PROGRAMME OF THE CERTIFICATE PREPARATORY FOR THE DUTIES OF AUDITOR
In application of the provisions of article A. 822-1-1, the syllabus for the tests for the preparatory certificate for the duties of statutory auditor is set in accordance with this appendix:
ADMISSIBILITY
First test
Accounting
I. – Introduction
A. – History, definition and role of accounting:
Diversity in time and space of accounting models.
Accounting-economy relationships.
Accounting-law relationships.
Consolidated accounts.
B. – Accounting standardisation and regulation:
Standardisation: definition and limits.
The general chart of accounts: accounting principles, nomenclature, systems of accounts (abbreviated, basic, developed).
International accounting standards.
C. – The accounting profession:
Overview of the organisation of the French accounting profession: chartered accountant, statutory auditor, salaried accountant, public accountant; professional organisations (history, role and organisation of the ordre des experts-comptables and the Compagnie nationale des commissaires aux comptes).
Professional ethics: its main criteria (independence, competence, integrity, objectivity, confidentiality) and relations between professionals.
The role of the accounting profession in accounting standard-setting.
II. – The accounting method
A. – Analysis of flow and inventory transactions:
Flow and inventory.
Accounts.
B. – The double-entry mechanism:
The double-entry principle and the consequences of its application; accounting entries.
C. – Accounting controls and summary documents:
Grouping in the accounts.
Accounting classification: assets, liabilities; expenses, income.
Drawing up a trial balance.
First approach to the annual accounts.
III. – Accounting analysis of current transactions
A. – Transactions with customers, suppliers, various service providers, staff and social bodies, banks, public authorities:
Purchases and sales of goods and services (including credit and settlement terms).
Staff remuneration: main components of the payslip, accounting for payroll and taxes and social security contributions based on salaries.
Monitoring the bank account.
Accounting for VAT returns and income tax.
B. – Investment transactions:
Fixed assets: definition and typology.
The entry of fixed assets: acquisition for valuable consideration and free of charge, fixed assets produced by the company.
Marketable securities: acquisition, disposal and accounting for income.
C. – Financing transactions:
Equity.
Bank loans and bonds.
IV. – Inventory work
A. – Stocktaking operations:
Principles of valuation at stocktaking.
Intermittent inventory and changes in inventories.
Amortisation.
Depreciation.
Provisions.
Adjustments to expenses and income.
Accounting for exchange rate fluctuations.
Disposals of fixed assets.
B. – Transition from one financial year to another:
Principle of separation of financial years.
Closing and reopening of accounts.
Notion of appropriation of profit.
V. – Practical organisation of accounting
A. – Accounting records and evidence:
Legal constraints on the preparation and retention of accounting records and documents.
Dematerialisation of information media.
B. – Accounting organisation and controls:
General rules for drawing up annual accounts: balance sheet, income statement and notes.
Documents relating to the prevention of business difficulties.
VI. – In-depth accounting techniques
A. – Valuation of assets and liabilities:
Principles of valuation of assets and liabilities: on entry, at year-end and on exit.
Application of valuation rules to intangible and tangible fixed assets: determination of entry value, incorporation of costs and expenses, specific cases (exchanges, annual royalties, life annuities, retention of title clause, claims and expropriation).
Financial leasing operations.
Research and development operations.
Software and websites.
Stocks and work-in-progress.
Subsidies.
Abandoned receivables.
Foreign currency assets and liabilities.
Securities.
Employee profit-sharing.
B. – Allocation of expenses and income to profit or loss for the year: specific situations:
Provisions.
Financial commitments and financial liabilities.
Subsidisation of expenses and income.
Subsequent events.
Long-term contracts.
Changes in accounting policies.
Foreign currency assets and liabilities.
Changes in accounting policies.
Employee profit-sharing.
C. – Accounting for permanent capital:
Capital and changes in it: initial contributions, increase, reduction.
Allocation of profit.
Regulated provisions.
Financial debts (bank and bond loans, other equity, shareholder accounts).
D. – Introduction to the consolidation of accounts:
Notion of group.
Percentage of interest, percentage of control.
Perimeter of consolidation.
Presentation of consolidation methods.
E. – Introduction to statutory auditing:
The statutory auditor and his assignments.
Notions of internal control, audit evidence and sample testing.
Test two
Management information systems and quantitative management techniques
I. – Information systems and organisational functions
A. – Information and the information system:
Information: nature, characteristics, quality, representation.
The systemic theory of organisations.
The information system: definition, role, components.
Information system management.
Users, computer scientists, managers, experts.
Architecture of an information system: hardware and software, networks, remote computing, operating and processing modes, centralised and decentralised organisation, outsourcing, third-party maintenance.
B. – The IT sector:
Characteristics of the sector.
Constructors, publishers, consultants, IT services companies.
Professional associations.
C. – Process modelling and analysis:
General approach to computerisation: master plan, preliminary study, main stages of computerisation.
Function, organisation, process.
Key processes in a company.
Process characteristics and modelling:
The different approaches to modelling, the impact of production modes on process modelling (unit series, specialised workshops, production or assembly lines, continuous process).
Principles of process simulation.
D. – Management software packages:
Horizontal (by profession) and vertical (by function) software packages.
Basics of supply chain management software packages, production management software packages, sales management software packages, payroll software packages.
Introduction to integrated management software packages (ERP).
E. – Introduction to decision support systems:
Decision support information system (SIAD).
Data warehouses and data mining.
Data-driven knowledge extraction (DKE).
II. – Hardware, networks and IT security
A. – Hardware and networks:
The microcomputer and its architecture:
Peripherals and their evolution.
Networks and their architecture.
Client-server architecture: functional principles and evolution.
Protocols: TCP/IP protocol, internet application protocols.
Network services and organisation:
Network and subnetwork, domain and subdomain.
The different types of network.
The types of link from a workstation to the network.
The organisation of a local network.
Network services.
Functional characteristics of servers: switches, concentrator, router.
Exchange formats: proprietary format, tag language, message format.
B. – Computer security:
Principles of computer security.
Computer risks, risk prevention, access rights.
Security manager.
Workstation security: tools and procedures for protecting, backing up and restoring data.
Regulations on the use of data.
Legal protection of software.
Commission nationale informatique et libertés.
III. – Modelling using software
A. – With a spreadsheet:
Modelling using a spreadsheet:
Advanced spreadsheet functions, macro-functions and custom functions.
Elements of algorithmics and variable language (name, type, value), algorithmic procedures (alternatives, iterative, choice).
Simple programming.
Auditing a spreadsheet: checking objectives, documentation, integrity and scalability.
B. – With a database:
Interpretation of the management domain described (data, functional dependencies, management rules).
Relational database management systems.
Relational schema.
Module of a database management system: screens, reports, forms.
Queries and associated operators.
Importing and exporting data.
IV. – Business software
A. – Accounting and financial management:
Parameterisation of accounting software, input modes.
Production of intermediate and summary statements: production and control of current statements (balance sheet, journals, summary documents, tax return).
Fixed asset management: acquisition of fixed assets with distinction by component, depreciation plan, disposal.
Cash management: budget and cash situations.
Practice management: engagement management (definition, parameterisation, engagement letter), time and budget management, file monitoring.
B. – Dematerialisation and tele-procedures:
Electronic data interchange:
Tax and accounting data transfer (TDFC).
Social data transfer (TDS).
Electronic invoicing (technical and legal aspects).
Electronic signature: legal principles and techniques of electronic signature.
Virtual office.
Nomadic tools.
Collaborative and knowledge management tools:
Customer file management.
Document tracking.
Scheduling management.
V. – Quantitative management techniques
A. – Descriptive and correlative statistics:
Main concepts: population, sample, statistical variable, numbers, frequencies, discrete and continuous variables, frequency density, histogram, distribution function.
Position indicators: mean, mode, median, quantile.
Dispersion indicators: variance, standard deviation.
Other indicators: coefficients of variation, coefficient of skewness.
Correlations and linear regression.
Joint, marginal and conditional distributions.
Covariance, correlation coefficient, regression line.
Variance explained and residual.
B. – Probability and random variables:
Definitions.
Common probability laws.
C. – Forecasting techniques:
Decomposition of a series.
Forecasting the trend component.
Seasonal forecasting.
D. – Financial mathematics:
Principles, rates used.
Capitalisation of schedules.
Using a financial calculator and spreadsheet.
Updating schedules.
Constant periodic payments, amortisation table.
E. – Optimisation:
Basics of linear programming.
ADMISSION
First test
Interrogation on legal, accounting, financial and tax matters
I. – Law
A. – General introduction to law:
Sources of law: international, Community, national (state and professional) sources.
Proof of rights: purpose, burden, methods, admissibility, evolution.
Judicial organisation:
Community courts.
National courts of first instance: civil, commercial, criminal and administrative;
Courts of second instance: courts of appeal and administrative courts of appeal.
Cour de cassation and Conseil d’Etat.
Court staff: magistrates and auxiliaries.
Great European principles of common trial law: right to a fair trial, right to a public trial and right to a trial of reasonable length.
Major principles of French common trial law: principles relating to the jurisdiction of the courts (jurisdiction of attribution and territorial jurisdiction), the conduct of the trial (guiding principles of contradiction, publicity, orality of debates, neutrality of the judge, gratuity), the judgment (enforceability and authority of res judicata).
Alternative methods of dispute resolution.
Amicable settlements: definition, cases of recourse (conciliation and civil mediation, penal mediation and administrative settlements), implementation.
Judicial settlements: arbitration (definition, field, implementation).
B. – General theory of the contract:
Notion and economic functions of the contract.
Founding principles of contract law: freedom of contract, binding force and good faith.
The formation of the contract: conditions of formation, special contractual clauses, sanctions for conditions of formation.
Performance of the contract: obligations to be performed (intended by the parties, imposed by the judge), interpretation of the contract.
Persons obliged: principle of relative effect and its exceptions.
Payment, normal mode of performance of the contract.
Sanctions for non-performance.
C. – Persons and property:
The legal person: uses of the concept of legal person, diversity.
Natural persons:
Capacity and incapacity (definition and distinction).
Elements of identification (surname, domicile and nationality).
Legal persons:
Capacity, principle of speciality, need for representation.
Elements of identification: company name, registered office and nationality.
Traders, natural persons:
Definition.
Traders and sole proprietorships.
Trading acts.
Prohibited and controlled activities.
The trader’s personal status: incapacity, matrimonial regime, civil solidarity pact, nationality, prohibitions, incompatibilities and disqualifications.
The status of the spouse.
Consequences of commercial activity: legal status and obligations of the trader.
Other professionals in business life:
Craftsmen: definition and status.
Farmers: definition and status.
Liberal professionals: diversity and status.
The theory of patrimony:
Personalist approach and patrimony of appropriation thesis: interests and limits.
French positive law approach: attachment to the personalist thesis and consequences, composition (property, patrimonial rights and debts).
Legal nature.
General right of pledge and need for securities.
Property:
General theory of property: attributes and characters.
Acquisition of property: by a legal act and by a legal fact.
The extent of the right of ownership: object, easements, dismembered ownership (usufruct), hindered exercise of the right of ownership (abuse of right and neighbourhood disturbances).
Special applications of ownership:
The goodwill: concept, composition and nature.
Commercial property: conditions of application of the status of commercial leases, regime applicable to commercial leases, right to renewal.
Notions of industrial property: protection of inventions by patents, ornamental creations by designs and models, distinctive signs by trademarks.
Notion of copyright.
D. – The business as a company:
General concepts.
The company, a legal person:
The formation of the company and acquisition of legal personality, partners’ contributions and registration of the legal person.
Identity: the attributes of the legal person (name, registered office, assets, duration and capacity).
Associates and directors, corporate bodies: operation, representation, liability, governance.
Legal aspects relevant to capital and earnings: share capital, shareholders’ equity, concept of profit and dividend, concept of variable capital.
Control and sanctions.
Dissolution and liquidation, terms and extent of legal personality during the dissolution and liquidation phases.
The company without its own legal personality:
Provisions governing the company’s lack of legal personality.
De facto company.
De facto company.
Joint venture company.
The main types of company:
Limited liability companies: multi-person and single-person.
Companies limited by shares: classic, with a management board.
Companies with simplified shares: multi-person and single-person.
General partnerships.
Civil partnerships: real estate, professional, means.
E. – The association:
General concepts and typology.
Constitution and acquisition of legal personality.
Representation, operation and liability of corporate bodies.
Consequences of carrying on an economic activity (competitive or non-competitive).
Control of associations.
Dissolution and liquidation.
F. – Other types of grouping:
Essential characteristics of limited partnerships, liberal practice companies, cooperative companies, agricultural companies, semi-public companies, economic interest grouping, European economic interest grouping, European company.
G. – Criminal business law:
Specific criminal law offences relating to companies and business groups: misuse of corporate assets, distribution of fictitious dividends, presentation or publication of balance sheets that do not give a true and fair view, offences relating to the formation and dissolution of the company, meetings, control of the company as well as corporate rights and changes to the share capital.
General offences under criminal business law: breach of trust, fraud, forgery and use of forgeries, handling of stolen goods.
H. – The company and its liabilities:
The company and liability in tort:
The theory of liability in tort: foundations, field and functions.
The conditions for implementation: damage, operative event, causal link.
The company and criminal liability.
General criminal law: constituent elements of the offence (legal, material and moral elements), classification of offences (felony, misdemeanour and contravention), identification of the person responsible (perpetrator and accomplice), penalty (concept and guiding principles).
Penal procedure: actions (public action and civil action), preparatory investigation, judgment and remedies.
I. – Businesses in difficulty:
Notions on the prevention of business difficulties: role of accounting requirements, triggering of the alert procedure by the statutory auditor, mission of the mandataire ad hoc and the conciliator.
Notions on the treatment of business difficulties: purposes of safeguard, receivership and judicial liquidation procedures.
J. – Individual aspects of employment law:
The formation of the employment contract: conditions for the formation of the contract (substantive and formal conditions, formalities with the social security and labour ministry departments for recruitment).
The performance of the employment contract: obligations of the employer and the employee.
The different forms of employment contract: open-ended contracts and atypical contracts.
Changes to the employment contract: suspension of the contract, modification of the contract, transfer of business and continuation of the employment contract.
Working conditions: working hours, leave and rest, remuneration for work (methods of determining salary and its ancillary and complementary elements), training (the training plan, individual right to training, training leave, financing of training).
Termination of the employment contract: redundancy (grounds and procedures), resignation, mutual agreement of the parties, voluntary departure and retirement, force majeure and judicial termination, effects of termination of the employment contract.
Employer’s powers and employee freedoms:
The foundations of the employer’s power.
Employer’s regulatory acts (internal rules, memos).
Disciplinary law: misconduct and disciplinary sanctions, procedural guarantees, judicial review.
Protecting the individual at work: managerial power and fundamental freedoms (discrimination, harassment, working or accommodation conditions contrary to human dignity), managerial power and protection of the body (involuntary attacks on life and personal integrity, endangering others, health and safety rules).
K. – Collective aspects of labour law:
Collective representation:
Staff representative institutions: staff delegates, works council and group works council.
Trade unions: trade union freedom, legal status of trade unions, trade union representation in the company, role of trade union action.
Protection of staff representative institutions and trade unions: protected persons, means of protection, offences of obstruction.
Employees’ right of expression.
Collective bargaining:
The common law of collective bargaining and agreements: formation of the agreement and terms of application, extension and enlargement.
The specific law of collective bargaining and agreements: national cross-industry agreements, branch agreements and agreements, group agreements, company agreements.
Employee involvement in company performance:
Employee participation in company results.
Incentive schemes.
Savings plans.
Social balance sheet: scope, methods of preparation and dissemination.
L. – Social protection:
Introduction to social protection law:
Social schemes and insured persons.
Administrative and financial organisation of social security.
The general social security scheme:
Protection against the hazards of life: sickness, maternity, disability, death insurance.
Old-age protection: retirement pension rights and benefits.
Coverage of occupational risks: accidents at work and commuting accidents, occupational diseases.
Protection in the event of unemployment: total unemployment, partial unemployment.
Supplementary social protection:
Supplementary schemes: institutions and cover.
Welfare schemes.
Notions on other social schemes: health and old-age insurance for non-agricultural non-salaried workers, agricultural scheme.
M. – Social controls and litigation:
Controls on the application of labour law and social protection: URSSAF controls, controls on undeclared work, controls by the labour inspectorate.
Employment litigation:
Non-litigious conflicts in the employment relationship: strike, lock-out, conciliation, mediation and arbitration.
Litigation in the employment relationship: industrial tribunal litigation, social security litigation, civil employment litigation, criminal employment and social protection litigation.
II. – Taxation
A. – General introduction to tax law:
Definition and characteristics of tax.
The main classifications of taxes.
Domestic and supranational sources of tax law.
B. – Taxation of company income:
Taxation of income in the context of sole proprietorships: industrial and commercial profits, agricultural profits, non-commercial profits.
Taxation of income in the context of companies subject to corporation tax: scope and territoriality of corporation tax, determination and declaration of taxable income, liquidation and payment of corporation tax, treatment of deficits, allocation of income and regime for distributed income.
Taxation of income in the context of partnerships: scope, determination of taxable income, determination of each partner’s share of income.
Tax credits and tax aid granted to businesses.
C. – Value added tax (VAT):
Scope of application.
Territoriality.
Collected VAT.
Deductible VAT.
VAT credit.
Methods of drawing up VAT returns.
Payment of VAT.
Adjustments linked to the deduction coefficient.
Rules applicable to small businesses.
D. – Taxation of capital:
Registration duties: general information on registration duties, transfer duties for valuable consideration on transfers of real estate, business assets, company rights, registration duties and incorporation of companies.
Local taxes: principles applicable to the main taxes.
E. – Payroll taxes:
Payroll tax, apprenticeship tax, employers’ contribution to the financing of continuing vocational training, employers’ contribution to the financing of construction.
F. – Tax audit:
The different forms of tax audit.
General principles of tax audit.
Audit of accounting.
III. – Accounting
The accounting syllabus is identical to that of the first qualifying test.
IV. – Business management and finance
A. – Value:
Value and time:
Cost of money, interest rate (nominal and real).
Present or current value and future value.
Annuities and annuities.
Capitalisation and discounting in discrete time.
Market value.
Required rate-value relationship.
Valuation of fixed-rate debt.
Actuarial rate of return.
Value and risk:
Incertain expected rate of return.
Expected probabilities and expected returns.
Return-risk pair: the expectation/standard deviation representation.
Introduction to diversification: the case of two assets.
Modelling random profitability with a two-factor model.
Notion of diversifiable and non-diversifiable risk.
Value and information:
Information and uncertainty.
Notion of financial market.
Value, information and market price.
Informational efficiency.
B. – Financial diagnosis of the annual accounts:
The diagnostic approach: economic and financial diagnosis of a company, diversity of methods, comparison in space and time.
Analysis of the financial statements: balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement, statement of changes in equity and notes.
Analysis of the business:
Analysis of the income statement: intermediate management balances and cash flow.
Operating risk: break-even point and operating leverage.
Analysis of the financial structure: functional analysis of the balance sheet (overall net working capital, working capital requirements, net cash).
Analysis of profitability:
Economic, financial profitability.
Leverage effect.
Analysis using ratios:
Composition ratios, change ratios.
Ratios of activity, profitability, equilibrium, investment, debt, profitability.
Analysis using cash flow tables:
Financing tables and cash flow tables.
Capacity to bear the cost of debt, solvency.
Capacity to finance investments.
C. – Investment policy:
Investment projects: estimated project flows, operating cash flow, changes in operating working capital requirements, fixed assets, terminal values.
Discount rates, cost of capital for a project.
Financial selection criteria: net present value, internal rate of return, payback period, overall rate of return.
Non-financial selection criteria.
Managing working capital requirements:
Normative approach to assessing operating working capital requirements.
Action on customer, supplier and inventory items.
D. – Financing policy:
Financing methods:
Self-financing.
Financing through capital increases, loans and leasing.
Cost of financing methods.
Financing constraints:
Financial equilibrium.
Financial risk and guarantees.
The structure of financing:
Cost of capital.
Financial structure and enterprise value.
The financing plan:
Objectives of the financing plan.
Process of drawing it up.
Balancing method.
E. – Cash management:
Cash management:
Cash forecasts.
Balancing methods: financing cash shortfalls (discounting, cash loans, overdraft), investing surpluses.
Exchange risk management:
Hedging commercial exchange risk (loan-deposit, forward exchange, currency option).
Test two
English applied to business life
The skills assessed for the oral test in English applied to business life are:
Understanding and commenting, in English, on documents from business life, such as texts, graphs and tables taken from magazines or a company annual report.
