Education
The program prepares for the theoretical part of the Dutch Registered Accountant (RA) title. It can be finished in 2,5 years and consists of 7 seminars of 1 or 2 weeks each. The total study load is 76 credits according to the ECTS excluding the applicable deficiency courses in Company Law, Tax Law, and Bookkeeping. Classes are always from Monday till Saturday.
The program tries to bridge the gap between practice and theory. An example of this is the internal control practical case that serves a dual purpose by being a module in the theoretical part of the accountancy education as offered by the EPMA as well as the practical part as offered by the student’s traineeship office.
Teaching is problem-based, making use of cases taken from practice. Students' potentially tacit knowledge is activated as much as possible by means of focused in-class discussions with fellow students and lecturers. Testing takes place by means of a variety of instruments, including written exams, papers, oral exams, cases, and presentations. Individual as well as team performance is assessed.
In January-April there are no formal study requirements except for a limited number of homework cases. This allows students to focus on the busy season at work.
Program
Corporate Law, Tax Law, and Bookkeeping are deficiency courses that are embedded in the curriculum. These are only mandatory for students who do not have the required previously acquired competencies in these fields. Students who do have previously acquired competencies in these fields are not required to attend classes nor participate in the exams.
Auditing & Assurance (A&A)
The focus in the Auditing & Assurance course is on the financial audit, but review engagements, other assurance services, and agreed upon procedures will also be discussed. To fully understand the audit process the auditor needs to have knowledge of the market for audit services since this is the environment in which he delivers his services. The course starts with an introduction into the nature of the audit market, including the various types of auditing, auditors' legal liability, auditing standards, ethics, and independence. Building on this basis the remainder of the course then provides an in-depth discussion of the various stages of the audit process. An important component of the course is IT auditing. As the course progresses the students will start working on audit cases which they have to hand in as a preparation for the national auditing exam. Students will also work on a comprehensive case that recurs each seminar in the program. The course is concluded with partial exams per seminar and the national auditing exam that consists of two cases.
Internal Control & Accounting Information Systems (ICAIS)
The Internal Control & Accounting Information Systems course focuses on business and information processes with ample attention to various aspects of IT control, which merely is the technology component in ICAIS. The interfaces between ICAIS and IT control are for a great deal located in the area of IT systems development. For example, typical ICAIS topics that relate to IT control include data modeling, and the simultaneous development of internal controls and information systems. We follow a managerial approach to ICAIS, indicating that the discipline is placed firmly in the context of existing management practices. From the outset the students will work on ICAIS cases that they have to hand in as a preparation for the national ICAIS exam that consists of two cases. The second exam component is the ICAIS practical case that the student writes based on one of his own clients or processes he/she is involved in. This case is defended in an oral exam that also covers the entire ICAIS literature as discussed in the course.
Financial Accounting & Financial Accounting Law (FR&FRL)
The Financial Accounting course addresses financial reporting in accordance with Dutch GAAP and the differences with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The course focuses on Dutch GAAP and highlights areas where IFRS are significantly different. The relevance of financial statement information for investment analysis and the important link between reporting entities and users of financial information through investor relation management is also addressed. During the course students must hand in various cases. In addition, the course covers the Dutch legal requirements regarding financial accounting as embedded in the Dutch Civil Code. The course is concluded with a written exam and an oral exam.
Company Law and Tax Law (CL/TL)
This course covers the judicial areas that are relevant to auditors, including:
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Dutch Company and Commercial Law
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Dutch Labor and Social Security Law
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Dutch Tax Law
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International Tax Law
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Dutch Civil Law
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European Law
Company Law and Tax Law are offered as separate courses. Each of the two courses is concluded with a written exam.
Bookkeeping
Making journal entries, maintaining ledgers, populating the trial balance and preparing the financial statement are all activities that pertain to the front-end of any financial or cost accounting process. This is an important, yet often underdeveloped skills domain in the previously acquired competencies of prospective EPMA students. Therefore, the program offers a bookkeeping course for those who have deficiencies in this field. The course is concluded with a written exam.
Practice traineeship
The Law on Accountancy Education makes a distinction between a theoretical and a practical educational program.
To become listed in the charter of the NBA, after which you are allowed to bear the title Registered Accountant (in Dutch: Registeraccountant, abbreviated as RA, to be put behind your name), you must submit your diploma from the Tilburg University EPMA as well as official proof that you finished the three-year practice traineeship by means of the integrated (practice and theory) final oral exam.
You do the practical part of your accountancy education via the traineeship office in your audit firm or via an external traineeship office. This traineeship includes half-yearly trainee reports, a term paper in which you describe a dilemma that you encountered in practice, an internal control case from your own practice, and a final integrated oral exam.
Registration for the practical part of your accountancy education is completely independent of the university where you do the theoretical part of the accountancy program. However, you can write the term paper at Tilburg University under supervision of a professor from Tilburg University. Since, this is not an element of the theoretical part of your accountancy education, an additional fee applies. The aforementioned ICAIS case also counts for the practical part of your accountancy education. Here, no additional fee applies since this is also part of your theoretical education as offered by the EPMA.