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L’objectif principal de cette recherche était de fournir un cadre approprié de mesure de la performance pour le département End User Consultancy de la société BEA Europe, axé sur les modèles d’entreprise et le logiciel actuellement utilisé.
En se basant d’une part sur un recensement des écrits concernant les pratiques de la mesure de la performance, des modèles d’affaires, des indicateurs clés et des systèmes de gestion de la performance, cette étude a suivi une méthodologie de recherche spécifique qui a fourni une perspective plus claire quant à la mesure d’une stratégie définie. Le résultat de ce travail est la création d’un module ou du moins d’une première ligne directrice qui a été insérée dans le logiciel Dynamics 365 de la société. Cet outil permet non seulement l’évaluation du département, mais il peut tout à fait s’adapter à de nouveaux objectifs stratégiques différents et est aussi facilement extensible.

Sciences économiques & de gestion > Gestion de l'entreprise & théorie des organisations

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The research investigated the impact of internal controls on the quality of external audit and financial information, focusing on higher education institutions in Belgium. Internal controls are processes, rules, and mechanisms organizations implement to increase the chances of meeting performance and compliance objectives and are primarily of three types. Detective internal controls focus on uncovering irregularities and errors that may have already occurred to mitigate the associated impact on organizational performance. Preventive controls attempt to stop or deter unwanted outcomes before they occur, signifying that they are the most cost-effective risk management approaches. Corrective controls are meant to correct irregularities and errors detected during regular checks. Belgian higher education system follows the Bologna Process agreements to comply with European quality standards. The country has a highly decentralized education system, where communities control most administrative and management activities. The phenomenon signifies that they adopt varied internal controls that affect the quality of external audit and financial information. The differences make evaluating the institutions' compliance with establishing accounting standards challenging, increasing the risk of misappropriation and ineffective decision-making. Hence, this study’s specific objectives included to establish the effect of the internal control environment, the influence of detective controls, impact of corrective internal controls, and determine the effect of preventive internal controls on the quality of external audit and financial information among higher education institutions in Belgium. To achieve the objectives, the study utilized case study research design and a quantitative approach to explain the association between variables, targeting workers in the accounting and audit departments in Belgian higher education institutions. Questionnaires were used to collect data from a sample of 296 respondents using online surveys and the data analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings indicate that all the internal controls except preventive measures significantly predicted the quality of external audit and financial information among higher education institutions. Besides, they showed that there was weak, positive correlation between internal control environment robustness and the dependent variable. Demographic characteristics including occupation, type of institution, experience did not have statistically significant mean differences. The findings challenge Belgian higher education sector stakeholder to continuously improve their internal controls and nurture a culture of accountability and transparency.

Sciences économiques & de gestion > Comptabilité & audit

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From 01/01/2018, entities reporting under IFRS will have to recognize revenue from customer contracts according to a new standard: IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers. 

Superseding the current IFRS guidance on revenue (IAS 11, IAS 18 and their interpretations), IFRS 15 is a project jointly conducted by both the IASB and the FASB. Indeed, current IFRS (IASB) on revenue is limited in terms of guidance while current US GAAP (FASB) is too prescriptive and specific. This sometimes results in inconsistent outcomes for both set of rules, with similar transactions accounted for differently. IFRS 15 was issued in a way that entities could rely on a more comprehensive single set of rules, which would harmonize revenue accounting and allow for better comparisons between entities’ financial statements. 

Since revenue is the key driver of an important majority (if not the totality) of companies, a new revenue standard represents an important change in their accounting and daily functioning. That is why we wanted to study the challenges and impacts the implementation of IFRS 15 stands for in Belgian companies. However, since the application of IFRS 15 is foreseen from 2018, a measurement of the impacts on financial statements is not possible yet.

Following an explanation of the main principles of IFRS 15 and the identification of the main changes against current IFRS (from a general and sectorial perspective), the study analyses the current situation of the standard amongst Belgian entities. Via the presentation of a concrete IFRS 15 implementation project and an on-line survey among Belgian entities (using IFRS for consolidation purposes), the sudy focuses on three main topics: the current progress of IFRS 15 in Belgium, the accounting and extra accounting challenges related to its implementation and the opinion of Belgian companies about it. The results of the study could be summarized as follows: despite an (overall) limited progress in the implementation process, Belgian entities already consider IFRS 15 an unecessary change, notably because of its complexity and the implementation efforts it requires. This opinion is a bit biased though. IFRS 15 is surely more complicated than IAS 11 and IAS 18 but those standards were not adapted anymore to today’s transactions. However, with its more complete guidance, we believe IFRS 15 will remove the (above mentioned) diversity of practices and work for a more harmonized revenue reporting.

Sciences économiques & de gestion > Comptabilité & audit

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C’est en juillet 2014 que l’IASB publia « IFRS 9 : Instruments financiers », un nouveau standard conçu pour remplacer IAS 39. En effet, ce dernier a été durement critiqué par de nombreuses grandes institutions internationales et financières, et d’autant plus depuis la crise financière de 2008. Par rapport à IAS 39, IFRS 9 se veut plus simple à appliquer et à comprendre pour les entités concernées ainsi que pour les parties prenantes. Le standard entrera en application à partir du 1e janvier 2018, sauf éventuellement pour les assureurs qui auraient la possibilité de différer cette date. En effet, il est important pour ce type d’entités de pouvoir s’aligner avec IFRS 4 Phase II, le standard réglementant le reporting des contrats d’assurance, qui devrait être publié sous peu et dont la date d’application n’est pas encore connue.
La refonte de l’ancien standard a amené des changements à trois grands niveaux : la classification et l’évaluation des instruments financiers, leur dépréciation ainsi que la comptabilité de couverture. L’objectif premier de ce mémoire-projet est de fournir une analyse préliminaire des impacts du nouveau standard sur le portefeuille d’investissement et le logiciel de gestion d’actifs d’Ethias SA, le quatrième assureur sur le marché belge.
Au vu de l’avancement du projet et de la complexité de la mise en oeuvre du nouveau standard, nous nous sommes particulièrement concentrés sur la classification et l’évaluation des actifs. Nous avons en effet pu formuler des hypothèses quant à la future classification des actifs en portefeuille. Concernant l’impact de cette nouvelle classification sur le portefeuille de placements d’Ethias SA, nous en avons déduit qu’elle résulterait en une augmentation de la volatilité du compte de résultat, d’une part, et en la diminution de la volatilité des fonds propres, d’autre part. Ensuite, nous avons approuvé la plupart des changements proposés par les développeurs du logiciel de gestion d’actifs, et suggéré des développements complémentaires.
En ce qui concerne la dépréciation des actifs financiers, le calcul des pertes attendues demandera la participation active du département de Risk Management, qui fournira également une analyse d’impacts prévisionnelle. Finalement, les nouveaux principes de comptabilité de couverture devraient être favorables aux entités et leur permettre de refléter plus justement leur politique de gestion de risques d’un point de vue comptable.

Sciences économiques & de gestion > Finance

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In the early 2000, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) began to design specific 
IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) for small and medium-sized entities (SMEs). Those SMEs are defined as entities that do not have public accountability and publish their financial statements on a regular basis. The IFRS for SMEs was designed on principles of its predecessors, the IFRS, but were simplified in order to be used by SMEs. A first version of the IFRS for SMEs was published in 2009. A second version of the IFRS for SMEs was published in November 2015, which takes into account several modifications made earlier. Today, the IFRS for SMEs is used in 80 countries. In its current version, the IFRS for SMEs will be effective in January 2017 and an early application is authorised.
This master thesis revolves around the latest version of the IFRS for SMEs and will explain its main principles as well as a comparison with the Belgian generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Afterwards, this work will focus on the different opportunities that can benefit the SMEs. A survey will also support this work.

SME --- Small and medium-sized entities --- Opportunities --- International Financial Reporting Standards --- IFRS for SMEs --- IFRS --- Financial statements --- Accounting harmonisation --- Accounting --- PME --- Petites et Moyennes Entités --- Opportunités --- International Financial Reporting Standards --- IFRS pour les PME --- IFRS --- Etats financiers --- Harmonisation comptable --- Comptabilité --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Comptabilité & audit