Accounting and Control at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Are you looking to fast-track your way to a career in accounting? Whether you’re on our full-time one-year programme or our two-year part-time programme, this Master’s in Accounting and Control is the way to get there.

From an accounting perspective, you’ll look at the financial information required to run any organisation, and the information flow needed for managers to make business decisions. And of course control is a key element here: you’ll learn how to use monitoring and reporting to make sure that organisations are governable and performing in the right way. 

Mehr Infos zum Studiengang? Besuche die Website!

weiter: Studieninhalte »

Accounting and Control

Considering issues at an advanced academic level

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 .

Mehr Infos zum Studiengang? Besuche die Website!

« zurück: Kurzprofil

weiter: Karriere »

Accounting and Control

The Accounting and Control programme will furnish you with many skills over and above those relating directly to the qualification: you’ll learn teamwork, presentation, commercial and client-facing skills.

Moreover, the programme is a stepping stone to a career in accounting – it’s the fastest and most efficient way to get on track for your professional qualification. We offer more than twenty post-graduate programmes for you to follow; from auditing, controlling, EDP auditing to risk management and much more. The programme also offers a number of career-oriented events to choose from, such as interview training. 

And as VU Amsterdam has a reputation for integrity, you can rest assured the programme also covers ethics and compliance when it comes to accounting.

Mehr Infos zum Studiengang? Besuche die Website!

« zurück: Studieninhalte

weiter: Zulassung »

Accounting and Control

Admission requirements with an international degree

We look for motivated and ambitious students who have decided that the broad and challenging field of accounting and control is the direction they want to take. You may already have a firm idea of your future career path, but you may also still be considering the many different professional profiles in this area.  We welcome you in either case, and will help you to find your way forward.  We expect that you have a solid academic basis in economics or business.  You have a good grounding in accounting and finance, but you also have the ability and the curiosity to see these disciplines in their wider context. 

Admission requirements

In order to gain admission to our Master’s programme, you need to have at least a Bachelor’s degree from an accredited research university including at least three full years of academic study amounting to a minimum of 180 EC or equivalent. We do not require a GRE or GMAT test score. Your degree should be in economics, business or related disciplines. Apart from general academic and research skills, the programme should include quantitative research methods (statistics) of at least an intermediate level.  We are not necessarily looking for students who have specialized in accounting, but we do expect that you have a solid grounding in the discipline. This means that your programme must include a significant element (as an indication, at least 40-45 EC) of accounting and finance with much of it at least at intermediate level. Accounting is meant broadly and may include, in addition to the essentials of financial and management accounting, topics such as auditing, accounting information systems, and elements of corporate governance. Apart from corporate finance, it may also include financial analysis and financial management. 

This means that we expect you to have successfully completed courses based on the following literature, or equivalent:

• Financial Accounting Elliott & Elliott, Financial Accounting and Reporting (Pearson Education), recent edition
• Management Accounting Rajan, Datar & Horngren, Cost Accounting , Global Edition (Pearson Education), recent edition
• Finance Berk & DeMarzo  Corporate Finance, Global Edition (Pearson Education), recent edition
• Statistics Doane & Seward, Applied Statistics in Business & Economics (McGraw-Hill), recent edition

And preferably one more courses based on the following:

• Financial Statement Analysis Healy & Palepu, Business Analysis Valuation: Using Financial Statements (Cengage Learning), recent edition
• Accounting Information Systems Romney & Steinbart, Accounting Information Systems, Global Edition (Pearson), recent edition
• Auditing Principles of Auditing’ by Rick Hayes, Hans Gortemaker, and Philip Wallage, (Pearson), recent edition

English language requirements

The admission board wants to stress the intensity of the programme: reading scientific articles and writing papers will be a key part, all in a very high pace. Your English language skills, both oral and written, are extremely important in this programme. As you will have to communicate frequently with your fellow students and you will be working with and for international companies.

VU Amsterdam requires all applicants to take an English test. You can, however, begin your application without having the test results. Exceptions are made for students who have completed a bachelor or master in Canada, USA, UK, Ireland, New Zealand or Australia.

The minimum English language proficiency requirements for admission to this Master's programme are:

IELTS (academic):

• Minimum general score 6.5 
• Minimum score speaking 6.0 
• Minimum score listening 6.0 
• Minimum score writing 6.5 
• Minimum score reading 6.5 
• TOEFL Internet-based test: 92 overall
• Cambridge Certificate in Advanced English (CAE): A, B, C
• Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE): A, B, C

I have a Dutch university level (WO) Bachelor’s degree (VU Bachelor's degree, VU premaster or Bachelor's degree at another university)

We look for motivated and ambitious students who have decided that the broad and challenging field of accounting and control is the direction they want to take. You may already have a firm idea of your future career path, but you may also still be considering the many different professional profiles in this area.  We welcome you in either case, and will help you to find your way forward.  We expect that you have a solid academic basis in economics or business.  You have a good grounding in accounting and finance, but you also have the ability and the curiosity to see these disciplines in their wider context.

Admission requirements

The master programme Accounting and Control is open to students with a university Bachelor’s degree in economics, business or related disciplines. Apart from general academic and research skills, the programme should include quantitative research methods (statistics) of at least an intermediate level.  We are not necessarily looking for students who have specialized in accounting, but we do expect that you have a solid grounding in the discipline. This means that your programme must include a significant element  (as an indication, at least 40-45 EC) of accounting and finance with much of it at least at intermediate level.  Accounting is meant broadly and may include, in addition to the essentials of financial and management accounting, topics such as auditing, accounting and business information systems, and relevant elements of corporate governance and corporate law.  Apart from corporate finance, it may also include financial analysis,  financial management and financial markets.

This means that we expect you to have successfully completed courses based on the following literature, or equivalent:

• Financial Accounting Elliott & Elliott, Financial Accounting and Reporting (Pearson Education), recent edition
• Management Accounting Rajan, Datar & Horngren, Cost Accounting , Global Edition (Pearson Education), recent edition
• Finance Berk & DeMarzo  Corporate Finance, Global Edition (Pearson Education), recent edition
• Statistics Doane & Seward, Applied Statistics in Business & Economics (McGraw-Hill), recent edition

And preferably one more courses based on the following:

• Financial Statement Analysis Healy & Palepu, Business Analysis Valuation: Using Financial Statements (Cengage Learning), recent edition
• Accounting Information Systems Romney & Steinbart, Accounting Information Systems, Global Edition (Pearson), recent edition
• Auditing Principles of Auditing’ by Rick Hayes, Hans Gortemaker, and Philip Wallage, (Pearson), recent edition

Subject to the requirements above, approval is in most cases given to students who hold a bachelor’s degree in:

• Business Economics, 
• Business Administration, 
• Financial Management, 
• Economics or 
• Econometrics. 

Mehr Infos zum Studiengang? Besuche die Website!

« zurück: Karriere

weiter: Masterstudiengänge »

Übersicht der Masterstudiengänge - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Mehr Infos zum Studiengang? Besuche die Website!

« zurück: Zulassung

weiter: Kontakt »

« zurück: Masterstudiengänge