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 four mandatory courses:
- Advanced Financial Reporting – Get up to speed in preparing financial statements, and understand the issues that reporting standards are trying to solve.
- Data Analytics for Accounting and Control – Understand how information technology is changing accounting and develop hands-on skills in data analysis.
- Advanced Management Accounting – Understand how to design accounting information systems that managers will find useful when making business decisions.
- Corporate Law – Dutch students will study Dutch corporate law, while international students will follow a tailor-made course on their own legal system.
- You’ll take at least three electives. For example:
- 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.
- 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.