Accounting, Internal Control, and Audit

Profession

Auditing historically represents one of the most important elements of modern market economy infrastructure, contributing to the development of entrepreneurial activity. Despite the crisis in the national economy, the professions of “Accountant” and “Auditor” are prestigious and in demand in the labour market. The demand for highly qualified specialists in different branches of economy remains steadily high. These professions are especially attractive because they allow realizing one's professional aspirations in any segment — both in the biggest world audit companies and international corporations, and in a small business. Only those who have fully mastered the entire professional knowledge in the field of accounting and tax accounting can become an auditor. An auditor is a specialist who in a minimum short period of time will not only check the activities of an enterprise on the basis of the submitted accounts, but will also give a professional consultation aimed at the improvement of management processes.

Educational Process

The mission of the programme is to provide quality and continuous education in accounting, analysis and audit using innovative educational technologies and active teaching methods based on the integration of the processes of teaching, education, research and social activities.
Full adaptation to the specifics of accounting and analytical activities and timely adjustment of the curriculum of the educational programme ensures the integration of university capabilities and employers' requirements, forming a cluster based on the strong interconnection of educational process participants.
The key courses of the programme are: “Business Analysis and Evaluation”, “Intra-Corporate Control (Audit)”, “Practical Audit”, “Practical IFRS Course”, “Management Accounting in Business Decision Making and Justification System”.
The high level of practice-orientation is ensured by the involvement in the educational process of unique specialists who combine a high level of professionalism and extensive experience in teaching.
The programme is focused on training the new generation of professionals (both analysts and researchers) in the field of accounting, audit and analysis, who possess the techniques and methods of forming and ensuring financial strategy for effective and secure business development both in the domestic and international markets.
The educational process is implemented with the collaboration of our partners: PWC, Deloitte, Consultant Plus and Sistema Glavbukh, that regularly hold interesting master classes aimed at the formation of professional competencies. Our students solve cases focused on assessing potential risks and minimising them, and forecasting a company's economic capacity.

Practice

The curriculum involves a research paper and pre-graduation internship, which is directly oriented towards professional and practical training, which naturally complements the process of Master’s study. We have signed agreements with leading audit companies, such as LTD “Action Digital”, as well as major concerns and holdings. After completing internships at the ''Big Four'' audit companies: PWC, EY, Deloitte and KPMG, our students have the opportunity for further employment in these companies.

Career

The “Accounting, Internal Control and Audit” programme is focused on training qualified specialists in accounting, applied economic analysis and auditing for work at enterprises of different forms of ownership of various levels, in consulting and auditing firms, banks, investment and insurance companies. Many of our graduates go on to postgraduate, MBA and ACCA programmes, and many stay on to work at Big Four audit firms after successfully completing their internships. A graduate who joins such a company for a start-up position receives a salary of around 70,000 roubles. If there are no serious shortcomings, the remit, the degree of complexity of the tasks and the salary will increase every year. The salary and career progression of an internal auditor depend on the size of the company and vary from 80,000 at a small Russian firm to 200,000 at a large company.
The vertical audit career progression is as follows: auditor, senior auditor, audit manager. The horizontal movement is realised as a move from Russian audit firms to international firms or as a move to non-audit firms as an internal auditor.