FIELD REPORT

PAC 671

FACULTY OF ACCOUNTANCY
UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA
UiTM CAWANGAN SELANGOR

NAME : NUR AZREEN BINTI RAMLI

STUDENT ID : 2021117961
SUPERVISOR (UiTM) : MADAM NURILMIAH AZIS

0
 TABLE OF CONTENT

SECTION A PAGE

1.0 Introduction …………………………………………………………………. 2

2.0 Summary of Work Done ……………………………………………….. 3-4
3.0 Strengths & Weaknesses of Training …………………………….. 5-6
4.0 Self-Reflection ………………………………………………………………. 7

SECTION B

1.0 Introduction …………………………………………………………………. 8-9

2.0 Discussion …………………………………………………………………… 10-12
3.0 Recommendation ………………………………………………………… 13
4.0 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………… 14
5.0 References……………………………………………………………………. 15

1
SECTION A
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited which well known as Deloitte is a British multinational
professional services network, one of the Big Four accounting firms that have acquired the
largest professional services network by revenue and number of professionals in the world.
Deloitte have been in the industry for over 175 years and in more than 150 countries working
with leaders from Global to private businesses.

Specifically, Deloitte Malaysia is one of the members of the Deloitte Southeast Asia network
which it also operates in Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar,
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. It is made up of over 510 partners and 12,700
professionals spread across 20 offices. Deloitte PLT provide lots of benefits to its employees
and specifically to interns are providing e-learning modules relating to auditing before starting
audit engagement. This act as a tool of giving insight to the interns on the process of audit
engagement. Moreover, Deloitte PLT also provide RM1,000 monthly allowance to interns as
a compensation of work done. However, in December 2023, Deloitte Malaysia have decided
to increase the allowance for interns to RM1,500. Furthermore, Deloitte PLT have a positive
working environment in the aspect of having approachable, helpful, and supportive seniors.

Deloitte is founded with the goal of delivering measurable value to meet the needs of intra-
regional, and companies and enterprises with high rapid growth. The practice serves both
public and private clients in a variety of industries by offering audit and assurance, tax, risk
advisory, financial advisory, and consulting services. Deloitte Malaysia is committed to offering
exceptional client service while maintaining professional objectivity and making a concerted
effort to uphold clients’ trust.

2
2.0 SUMMARY OF WORK DONE
Undergoing my 6 months internship period with Deloitte PLT was indeed providing me with
valuable experiences in auditing of different sector of businesses. Among the works that
have been assigned to me are:

1st task: Documenting the control applied by client for their business processes.
By performing this task, it has sharpened my comprehensive skill as I am needed to fully
understand the control applied by client for each of their business processes before making
the documentation. In order to perform this task, I was required to tag along with the senior in
charged on the walkthrough process with the respective client that related to each of the
business processes. Among the business processes that involved under my care are
inventories, fixed assets, and purchase to pay. After getting the information required from
client, I have to create the flow chart of the control for it and include all the samples that have
been selected to ensure the walkthrough can be done seamlessly, in the description of the
control activities. In cases if client provided the wrong physical supporting documents, I have
to resubmit the request to the client through the Deloitte Connect and notify them to ensure
the supporting documents can be revert in timely manner.

2nd task: Extracting, sorting, running samples, and vouching for testing details of account
balances.
This task has boosted my communication skill since it involves high commitment of conversing
with client. I need to enquire from client for understanding of their accounting system and the
related supporting documents to perform vouching of account balances. One of the accounting
systems that I have work with is SAP system whereby it has a list of T-Code that can be used
to find a particular document needed. I have to extract the general ledger account from SAP
system and sorted it accordingly by its grouping. Next, from the grouping listing, I am required
to run the samples by using audit tools, it is either monetary unit sampling or random sampling.
When the samples have been selected, I may start with the vouching part by requesting the
supporting documents from client. If there are variances arise in its amount, I must enquire
justification from client to ensure the testing of details met its purpose and address the
respective assertions and include it in my audit working paper. Among account balances that
were under my responsibilities throughout my internship period are cash and bank, trade
receivables, trade payables, inventories, revenue, cost of goods sold, and amount owing
from/to related companies.

3
3rd task: Constructing balance sheet and statement of profit or loss and extrapolating.

For this task, I merely assisting the manager in charged whereby I have been provided with
the client’s management account which helped me to identify on the classification of account
balances by client. From there, I am needed to construct the balance sheet and statement of
profit or loss accordingly for the year 2023 and extrapolating it for the year 2024. This is used
to set the Deloitte expectation for the account balances when auditing the client’s companies
in the year 2024. By performing this task, I am able to increase my analytical thinking as well
as polishing my MFRS knowledge because the manager in charged have provided me with a
great explanation on the potential reasons why the account balances are changing in pattern.

4th task: Revising the format of audit working papers.

This task has polished my detail-oriented skill as I am required to revise the format of audit
working papers according to the partner preference. It is indeed crucial to have a
standardization in all audits working papers when it involves a lot of clients’ entities all around
the world to ensure the easiness of reviewing the audit working papers and to identify
mistakes. Among the things that I need to amend are the lead sheet have to used VLOOKUP
function, the stratification has to used SUMIFS function, the selection sample tab has to be
arranged accordingly, moving all the internal information provided by entities into one tab, and
ensure all the figure that needed to be cross referencing to respective audit working papers
have been performed. I believed by completing this task, I am able to increase my ability in
using the excel functions and gain in depth understanding of the utilizing of each of the
functions.

4
3.0 STRENGHTS & WEAKNESSES OF TRAINING
During the six months of internship period in Deloitte Malaysia, I acknowledged the strengths
and weaknesses of training provided by them. The first strength that I would like to highlight
are the proper plan structure of internship for the interns made by them. The first two weeks
in Deloitte Malaysia, the interns are required to do E-Learning whereby interns could learn the
basic of auditing, the importance of keeping confidential information, and refreshing the
knowledge of MFRS which would sharpen our technical skills. After the interns are fully
equipped with necessary knowledge needed, only then they will be sent out to assist
engagement team. Throughout the remaining six months, there will be occasional training
given by the team leader such as training on performing test of details of account balances,
analytics training where we will gain knowledge on how to run journal entry testing, and training
that exposed us on the anti-money laundering act. Aside from activity that related to auditing
field, there are also activities such Christmas eve party, badminton session, and picnic day.
These activities are being planned by the team leader to ensure all the interns from different
universities could better know each other and expand our networking.

The second strength that I wanted to point out are in term of time management in the
engagement team. I believed this is the standardize procedure of performing audit whereby in
each of engagement team, there will be a status tracker to track each of work done by
employees and the deadline. In my opinion, this is a good system as the employees including
interns could mastering time management at work by prioritizing the work that approaching
deadline first before started working on others. By having this system also could ensure the
audit report to be issued in accordance with the timeline set by the client. As an interns, my
work done have to be first reviewed by senior in charged before manager and partners. Hence,
by meeting the deadline given, I am able to amend my work done accordingly once it has been
reviewed by senior in charged. This would definitely help a lot in producing high quality of audit
report.

Lastly, improving our communication skills which is very important for everyone regardless of
their position in the company. Deloitte Malaysia has provided the interns with training to
improve our communication skills through verbally or written. It is very crucial to have a high
skill in communication as auditor tend to communicate more with client in performing our work.
All the things that we have learned during the training are being fully implemented while we
are working on client site. We need to request from client regarding supporting documents
and any justification for variances that arises between client and Deloitte figure. Hence, it is

5
important for us to rely the message in the manner that could be easily comprehend by the
client in order to avoid mistake in audit reporting.
On the other hand, among the weaknesses that I acknowledge while undergoing my internship
period with Deloitte Malaysia is I am unable to get one-to-one feedback from the seniors that
I am working closely with. This is because most of the times the interns are being assigned
with the engagement team within a short period of time such as one week with engagement
team A and the next week with engagement team B. In this case, the seniors in charged will
barely know the interns personally to provide feedback to us regarding the work done.
Therefore, I am personally thinking I have not received constructive feedbacks from my
seniors to improve my technical or soft skills over the time. Being in short period of time in one
engagement team also make the interns unable to fully understand the nature of clients’
businesses and the specific accounting treatment for such businesses. It would be more
interesting if we could learn in depth about certain sector of businesses.

Another weakness that can be highlighted is the ticketing system. It is the system whereby the
senior in charge have to raise ticket to book the intern for their engagement team. However,
most of the time, the seniors taking the interns into the team first without raising the ticket.
Hence, when the interns have completed their work with the engagement team, we have to
chase our senior to raise the ticket in order to reflect the hours that we have been working on
with them. The problem arises when the senior does not aware about the ticketing system. In
my opinion, the ticketing system is quite confusing for both interns and the seniors. It would
be great if the system could record it automatically instead of manually have to raise the ticket
and reflect the hours of working with the team. It would help ease the process of booking
interns for engagement team.

6
4.0 SELF REFLECTION
Undergoing my internship with Deloitte Malaysia was a transformative experience that
encompassed diverse aspects of professional development. I had the valuable opportunity to
build a robust professional network. Engaging with colleagues, clients, seniors, and partners
allowed me to cultivate meaningful connections, enhancing both my interpersonal and
networking skills. As auditing field is well known with its fast-paced environment, hence it has
polished the skills of adaptability and quick thinking in myself. Managing tasks efficiently in
such an environment not only sharpened my time management skills but also provided a real-
world experience of the industry's rapid pace.

The internship significantly contributed to my deep understanding of accounting treatments for

specific items for specific sectors as I have been working with diverse team such as under a
real estate and energy and resources engagement team. It was indeed expanding my
technical knowledge. Understanding and meeting the employer's expectations became a focal
point of my internship. This involved not only delivering high-quality work but also aligning my
efforts with the team’s goals. Overall, the internship in Deloitte Malaysia has been providing
me with useful insight and shaping my understanding of the auditing industry. It further
enhancing my capabilities for future professional endeavors.

7
SECTION B
TOPIC: BIG DATA ANALYTICS DEMANDS FRESH SKILL SETS IN THE ACCOUNTING
PROFESSION
1.0 INTRODUCTION
In the present technological era, it can be seen that all professional practitioners are giving
attention to the dynamic progression of technology by embracing and gradually
implementing it into their job scopes. The accounting profession is not an exception to this
trend, given its role in furnishing valuable business information for organisational benefit,
specifically in embracing big data analytics which are crucial to the current business
environment. Discovering big data analytics in depth could boost operating efficiencies
and analyse potential risks to the business (Tiron-Tudor & Deliu, 2021). Big data analytics
is a branch of analytics in which large datasets known as big data are the input to be
analysed by the same techniques and concepts. It aims to reveal the significant market
trends, hidden patterns, valuable correlations, client preferences, and a various other
potential insight. Big analytics refers to datasets that are huge in volume, high in variety
and velocity which make it complex to handle using traditional tools and techniques. It can
be in the form of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data.

Research done by Tykheev (2018); Hsin-Yu (2020) highlighted that recently those in the
accounting profession and business ownership have encountered the necessity for
approaches and frameworks to manage the substantial volumes of big data that they
encounter regularly. This is because the pros that come with big data analytics are
undeniably could enhance the performance of an organisation as it allowed effective real
time decision making. The traditional method that accountants used which is record-to-
report is no longer relevant as it is limiting the wide view of the data’s trend. Moreover, big
data analytics possesses the capability to offer enhanced assurance regarding the
accuracy and reliability of business financial statements. This capability serves as a
valuable tool for accountants, enabling them to elevate the overall quality of their
accounting services, particularly in the realm of information governance.

By leveraging big data analytics, accountants can refine their ability to manage and ensure
the integrity of financial information, thereby contributing to more robust and reliable
financial reporting for businesses (Siriyama & Destiny, 2021). Hence, it is importance for
future accountants to have a mix of traditional accounting skills and newer abilities in big
data analytics. This combination is crucial for them to stay well-prepared and adaptable in
the changing professional landscape.
8
In addition, according to the study conducted by Sudipta, Sajal, and Swadip (2022), the
importance of big data analytics in accounting is undoubtedly offering various advantages
to the users of the financial statements either internally or externally. Big Data is making
new kinds of data available, such as text, audio, and video information. These
developments will have a major impact on accounting, improving financial accounting and
reporting procedures. The application of big data will increase the quality and relevance
of accounting information, which will promote transparency and shareholder decision-
making. It also assisting the accountants to take fast actions upon detecting major
deviations of the organisation’s performance to avoid major damage. Big data analytics
also provide exciting new potential for accountants to deliver additional value-added
services to organisation. Accountants can make better decisions and develop more
effective strategies by gaining more comprehensive knowledge of a company's
performance through the analysis of massive quantities of financial and non-financial data.

Furthermore, by spotting possible hazards and irregularities in financial data, big data
analytics promotes risk management by enabling proactive mitigation strategies.
Additionally, big data analytics improve fraud detection skills, allowing accountants to put
stronger preventative measures in place. Accountants also can identify areas for cost
optimisation through the analysis of massive datasets, which improves overall financial
performance and facilitates the more effective deployment of resources without a waste.
Big data analytics can provide important insights into a company's position and areas for
improvement by comparing its financial performance against industry benchmarks.

By using predictive analytics, accountants can anticipate future financial patterns and
make proactive financial plans. Big data analytics simplifies the process of adapting to
changing legislation in the field of compliance, ensuring that companies maintain
compliance. Using these tools, accountants move from traditional positions into those of
strategic advisors, providing insightful analysis and recommendations for improving
financial performance and accomplishing long-term objectives. Big data analytics, in its
simplest form, gives accountants the ability to expand their horizons and actively support
company performance. Therefore, big data analytics is crucial for the long-term feasibility
and existence of an organization in the industry.

9
2.0 DISCUSSION
2.1 Benefits and challenges of big data analytics
There are various benefits that big data analytics could offer which one of it is the
mitigation of fraudulent activities. A well utilisation of big data analytics that offer real
time data sets would allow the companies to quickly detecting potential risks or
abnormalities in the business processes. This does help the companies to swiftly take
appropriate actions to avoid or tolerate with the risks by taking into considerations of
accountants’ opinion. The ability of identifying significant risk of fraud would safeguards
financial assets as well as preserving the integrity and trust of stakeholders. Besides,
big data analytics also majorly contributed to a wise advice of accountants to be given
to the top management regarding the companies’ future path, through analysing the
trends and patterns of the data from prior year and make it used of it to build strategies
for current year. It would help companies to remain in competitive advantage in the
evolving market dynamics. Big data analytics is not just a tool for analysis, however, it
is a catalyst for innovation, a shield against risks, and a compass for strategic decision-
making to ensure companies thriving for a better output in aspect of financial outcome.

Despite of the benefits offered, big data analytics also have its own challenges. The
one major of it is to preserve data privacy. The collection of large number of datasets
from various sources could destroyed the data privacy of certain companies. This issue
especially affected the companies that are lack of the expertise needed to establish
strong security measures which make them vulnerable to the risk of data breaches.
Establishing internal audit would help to resolve this matter as they would implement
internal control accordingly. Furthermore, the challenge of data quality assurance
which could be incomplete, inaccurate, and outdated could lead to make poor business
decisions that might give big impact to stakeholders (Sudipta, Sajal, & Swadip, 2022).
Hence, it is important for accountants to equipped themselves with necessary skills
needed in handling big data analytics to avoid being misguided by the flawed
information. As much as companies benefited from the big data analytics, they also
have to address methods to overcome the challenges in order to ensure the business
is running in ethical manners.

10
2.2 Implications of big data analytics on accounting profession
The existence of big data analytics does boost the value of accountants to analyse the
risk in the operations of the business and better in improving the financial performance
of the company. There are a lot of implications of big data analytics on accounting
profession as accountants are always working in a fast-paced environment that require
them to deliver tasks strategically. The first implication is accountants are required to
acquire technical competencies. This is to ensure the power of big data analytics are
fully utilized in a manner that bring fortune to the company. Among the technical skills
needed for accountants to dominate the big data analytics are mastering the data
analysis tools, ability to understand the data visualization to provide accurate
information out of it, and eager to learn the method of efficient data processing by using
big data analytics. According to Tiron & Deliu (2021), accountants are encouraged to
leverage on big data analytics to increase operating efficiencies, assess risks and
identify advantages and weaknesses through analysis.

Furthermore, accountants must have the awareness of cyber and information security
laws. This is due to the nature of financial information that is sensitive and required
high protection of data from cyber threats. Accountants should always alert with the
latest cybersecurity attacks and understand the importance of data encryption to
ensure the transmission of data is well secured. It is crucial for accountants to possess
a certain level of knowledge in cyber and information security laws to ensure the
confidentiality and integrity of financial data comply with legal regulations and
safeguard against potential data breaches.

Lastly, the utilization of big data analytics has made accountants able to engage in
real-time financial reporting which led to accurate financial reporting as it is no longer
based on the past data. This helps to enhance the role of accountants as strategic
partner in provide financial planning of the company towards effective and efficient
operation that could generate more profit. Real-time financial reporting also facilitates
in making a wise financial decision in timely manner to maintain a stable growth of the
company. Therefore, well utilization of big data analytics could enrich the accountants
and positively contributing the success of the company’s financial.

11
2.3 Big data analytics knowledge & skills of accountants
In effort to embrace the development of big data analytics, there two critical elements
which are big data analytics knowledge and skills that are needed for accountants to
complement traditional accounting job function. It is crucial for accountants to possess
the big data analytics knowledge to gain understanding on programming knowledge
and coding to obtain useful data. By having excellent knowledge of big data analytics,
the data obtained would be reliable and accurate to be use in performing analysis. The
Malaysia Institute of Accountants (MIA) has acknowledged the influence of big data
analytics on the accounting profession. At the MIA’s Big Data Analytics Conference in
2015, it was noted that big data analytics was utilize by organisations in consumer
analytics (48%), operational analytics (21%), and fraud and compliance (21%)
(Wahyuni, 2020).

On the other hand, the second element is big data analytics skills in accountants also
play a vital role as it is defined as the ability to analyse the data obtained. According to
the research, accountants should have three levels of big data analytics skills in order
to well leverage the big data development which are low, medium, and high skill level.
The low skill level is the traditional accountant’s skill which are reporting and
visualisation. It is more effective to equip the reporting with visualisation as it could
clearly portray the financial performance of the company such as by using dashboards
tool. By visualising, the management could gain in depth insight and understanding on
the financial health of the business at a glance views.

Next, the medium skill level consists of collaborative and big data analytics. It is
because the skills are being grouping as higher complexity tasks as it requires the
accountants to gain understanding on the raw data provided and analyse it into useful
data that can be utilize for business growth. To achieve this level of skill, accountants
are required to have collaborative skill whereby they need to work together with the
computer science experts to give an excellent analysis outcome through sharing
knowledge. Accountants are required to advise the developers on the valuable output
that they expected to retrieve and analyse. Lastly, the high skill level which comprise
of interpretive and predictive skills. Interpretive skills involve the ability to justify the
data that being analyse into meaningful information to the business. On the other hand,
predictive skills the ability of accountants to forecast the future trends of the industry
based on the current available data which would be useful to be use in planning and
budgeting process.

12
3.0 RECOMMENDATIONS
According to the research, the current accounting education is still inadequate to prepare for
future accountants that will be dealing with lots of technological advancement (Augustine et
al., 2020). Therefore, the main parties of the accounting industry which is higher education
and employers should play their role in ensuring the future accountants are well equipped with
the necessary knowledge and skills.

The Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia has aiding in ensuring the younger generation
are ready for the challenges of IR4.0 which include big data analytics (Halili et al., 2021). The
higher learning institutions are encouraged to fully strategize and applied a balance of theory
and technology knowledge for the accounting students as they will be entering the industry
that have undergone a digital transformation. The professional accounting bodies such as
ACCA have taking one step forward in their accounting curriculum by including the learning of
big data development to keep up with the dynamic in accounting profession. Being excellent
at both theory knowledge and navigating the technology system would add value to the
accounting graduates. It will facilitate them in effectively and efficiently performing their tasks
and bring value to the businesses.

In addition, employers play a vital role in ensuring that accountants are equipped with the
necessary skills in big data analytics to meet the evolving demands of the industry. In effort to
facilitate this, organizations can invest in tailored training programs and workshops conducted
by the experts that focus on the practical applications of big data tools and technologies.
Employers also are encouraged to provide access to online courses and certifications in data
analytics that empower accountants to enhance their skill set. Moreover, employers can foster
a culture of continuous learning by encouraging their accountants to participate in industry
conferences and seminars related to big data trends. By developing the mentorship programs
that involving the experienced data analysts guiding the accountants in integrating big data
analytics into their daily tasks can be invaluable to the business. It also offering opportunities
to the accountants to gain hands-on experience on navigating the extraction of big data and
further analyse it for the use of company. This way, they could apply their newfound skills in
real-world scenarios. The initiatives make by employers will be fruitful to the business as it is
not only enhancing the professional development of their accountants but also position their
organizations to leverage the full potential of big data for informed decision-making and
strategic financial management.

13
4.0 CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the integration of big data analytics into the accounting profession marks a
milestone of transformation, necessitating the acquisition of fresh skill sets to navigate the
dynamic and data-centric environment. As technology reshapes the financial processes,
accountants find themselves at the forefront of a digital revolution that demands a
comprehensive understanding of data analytics. Beyond traditional roles emphasizing
accuracy and compliance, accountants now face the requirement of proficiency in data
interpretation, management, and the utilization of advanced analytics tools and make full use
of its benefits.

Embracing this paradigm shift is not merely a response of accountants to industry demands,
it is a proactive measure to prepare for the future of the accounting profession. As reported by
the World Economic Forum in 2020 highlighted that accounting and bookkeeping jobs are
expected to face decline in demand by 2025, whereas jobs as data analysts and big data
specialists will be growing in demand. The routinely job scope are likely to be displaced by
new technologies, rendering them obsolete in the future. Continuous learning and upskilling
are the crucial part of this evolution, ensuring that accountants remain at the forefront of
technological advancements. Proficiency in data analytics software which lead to deeper
comprehension of data privacy and security, the new skill sets demanded by big data analytics
enable accountants to offer strategic insights and added value to the profession beyond
traditional expectations. Most importantly, the responsible parties such as the organisation
and the universities itself have to take necessary action to sharpen the accountants and future
accountants’ skills in this digital age.

14
5.0 REFERENCES

Bose, S., Dey, S.K., & `Bhattacharjee, S. (2022). Big Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence

in Accounting: An Overview. Handbook of Big Data Methods (pp.1-34).

Herath, S. K., & Woods, D. (2021). Impacts of big data on accounting. The Business and

Management Review, 12(02). https://doi.org/10.24052/bmr/v12nu02/art-15

Kroon, N., Alves, M. do C., & Martins, I. (2021). The Impacts of Emerging Technologies on

Accountants’ Role and Skills: Connecting to Open Innovation—A Systematic

Literature Review. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and

Complexity, 7(3), 163. https://doi.org/10.3390/joitmc7030163\

Zin, N.M., Kasim, E.S., Kandasamy, I.D., Khairani, N.S., Noor, N.M., & Sufian, N.I.M. (2022).

Big Data Analytics Knowledge and Skills: What You Need as a 21st Century

Accounting Graduate. Management and Accounting Review, 21(3).

What are the benefits and challenges of Big Data Analytics? (2023, September 19). The

Economic Times. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/c-suite/what-are-the-

benefits-and-challenges-of-big-data-analytics/articleshow/103312056.cms

15