‘Method of checking accountants is not right’

More than five hundred employees of accounting firm KPMG have cheated on a massive scale through compulsory exams in the last five years. Employees at all levels shared the answers to the tests with each other, mandatory tests that accountants must hold their title.

That’s an important point, as Marcel Pheijffer of Nyenrode Business University knows. ‘Accounting is an honest profession, and the outside world must rely on the signature of the accountant’s opinion,’ he explains. ‘If such a person begins to confuse and cheat his own choice, the gate is open.’

This affects not only the reputation of the profession but also the integrity of the people involved. “KPMG’s reputation now has a blemish, but that is temporary and may be brushed off again in the future, but the people involved really have an integrity problem.”

Check the inspectors

He is supported by Erik Bartelsmann, professor of economics at VU University Amsterdam, who wants to see accountants ‘getting everything on the table to make sure the figures are right’ based on their own professional ethics and professionalism. ‘They are the controllers, and yet we must put the controllers on the controllers of the controllers. If they don’t follow their own methods properly, it’s a bit sad.’

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And since the title of Accountant is a protected title. Bartelsmann: ‘First they have to do university education and then they register as a chartered accountant,’ he explains. “If they are admitted, there are annual educational requirements that an accountant must meet.”

Not strict enough

That, too, has been verified, says Bartelsmann. Not strict enough. “But you’d think it wouldn’t be necessary for an accountant,” he explains. Because they must be bound by professional integrity.

However, while compliance with such tests is internationally mandated, Beijfer says this is not the first time there has been an integrity scandal. Neither is KPMG. “One of the biggest cases ever at KPMG in the US,” he says. ‘And PwC and EY have similar cases in the US, Canada and Australia. A somewhat naive approach – trusting the accountant’s honesty – is therefore not good.’