The profession of accounting is concerned on the internal and the external information system. These information systems support the economic planning and contribute to the improvement of the economic activity. The importance of an appropriate training of professionals of accounting is internationally recognised and endorsed by different organisations such as the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), and in Europe the Féderation Experts Comptables (FEE). In Spain, the Instituto de Contabilidad y Auditoria de Cuentas (ICAC) is the organisation dependent of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness that regulates the accounting profession. Moreover, professional corporations ensure the quality of services provided by their partners, such as the Colegio Oficial Censores Jurados de cuentas (Board of statutory auditors), Colegio Oficial de economistas (Official Association of Economists), Colegio Oficial de Titulares Mercantiles y Empresariales (Official Association of Qualified Financial and Economic Experts), Registro de Economistas Auditores ( Registry of Auditors),…

The MASTER’S DEGREE IN ACCOUNTING, AUDITING AND MANAGEMENT CONTROL offers specific training of advanced level in order to deepen and improve the needed competences for the future professional development of students. The Master’s has three pathways or specialisations: auditing, management control and research.

The specialisation in AUDITING is officially recognised by the ICAC, in consequence the holders of a licenciatura (Spanish former undergraduate degree) in Business Management and Administration (ADE), in Economics and holders of a Diploma (Spanish former undergraduate degree) in business administration that complete the Master’s Degree will be exempt from the first stage of the aptitude test for the access to the Registro Oficial de Auditores de Cuentas (Official Registry of Auditors) (ROAC).

The specialisation of MANAGEMENT CONTROL offers an extensive training for achieving the competences required by the activities related to strategic and operational management control in public and private sectors.

GENERAL COMPETENCES OF THE MASTER’S

SPECIFIC COMPETENCES OF THE CURRICULUM PATHWAY

AUDITING

MANAGEMENT CONTROL

1. To apply the knowledge acquired and be able of solving problems in new or unfamiliar environments within broader contexts (or multidisciplinary) related to financial information or management control systems of entities in general.
2. To be able to integrate the knowledge and to face the complexity of formulating judgments based on information that being incomplete or limited, includes reflections on social and ethical responsibilities connected with the application of professional knowledge in areas such as accounting or accounting research.
3. To know how to communicate the findings of a problem as well as the knowledge and the reasons that support it, both to the specialised public in accounting and the non-specialised public, all communicated clearly and without ambiguities.
4. To have learning abilities that allows students to continue studying the problems of accounting in an autonomous way.
5. To understand the different levels of legislation that regulate the issuance of accounting information by the companies, basically the model of IASB adopted by the European Union and the one developed by the ICAC.
6. To know and understand the economic implications of the different ways of accounting different economic events.
7. To know the peculiarities of the accounting treatment of significant corporate transactions such as mergers, acquisitions or demergers.
8. To develop and know how to use the financial statements that companies must develop compulsorily. To know and understand the economic implications of the different ways of accounting economic transactions.
9. To be able to determine when to proceed to develop an evaluation of the company and its consequences, determining the purposes or reasons of this evaluation. To know the main methods of evaluation and to determine in which circumstances it should be applied each of them. To organise and design the evaluation process. To apply the different methods of evaluation and be able to determine a rank of valuation.
10. To be able to identify the risks to which any operator that operate with financial instruments is exposed, whether active or passive. To interpret properly the information of the main markets where they negotiated coverage, and therefore to be able to use the different coverage instruments.
11. To be able to plan an auditing work taking into account the characteristics of the order, the internal control within the organisation and the knowledge about the regulations of auditing techniques promulgated by the ICAC. To know which legislation is applicable and to develop the needed skills to determine which are the sources of information that can be used.
12. To be able to identify and analyse the requirements that have to meet the accounting information. To evaluate and quantify the levels of disclosure of digital corporative information that companies spread. To design and to organise a dissemination model of digital corporate disclosure. To analyse and develop XBRL taxonomies. To establish and analyse certification models and auditing for digital corporative information of companies.
13. To understand the relevance and implications of management control; to know the importance of strategy management for sustainability and/or creation of value; training in the field of design and in the implementation of management control systems; to learn about management control systems of the strategy; training in the work methodology for the design of strategic maps; and to know the controller skills.
14. To evaluate the elements that influence in the design and implementation in the control management and its impact on decision making. To know and analyse the budget process; the cost and management of total quality systems; the environmental management; the improvement of profitability through the theory of constraints; the management of supplies chains; and the management of projects in industrial companies, of services or commercials , with specific characteristics and of different sectors.
    1. To know and to understand and to apply the techniques and standard procedures in the review of each work areas in the company.
    2. To interpret the information obtained by the auditors during their work, taking the appropriate decisions.
    3. To issue reports that reflects adequately the compliance of accounting standards.
    4. To judge correctly the strengths and weakness of an organisation.
    1. To be able to analyse the role of costs management in the strategic positioning of the organisation. To know how to analyse the creation of value.
    2. To establish formats for transmission of internal information and its frequency. To identify and understand the indicators, obtaining ad-hoc reports in order to support non-regular decisions.
    3. To detect problems and to propose solutions in the different areas of operational management of the company.
    4. To develop the capacity of analysis in the area of management control for overcoming shortcomings, limitations and difficulties that will present an organisation.
    5. To develop the ability for designing and implementing of management control systems through the use of a spreadsheet.
    6. To develop skills in the management control systems of strategy and in the capacity of creating strategic maps.
    7. To empower the skills that requires the controller for increasing its capacity of creating value in the organisation