying a home, that sounds like Chinese to many students. It sounds like an impossible task, and more than 80% of students think the housing market is doing very poorly. Is the housing market really that bad, or are there opportunities after all? In this article, we will take a look at the housing market situation for recent graduates. Impact Duo First, student debt plays a role in monthly costs. This has an impact on the maximum mortgage you can get. When student debt is accumulated under the current loan system, mortgage lenders assume a weighting factor of 0.35%. This means that 0.35% of the study debt is assumed to be repaid monthly. In concrete terms, this means that if you borrow €1000 per month for 4 years, and thus have accumulated a total student debt of €48,000, your monthly costs for the student debt will be €168 per month. So this cannot then be spent on living expenses, and will be deducted from the maximum mortgage you can get. If you fall under the old pre-2015 system and received a basic scholarship, a weighting factor of 0.65% is used because the study debt must be repaid in 15 years instead of 40 years. Students who fall under both systems can choose which repayment period they take, and depending on that, the weighting factor is determined. However, during the initial phase of repaying student debt, mortgage lenders default to the 15-year repayment term for this group, resulting in a lower maximum mortgage. Duo does indicate for this that a statement can be submitted confirming the choice of repayment term in state, which should remedy this problem. The average student debt is around €16,500 for all students. The debt for people between the ages of 25 and 30 averages €20,300. Income Another essential factor for the maximum mortgage amount is income. The average starting salary after completing a WO master’s degree is around €2,500-€3000 gross per month. One year after completing the Master Finance, the average salary is €3,166. for the Master Accountancy, the average salary one year after graduation is €2,770. Mortgage Take the scenario that you complete the Master’s in Finance. After one year, you earn the average salary and have a permanent contract. You have a study debt of €20,300 under the new system, and you have no other outstanding debts. As a single person, you apply for a mortgage. The maximum mortgage you can get with these details is around €150,000. This is a 30-year annuity mortgage with 4.02% interest with a 20-year fixed-rate period. You will then pay €535 per month. The current housing market Is it possible to buy a starter home if you can borrow a maximum of €150,000? If you would like to buy a house in or around Tilburg, the cheapest houses start at prices around two tons. So without a personal contribution, it is already impossible to buy a house in this situation. A minimum contribution of €50,000 is needed, excluding the buyer’s costs. Housing market development Is there perhaps more perspective in the near future? The Nederlandsche Bank and ABN AMRO expect house prices to fall by 6% in 2023. Rabobank and ING expect a 3% decline on average. A further decline is also expected in 2024. The causes are mainly high mortgage interest rates and lower disposable income due to inflation. A rise in mortgage interest rates obviously also affects the affordability of owner-occupied homes. A further increase in mortgage interest rates will reduce house prices, but this is due to lower affordability from the demand side. Adding to this are ongoing problems in the construction industry, which means that new home construction continues to lag behind demand. There is no imminent improvement in this area. So in the short term, the housing market does not seem to be developing more positively, especially for first-time buyers. Conclusion So it is quite a job for the average recent graduate to secure a house to buy. With only a mortgage, this is virtually impossible. Nor is this going to get much better in the short term. That the majority of students think the housing market is doing badly is justified. Without accumulated wealth, or wealthy parents willing to step in, it looks like a mission impossible.
Accounting firms partners with blockchain
For the Dutch version, click here. In the last years blockchain technology has become a fruitful digital innovation that could have implications business and enterprises. Read more on blockchain in this article Small introduction Blockchain is an upcoming technological innovation that could have major implications for different work fields. Amongst others, accountancy could potentially be reformed by this technology. Needless to say is that accountancy is generally bothered measuring financial information and assuring the correctness of this information. Blockchain has the ability to store information on a shared platform, called a blockchain, where all peers that are connected to the same network own an exact copy of the information provided in that network. In this way Blockchain has the ability to store transactional information that underlines the financial status of a firm. In other words, transactional assertions do not have to take that much time anymore which means that auditors are able to spend their time on matters that require higher level thinking. Based on this given, it can be said that implementing this innovative technology could provide accountancy professionals with a lot of opportunities. However, before blockchain can even be considered as an integral aspect of the financial world, the technology needs to be further optimized and adapted to be practical for professionals. Partnerships Hence, over the recent years accountancy firms have made efforts to forge partnerships with start up firms that specifically work with blockchain technology. So has Deloitte, world’s biggest accountancy firm, forged a partnership with Ava Labs. Ava Labs is the firm that is responsible for the creation of the Avalanche Platorm. The Avalanche blockchain is, just like the rivaling Ethereum blockchain, a platform that utilizes smart contracts to support various amounts of blockchain applications. At this moment, Avalanche is considered to be one of the fastest smart contracts platforms. The developers claim that they have a much faster transaction processing time than the Ethereum blockchain. This means that Avalanche’s scalability is far more superior compared to its competitor. Deloitte forged this partnership in order to leverage the usage of the Avalanche Blockchain. The reason for this is the fact that Deloitte works together with the FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) to develop disaster reimbursement programs for governmental agencies. Deloitte has created a platform called the CAYG-platform, which is a cloud-based application that provide its legislative partners with a decentralized and transparent system. With the help of the Avalanche blockchain, the CAYG application should be able to retrieve documentation more quickly, under reduced administrative effort, and mitigated risks. In this way, the government agencies would potentially be able to help victims of disasters faster with funding while abuse and fraud would be curtailed substantially. Other partnerships Needless to say is that Deloitte is not the only big accountancy firm that has formed strategic alliances with blockchain firms. In 2021, PWC has partnered up with blockchain firm Vechain in order to develop a low-code digital service platform that uses blockchain technology. With the help of this technology enterprises would be able to utilize digitized business models that require the adaption of the innovative blockchain technology. After succesful adoption, enterprises would be able to integrate scattered supply chain data in a rigid and reliable blockchain ecosystem. In this way firms could achieve full transparency over the complete span of the vertical supply chain, which promotes trust among firms and its external stakeholders. In the same fashion, EY collaborates with Polygon on building and implementing scaling and enterprise solutions for the Ethereum ecosystem. The Polygon protocol provides an easy framework for new and already existing blockchain developments to build in the Ethereum ecosystem with an increased rate of scalabilitity. In a broader sense, this integration would provide users of this framework with much more efficient transaction processes. Outlook What is a common issue with adapting new technologies is the fact that generally there are problems with data security and privacy. Another problem would be the lack of technical experts and the lack of clear legislation regarding the use of that new technology. In other words, regulators need a new auditing system that is able to watch over this new Blockchain technology in order to see whether no financial misconduct is taking place. However, despite the downsides of Blockchain, its potential benefits for the auditing, and makes it far too interesting to ignore this new innovation. A technology that could enable firms to implement a self-running auditing system would save a lot of extra working hours that could be spend in a much more efficient way. Auditing is just one of the many business areas where blockchain techonology has practical implications. As stated before, this innovation could instigate a big leap forward into technical development that could possibly spur digital innovation in an even faster rate that we have not seen before.
Working at PWC
For the Dutch version, click here. The image of a boring accountant, dressed in a suit with a calculator in their hand, is outdated. Liselotte de Zoete is keen to explain why her profession is so fascinating and far from boring. She discovered her interest in accountancy during her Economics and Business Administration studies. After which she followed a business course at PwC and was hooked. Sharing my opinion “Before I started studying, people sometimes told me I should become a politician. I have opinions on everything and I really want to make an impact. I didn’t become a politician, but I still like to share my opinion. I do this as a senior associate and recently also as chairman of the works council. A nice combination that challenges me to get the maximum out of myself in different areas. As a senior associate within Financial Services, I advise clients on how to achieve their goals in a responsible manner. On the other hand, as chairman of the works council, I focus on PwC’s own policy. In both roles, I am very much involved in gathering and sharing knowledge. As a senior associate, I work in multidisciplinary teams with various specialists. For example in the field of digitalization and data analysis. That results in a nice interaction in terms of knowledge sharing, from which I in turn also learn a lot.” Focus on opportunities and possibilities “PwC employs people with many different backgrounds and talents. That inclusive culture and open work atmosphere immediately appealed to me. I have adhd and am dyslexic. This is no problem at all at PwC. In fact, there is even a diversity network for PwC employees with work challenges. Within this Ability network the focus is not on limitations but on opportunities and possibilities. At the time, I was therefore pleased to be able to do my graduation internship here. It was a nice way to get to know the organization and the audit and accountancy practice better. I discovered that I liked the field of Financial Services within the Assurance business unit best. So it was very nice that I could start working within this team immediately after graduating.” “The world in general, the world of our clients and that of PwC is constantly changing. So it makes sense to move with that and keep developing yourself.” A large training center “PwC is, in a sense, one big training center. The world in general, the world of our clients and that of PwC is constantly changing. So it makes sense to move with it and continue to develop yourself. There are plenty of opportunities to do so. You can follow courses and training programmes and you have access to a worldwide network of professionals with whom you can share knowledge, experience and ideas. When I indicated that I wanted to stand for election to the works council, I was given every opportunity to do so. I had good talks about it with our management team. They thought along with me in a positive and constructive way about how to fulfil this role alongside my work as senior associate. This has worked out well. So good, in fact, that I have been able to make great strides in both areas. The presidency has brought me much and is an immense learning experience. In addition, I will soon grow into the role of manager within my accountancy work, where I am the pivot between management and execution.” A pleasant working environment for everyone “Within the OR, we are committed to a pleasant working environment for all employees. We also maintain an open dialogue with the management about company policy and employee interests. This can be about anything. For example, we have made a case for flexible working hours and a personal well-being budget for each employee. In this way we ensure a good work-life balance. What about my own work-life balance? In terms of audits, the winter period is a busy time, when my work really comes first. As soon as the sun shines more often again you can find me on the field hockey field in my spare time. I also love cooking, good food, reading, traveling and of course my dog Saskia.”
