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EFAA Annual Conference "SMEs and SMPs: is the traditional role of the profession challenged?"
On 22 May in Copenhagen, EFAA organised, in co-operation with its Danish member FRR, a conference on ‘SMEs and SMPs: Is the traditional role of the profession challenged?’ The aim of the conference was to discuss the role of the accounting profession with regards to the needs of the SME clients. Speakers from SME and industry organisations, practitioners, academics, legislators and standard setter took the floor in two panels on 1) the mission of the profession interpreted by the SME clients and 2) the mission of the profession: a new educational challenge.
Speaking in the first panel, Luc Hendrickx, UEAPME Director for Enterprise policy, confirmed that accountants are the most important small businesses’ advisors, mainly on fiscal, taxation and financing issues and score well on client satisfaction. Close relationships, good reputation and competence are the main criteria for the choice of an accountant. Kristian Koktvedgaard, from the Confederation of Danish Industry, emphasised on the use of the audit to create value in business. Niels Englev, from the Danish Commerce Agency, questioned whether the trend to set up new regulation, for instance the IFRS, is compatible with the focusing on reducing administrative burden. The last speaker of the first panel, Geoffrey Britton, expressed the view of a practitioner. He stressed the importance of the relationship with the client and within the practice. He insisted on several concepts that are the essence of a good service, among which, reliability, experience, trust, independence, helpfulness and integrity. Participants in the audience stated that the main challenge today is to find a clear definition of the profession in a context where auditing and pure accounting are not sufficient anymore, and there is now a strong need to better know and understand the needs of the clients. However, all the participants agreed that an audit should be performed whenever it is necessary.
The second panel addressed the education challenges. Piotr Madziar from the European Commission - DG Internal Market, said that the traditional business structure and environment are evolving and request a wider scope of competences and a mix of skills from the profession. He stressed that all EU stakeholders, and in particular the European Commission, are committed to the change. Marc Spofforth, from the International Accounting Education Standards Board (IAESB), presented the Board and its main projects on International Education Standards that should reflect good practices in pre- and post qualification. He insisted on the importance of benchmarking and also questioned whether audit training is the best way to learn how to advise SMEs. Kim Füchsel, from PWC Denmark, stressed the importance for the profession to be involved in, and even anticipate, the process of standardisation and regulation, in order to address properly the challenge of a changing profession. Daniel Piano, from CGCEE (Spain) and member of EFAA audit expert group, speaking about the harmonisation of the educational standards in the EU, stressed that there are still major differences in the quality of education between the Member states. He added that an important debate to be raised at EU level is whether audit education should be provided by professional institutes or by universities. Anne-Marike van Arkel, from NOvAA (Netherlands) and member of EFAA education and training expert group, presented the Dutch situation and addressed the sensitive issue of education path to become an accountant and/or an auditor. She stressed that in the Netherlands the auditing studies are very hard and she asked whether there is a real need for each accountant to be able to perform an audit. She also pointed out that practices encounter difficulties to recruit as accounting students are fewer and fewer. During the discussion with the audience, concerns were raised on the differentiation and hierarchy trend between accountants and auditors. Instead of promoting such differentiating approach, the profession – which is one and deserves the best, recalled EFAA President – should promote a common branch of study with at the end a possibility of specialisation (auditing, taxation, etc.). Federico Diomeda closed the event by concluding that the main challenge for the profession in its relations to the SME clients is to anticipate their needs.
Speakers' presentations
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