TERENGGANU, March 6 (Bernama) -- SALIHIN and Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) is pleased today to announce the official launching of the world’s first Teaching Accountancy Firm (TAF) at Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT), by guest of honor, Minister of Higher Education, YB Dato’ Seri Idris Jusoh.
The TAF, which is a branch of SALIHIN and located at UMT’s School of Maritime Business and Management, is a joint collaboration between SALIHIN and UMT to provide a unique and advanced learning and practical training platform for both accounting lecturers and students. “It is a hallmark of SALIHIN’s innovative practical solution addressing the unmet needs and challenges facing the nation, the industry and the academia in nurturing and producing industry-ready graduates,” said Salihin Abang, Managing Partner of SALIHIN, Chartered Accountants.
He believes that accountancy related subjects, such as financial accounting, direct taxation, GST, auditing, company secretarial practice and the like, are practical in nature, yet students and lecturers are not adequately exposed to real-life industry practice in the learning process. Ironically, these students are expected to meet industry standards and ready for absorption in the profession. Concerns about skill-mismatch, incompetency and other graduate employability issues are best addressed with the concept of TAF, just like a Teaching Hospital.
The TAF is a great platform SALIHIN and UMT introduced in the world accounting fraternity to integrate real-life industry environment with teaching and learning environment for holistic engagement with students and lecturers. Thus, it will provide strong, effective, efficient, and sustainable capacity building to both lecturers and students.
The uniqueness of this initiative is that it is jointly managed and ran by SALIHIN and UMT. SALIHIN is made up of a group of distinct entities tailoring unique and independent consulting services in the areas of auditing and assurance, taxation (direct and indirect), shariah auditing, business advisory and corporate finance. Meanwhile UMT is the focused-marine based university that has undergone various transformations for better quality of human capital formation.
This marriage between SALIHIN and UMT is expected to contribute immensely in nurturing and producing quality employable accounting graduates by bridging the gap between theory and practice in a real-industry atmosphere.
By BERNAMA
Sunday 06/03/2016
Kerajaan tidak gagal dalam menangani kejatuhan nilai ringgit bahkan lebih bijak serta berhemah dan memahami erti sebenar tentang penyusutan nilai ringgit ini apabila kejadian sebegini berlaku di setiap 10 atau 20 tahun sekali.
Apabila nilai ringgit jatuh secara mendadak maka kerajaan mungkin akan menyekat beberapa aktiviti berat seperti pembelian barangan dari negara asing dan dari luar negara untuk mengekang sedikit prasarana asing supaya dapat membuat sejumlah pembelian berkos tinggi secara perlahan dan berhemah sehingga nilai ringgit kembali pulih.
Kerajaan tidak berhasrat untuk menyangga nilai ringgit walaupun perangkaan menunjukkan jelas bahawa ringgit mulai menyusut secara drastik ke paras yang kritikal atau ke paras terendah kerana inilah waktunya yang dapat memberi sedikit peluang bagi pengurup wang negara atau mereka yang berurus niaga hadapan wang dapat meraih keuntungan.
Para pelancong asing terutamanya yang datang dari negara-negara Eropah dan negara-negara di blok barat dapat menikmati pertukaran wang mereka yang lebih baik apabila mereka datang untuk melancong ke Malaysia.
Begitu juga kepada penduduk dalam negara sendiri dapat menikmati keuntungan yang berlipat ganda dari hasil perniagaan matawang bersama negara-negara jiran seperti Thailand, Indonesia yang sememangnya boleh menjadikan satu tarikan terhadap ekonomi apabila mereka melancong ke negara tersebut dengan dapatan penambahan dari nilaian Rupiah atau Bath yang jauh lebih menguntungkan apabila berlakunya penyusutan nilai matawang tersebut.
Sewaktu berlakunya era penyusutan nilai ringgit ini penulis lebih kepada memberi cadangan kepada kerajaan Malaysia supaya dapat mengandakan untuk lagi usaha untuk membina 'satu empayar pelancongan negara' ke tahap yang lebih tinggi ertinya kerajaan Malaysia perlu membuat berbagai 'promosi pelancongan ' yang hebat terhadap seluruh warga Barat dan Eropah untuk datang melawat Malaysia sebagai 'Tahun Melawat Malaysia sepanjang Tahun ' .
Apabila berlakunya penyusutan nilai ringgit sebegini maka 'promosi pelancongan Eropah ' menjadi satu agenda tahunan negara untuk memperkenalkan secara drastik promosi sebagai ' Malaysia Indah ' di mata dunia dan sekali gus menarik pelancong untuk datang ke Malaysia.
Pelancong dari Eropah tentu tertarik dari pakej tawaran yang kerajaan berikan dan akan bertambah gembira apabila pertukarn wang mereka lebih menguntungkan apabila mereka datang ke Malaysia.Sebagai contoh satu pinggan nasi lemak berharga 5 ringgit Malaysia namun bagi pelancong yang datang dari 'Great Britain mereka akan berkata ' wow! Ini nasi lemak cuma 1 URO, oh! very cheap!'.
Begitu juga sesakali bagi rakyat Malaysia yang pergi melancong ke Bali Indonesia dan harga makanan di sana amat murah berbanding dengan tukaran wang ringgit Malaysia.Sebab pernah berlaku di suatu ketika nilaian pertukaran ringgit berbanding dengan nilai rupiah mencecah sehingga 5000 kali ganda .Contohnya 200 ringgit Malaysia bersamaan dengan satu juta rupiah Indonesia.
Sebenarnya berlakunya penyusutan nilai ringgit ini adalah juga sebagai satu ' Rahmat ' bukanya satu bentuk. ' Alamat Kiamat' terhadap ekonomi di sesebuah negara.
Oleh itu belajarlah dengan erti 'kesabaran' .Seluruh para pemimpin negara perlu bersikap positif terhadap apa yang berlaku untuk berdepan dengan unjuran dari penyusutan nilai ringgit ini ke arah satu bentuk pendekatan yang lebih realistik dan boleh membawa kepada sesuatu yang lebih menguntungkan.
Bagi seluruh badan perusahaan dan perniaga besar , natijah dari keadaan penyusutan nilai ringgit ini mungkin akan membawa sedikit kerugian namun kerugian ini bersifat sementara bahkan akan dapat sesuatu yang lebih menguntungkan secara keadaah yang dapat mengatasi permasalaan dengan membuat suatu 'post mortem ' semula dengan suatu cara perniagaan yang akan mendapat lebihan keuntungan mungkin yang berlipat kali ganda dalam jangka masa pendek atau panjang apabila keadaan nilai ringgit kembali stabil.
Public universities in Malaysia has been mandated by The Ministry of Higher Education (“MOHE”) to escalate the industrial knowledge to the students of Degree of Accountancy in achieving the holistic conceptual of 2u2i Program.
Therefore, UMT through the School of Maritime Business & Management has successfully fulfilled the requirements of 2u2i Program.
This program, namely TAF-UMT introduced five elective course modules which cover accounting, audit and assurance, taxation (direct and indirect), company secretarial and other advisory services. These courses will be assessed through elements of workplace based assessment, written assignment report, portfolio and presentation in which will be evaluated by the respective lecturer and TAF supervisor.
Details of the courses are as follow:
1) ACT4993: Accounting Work Integrated Learning Attachment
Provide students with first-hand experience as an accountant and the development of professional skills required in the future profession especially in financial accounting.
2) ACT4994: Taxation Integrated Learning Attachment
Equip students with first-hand experience as a tax assessor and developing the necessary professional skills for tax advisory tasks.
3) ACT4995: Audit Work Integrated Learning Attachment
The attachment will allow students to apply their theory on audit knowledge and concepts from the syllabus to develop a practical understanding through experiencing the real case scenario.
4) ACT4996: Secretarial Integrated Learning Attachment
Inculcate students with real experience as a Company Secretary and develop a practical understanding of other secretarial work.
5) ACT4997: Business Advisory Integrated Learning Attachment
Instill the student's consultancy skills to allow them to actively cooperate and consult the clients which will be required in business nature.
Students and lecturers are not adequately exposed to real-life industry practice and could not meet the needs and challenges faced by the academia industry. Concerns about skill-mismatch, incompetency and other graduate employability issues are best addressed with the concept of TAF.
TAF is a joint collaboration between SALIHIN and Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) to provide a unique and advanced learning and practical training platform for both accounting lecturers and students.
It is also a marriage between academia and the professional practice aimed at producing “thinking and enterprising accountants” relevant to industry and national.
TAF Objectives
In Malaysia, higher education is integral to the professionalisation of financial accounting area. However, the traditional separation between academia and practice in tertiary curriculum does not necessarily equip students with the skills required to apply the content in a professional context.
Thus, this platform is being utilised to bring industry-experience to the students so that it can convey encouraging vibes to them especially to the final year students. SALIHIN’s consultants engaged with the accounting students via exposing to them the reality of working life in an accountancy firm. Students are also given chances to learn hands-on experience of working environment as they can undergo practical training in TAF Office located in UMT
The Malaysian Accounting Standards Board (MASB) issued the Malaysian Private Entities Reporting Standard (MPERS) to replace the existing Private Entity Reporting Standards (PERS) commencing 14 February 2014. MPERS is applicable to all private entities for financial statements beginning on or after 1 January 2016.
The MPERS is principally based on the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB)’s International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for Small and Medium sized Entities (SMEs) issued in July 2009, except for the requirements on income tax and property development activities. With the issuance of MPERS, private entities have the option to apply the MPERS or the Malaysian Financial Reporting Standards (MFRS) in its entirety.
Realizing the significance of MPERS, SALIHIN-UMT TAF took this initiative to provide MPERS Training to lecturers of Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) and also Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA) to cater the needs for adopting MPERS for both the industry and also the academic practitioner.
Trained with a vast-experienced trainer in area of Auditing and Assurance, Faizul Nizan Zulkefli, Audit Executive Director of SALIHIN AF1426 has delivered his best in making sure all the lecturers experienced the improvisation and latest amendment in auditing framework within the proper guideline in MPERS.
In this new era of globalization and technology, software savvy is now among the most marketable job skills a professional accountant can possess. As what has been said by Sarah Perrin in AB Magazine, “technology will support more real-time reporting and analysis, as well as a transition from retrospective to predictive analysis”. Thus, from that connotation, it can be predicted that by time, software is changing the role of tomorrow’s accountants. To keep up with the changes, there are number of things every future accountant should know about how software is affecting their profession.
Therefore, SALIHIN-UMT Teaching Accountancy Firm (TAF) has conducted training on accounting software namely SALIHIN Premier Solutions (SPS). This training is aimed to produce highly qualified students with vast knowledge in accounting software targeting accounting students of Faculty of Business and Management in Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) and also Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA).
Beyond core accounting modules such as the general ledger, accounts payable, and accounts receivable, SPS functionality exists for bank reconciliations, cash management, financial statement compilation, asset depreciation, and beyond. With experienced consultants in area of accounting, taxation and IT, the students are equipped with necessary skills in exploring how accountants work and experience real data with real assessment. Upon completion of this training with passing marks in the assessment given, a certificate of completion is given to the students.The two-days training has yield a professional student that is industry-ready and efficient in accounting skills.
