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The Accounting Capstone course is part of the curriculum for Master’s students majoring in Accounting. Students usually complete the course in their fifth or final year of study. This management consulting course allows students to apply the analytical and business skills they have acquired during their studies, as well as to develop their presentation skills.

In autumn 2024, teams of five students solved real-life business challenges presented by companies and organisations. Seven different challenges were developed for the course in collaboration between the course instructors and the organisations, so that each student had the opportunity to work on a topic of their own interest. Professor Jari Huikku and Assistant Professor Jukka Sihvonen taught the course. The course was first available ten years ago, and so far students have completed 164 projects.

‘This autumn's course consisted of seven groups, all of which produced very high quality work. The assignments covered the process development of a budgeting and forecasting system and mapping new systems, the development of a determination of return on investment requirement, the assessment of the impact of the global minimum tax regulations, and the comparison of sales forecasting systems. In addition, development tasks were related to fixed cost forecasting, internal services performance measurement and the planned digitalisation strategy,’ says Professor Jari Huikku.

Helen's project partners very satisfied

Helen (energy company) was one of the contractors. The Helen student team included Harriet Hellman, Joel Nurminiemi, Aapo Rautakoski, Lauri Tuomela and Topi Vähäsarja. Helen's CFO Timo Rajala and Group Treasurer Jukka Kalliomäki participated in the project. The purpose of the assignment was to develop the determination of return requirements for Helen's investments. This work was rewarded with a recognition award.

The students conducted twenty interviews with Helen's management and a dozen interviews with company executives, finance professionals, Aalto University researchers and technology experts. They also studied the literature in the field and carried out a comparative analysis with a number of other companies.

Helen's CFO Timo Rajala is very pleased with the project. 

‘The end result of the project, both the written documentation and the final presentation of the project, exceeded my expectations. The content was precise, and the topics were dealt with accurately and from different perspectives. Relevant literature was included. The written report was comprehensive and well structured.’ 

‘We are able to make good use of the project results in our concepts. In addition, the final presentation of the group was professional and the students had a really nice touch,’ says Group Treasurer Jukka Kalliomäki.

The group of students who did the project work are also very satisfied with the whole project and everything it taught them.

Topi Vähäsarja says that the Capstone course provided a unique opportunity to learn about the strategic challenges faced by business leaders and to participate in solving them in a practical way. According to Aapo Rautakoski, the Capstone course will be remembered as one of the most interesting learning experiences.

‘The Capstone course taught me a huge amount about different aspects of project work and gave me the opportunity to get into situations that I wouldn't necessarily have had access to otherwise during my studies. In addition to learning theory, we were able to develop our skills in presenting cases, conducting interviews and project management,’ says Harriet Hellman.

‘It was a pleasure to work on the project, as the whole team, the supervisor, Helen's professionals and external experts were all interested in our assignment and its success,’ continues Lauri Tuomela.

‘Capstone simulates business projects in the best possible way: it combined a certain degree of freedom in design and implementation with a considerable dose of ambiguity in the assignment,’ says Joel Nurminiemi.

The students thank Helen for the very good cooperation throughout the project. ‘We got valuable insights from the company representatives, which helped the project to be successful. The assignment was quite challenging and interesting, and therefore we liked it very much. It gave us an excellent opportunity to apply the lessons of accounting and finance in practice. Thanks also to our academic supervisor for his support and for sharing his experience. Ultimately, it was the cooperation between the different parties involved that made the difference between the course and the success of our work,’ says the student group.