ACCG100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Accountant, Shell Corporation, Soft Skills
11 May 2018
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EY Presentation
EY is a consultancy that provides tax, auditing, and advisory services. As an accountant, you translate
complex numbers and jargon into real world solutions.
Accounting is good introduction to many financial areas, and gives you a good understanding of a
company as a whole. This is especially true when working in a small firm.
March and July is when people mostly apply for positions
Employability depends on:
• skills / attributes – professionalism and interpersonal skills are very important, as you must
build relationships with clients. Other important skills and attributes include:
o Soft skills: communication, teamwork and critical thinking
o Honesty, accountability, and trust – you are dealing with sensitive and confidential
information
o Solving problems, critical thinking / reasoning, analytical skills
o Organisation
• Experience – any job in which you are interacting with people is good. It shows that you can
manage time. Relevant job experience is an added bonus.
• Networks – before talking to someone, prepare. Ask about their: background, Highlights /
challenges, which Qualifications / skills are useful, Advice for a (final year) student
• Qualifications – technical skills
Employers also consider your drive, commitment and industry knowledge - WHY do you want to
work. They look for long term commitment.
Ethics
What is ethics, and why is it important?
Ethics is the application of universal values, such as human rights, justice, honesty, fairness,
responsibility, respect and compassion, to decision making. The values in ethics concern decent
human conduct and are more universal, rather than personal. Personal morals (e.g. religious values,
cultural values, derived from personal experience) and ethical codes are mostly aligned, but can
come into conflict.
Morals:
• egoistic (self-interest),
• utilitarianism (interest of most people),
• collectivism
The Role of Ethics in Accounting and different professions
Every profession has a different code of ethics. The similarities in these codes include:
do the right thing, professional conduct, honesty, integrity, confidentiality, Client is the first priority,
relationship boundaries, confidentiality – ethical management of information, provide competent
service, regulatory compliance, safety, integrity, fairness,
The major difference between them is who the profession is held accountable to.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
It is important for accountants to understand the ethical codes of different professions as
accountants often work with people from different industries, leading to an overlap in the code of
ethics.
Ethical Issues:
• Lawyers – ensure clients are treated fairly, given fair legal proceedings, presumed innocent
until guilty.
• Sports – match fixing, doping, corruption, salary cap breaches
• Accounting – Ethical issue of valuing national income - GDP as an unethical measure of
national wealth. We need to take into account other forms of capitals needed, e.g.
happiness (human capital), environment (natural capital), and find the right balance
between them
Thomas Piketty – Capital in the twenty First Century (Extract – pg 39-41)
In business operations, sometimes these is a conflict of interest between human capital and financial
capital. How should the income from production be divided between labour and capital?
For those who own nothing but their labour power and who often live in humble conditions, it is
difficult to accept that the owners of capital —some of whom have inherited at least part of their
wealth—are able to appropriate so much of the wealth produced by their labour.
Capitals shae a e uite lage: ofte as uh as oe-quarter of total output and sometimes as
high as one-half in capital-intensive sectors such as mining, or even more where local monopolies
allow the owners of capital to demand an even larger share.
Of ouse, eeoe a also udestad that if all the opas eaigs fo its output et to
paying wages and nothing to profits, it would probably be difficult to attract the capital needed to
finance new investments, at least as our economies are currently organized
Case Studies:
• On August 16, 2012, the South African police intervened in a labor conflict between workers
at the Maikaa platiu ie ea Johaesug ad the ies oes: the stokholdes
of Lonmin, Inc., based in London. Police fired on the strikers with live ammunition. Thirty-
four miners were killed. As often in such strikes, the conflict primarily concerned wages: the
miners had asked for a doubling of their wage from 500 to 1,000 euros a month. After the
tragic loss of life, the company finally proposed a monthly raise of 75 euros.
• At Haymarket Square in Chicago on May 1, 1886, and then at Fourmies, in northern France,
on May 1, 1891, police fired on workers striking for higher wages.
Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants
Accounting Professional and Ethics Standards Board (APESB) outlines a code of ethics for all
accountants. Its fundamental principles:
• Integrity: to be straightforward and honest in all professional and business relationships
• Objectivity: to not allow bias (personal values), conflict of interest or undue influence of
others to override professional or business judgments
• Professional competence and due care: to maintain professional knowledge and skill at the
level required to ensure that a client or employer receives competent Professional Services
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Ey is a consultancy that provides tax, auditing, and advisory services. As an accountant, you translate complex numbers and jargon into real world solutions. Accounting is good introduction to many financial areas, and gives you a good understanding of a company as a whole. This is especially true when working in a small firm. March and july is when people mostly apply for positions. Employability depends on: skills / attributes professionalism and interpersonal skills are very important, as you must build relationships with clients. Relevant job experience is an added bonus: networks before talking to someone, prepare. Ask about their: background, highlights / challenges, which qualifications / skills are useful, advice for a (final year) student: qualifications technical skills. Employers also consider your drive, commitment and industry knowledge - why do you want to work. Ethics is the application of universal values, such as human rights, justice, honesty, fairness, responsibility, respect and compassion, to decision making.
