Course description
Title of the Teaching Unit
Comptabilité appliquée
Code of the Teaching Unit
21MRE19
Academic year
2025 - 2026
Cycle
Number of credits
2
Number of hours
24
Quarter
1
Weighting
Site
Anjou
Teaching language
French
Teacher in charge
De Matteis Jérémie
Objectives and contribution to the program
This Teaching Unit aims to enable students to:
? Master the process of recording information extracted from supporting documents:
• Accounting for purchase invoices
• Accounting for sales invoices
• Accounting for financial documents
• Accounting for simple and complex miscellaneous operations
? Establish a link between the theoretical concepts studied during their curriculum and their practical application through accounting software;
? Make the best use of the features offered by accounting software through the mastery they will have acquired: reconciliation of third-party accounts, aged trial balances, VAT returns, etc.;
? Understand the added value of accounting software in maintaining bookkeeping;
? Use computerized accounting data to turn a company’s accounting system into a genuine management and decision-making tool;
? Communicate as true specialists with financial professionals such as accountants or chartered accountants responsible for the company’s daily bookkeeping.
This Teaching Unit also aims to instill in students the scientific rigor necessary to begin and pursue their professional careers.
Prerequisites and corequisites
Knowledge of recording conventions, the provisions of Belgian accounting legislation, the Code of Economic Law, the Companies and Associations Code, and the VAT Code enacted by the Belgian legislator is essential in order to follow this course unit.
These subjects have been taught in the following Learning Units or Learning Activities:
- Financial Accounting;
- Advanced Financial Accounting;
- Tax Law;
- Financial Statement Analysis.
This course unit also builds on concepts covered in “Data Management and Analysis”.
Content
This course unit is structured around several case studies.
It is therefore impossible to provide a detailed or fixed syllabus.
However, the accounting data to be processed can be summarized in the following (non-exhaustive) list:
- Purchases of goods (taking into account discounts, ancillary costs, rebates, etc.);
- Down payments for stock purchases;
- Various goods and services (energy consumption, telephone, newspaper subscriptions, etc.);
- Sales of goods (taking into account discounts, ancillary costs, rebates, etc.);
- Down payments received on orders;
- Return of goods sold;
- Investments;
- Payments and receipts (including payments in foreign currencies with exchange rate differences);
- Capital calls following a capital increase;
- Dispute with a sales representative;
- Finance lease;
- Operating lease (renting);
- Vehicle financing;
- Cash credit;
- Mortgage loan;
- Salaries and social charges (including advance payments to the National Social Security Office, meal vouchers, eco-vouchers);
- Taxes other than income tax;
- VAT (including self-assessed VAT, partially deductible VAT, VAT on intra-Community and extra-Community operations, etc.);
- Matching of purchases, sales, expenses and income to the corresponding accounting period;
- Provisions for risks and charges;
- Revaluation of a building;
- Depreciation;
- Foreign exchange differences;
- Variations in merchandise inventories and recognition of inventory adjustments;
- Value adjustments (impairments);
- Deferred taxes;
- Income tax;
- Allocation of results.
Teaching methods
The courses are organized in weekly class sessions. They will allow students to:
• Use the accounting software through practical and concrete case studies;
• Encourage discussions and interactions with students in order to test the skills acquired and sharpen their critical thinking.
The course “Applied Accounting – Accounting Software” is designed around several practical case studies and aims to record all the transactions of a fictitious public limited company (SA) or private limited company (SRL), from the reopening of accounts to the closing of the financial year, using accounting software available on the market and regularly updated.
At the end of the accounting period (limited to three months given the number of hours allocated to the course), students will also be required to present the annual accounts and the VAT return of the SA or SRL.
Assessment method
Mode of assessment
The assessment criteria will be as follows:
- Attendance at all class sessions
- The accounting entries in the accounting software, the presentation of the annual accounts, the VAT return, and the production of the various journals, trial balances, and accounting records included in the file submitted by the specified deadline (see below);
First-session examination arrangements
In order to take part in the first examination session, all students in the group must register with the academic office within the deadlines set for registration.
The assessment is summative and takes the form of an accounting file to be processed and submitted to Mr. De Matteis.
The student will receive the file of a public limited company (S.A.), which must be processed accounting-wise from the opening to the closing over a three-month period. Once all transactions have been recorded, the following documents, extracted from the accounting software, must be submitted in PDF format:
• Purchase journals
• Sales journals
• Financial journals
• Miscellaneous operations journals
• General ledger history
• Customer history
• Supplier history
• Open items history – suppliers
• Open items history – customers
• Trial balance of general accounts
• Customer trial balance
• Supplier trial balance
• Periodic VAT return
• Annual accounts
This work must be carried out by the student at a time that will be communicated to them and within a limited timeframe.
The assessment will focus more on the reasoning, its structure, and logic rather than on the final result, and will aim to evaluate the student’s critical thinking skills.
Second-session examination arrangements
The arrangements for the second examination session are similar to those in effect during the first session.
References
Bibliographic references
Descendre N. & Gomez A. (2019), Financial Accounting Made Easy: From Introduction to Mastery, 4th Edition, Wolters Kluwer, Liège, 2 Volumes – 1,378 pages and 263 pages.
Descendre N., Gomez A., Lievens D., Lurkin P. & Mayez F. (2006), Corporate Accounting: Volumes I and II, ICHEC Syllabus, Bachelor 2, Brussels.
Verhoeven R. (2020), The Practice of Companies: Legal, Accounting and Tax Yearbook, Book 1, Wolters Kluwer, Liège, 936 pages.
Ceulemans M. (2020), Learning VAT – 2020, 19th Edition, Edi.pro, Liège, 298 pages.
Legal texts
Code of Economic Law.
Companies and Associations Code and Royal Decree of 29 April 2019 implementing the Companies and Associations Code.
VAT Code and implementing decrees.
Income Tax Code 1992 and Royal Decree implementing the Income Tax Code 1992.