Attention Candidates: Here’s How to Complete Your CPA

By Michael A. Thompson, CPA

Did you pass the CPA Exam a long time ago, but never completed all the steps required to become a full-fledged CPA? Here’s good news: You may already be eligible to become a CPA by utilizing the general accounting experience you gained while working under a direct supervisor who was a CPA. This is likely if you worked for a big public accounting firm, but left for greener pastures. You also may qualify if you worked for a small CPA firm doing tax and accounting work, or if you worked under a CPA in a corporation or small business. Below is a somewhat simplified outline of the major steps to completing your CPA:

CPA Exam: The California Board of Accountancy retains CPA Exam results and college transcripts indefinitely. Therefore, you will need to submit an “Application for Certified Public Accountant License.” It is helpful for you to know your CPA Exam unique identifier and the date you passed the exam. If you passed the CPA Exam in another state, you will need to transfer those grades to the CBA.

Experience: If you have, at minimum, a bachelor’s degree with 24 semester units in accounting and 24 semester units in business from an accredited college, and you performed general accounting work under a direct supervisor who was a CPA, then this experience counts toward CPA licensure. You must have two years of general accounting experience if you have a bachelor’s degree. You need only one year of general accounting experience if you have 150 semester hours of college education. Your supervisor will need to complete a “Certificate of General Experience,” using the appropriate form for work experience obtained either in a nonpublic or public accounting setting. You can kindly remind a former supervisor that all applicants for certification can expect to have a certificate of experience completed on their behalf.

Attest Experience: You may already have attest experience, however, for simplicity, I am not addressing the pathway that allows you to sign audit reports. The reason for this is because if your accounting experience was as an employee of a business, then you were not independent. Also, if your experience was in public accounting a long time ago, then the work papers documenting your efforts may have been destroyed in accordance with strict document retention policies.

Ethics Exam: Applicants for initial license must pass the California Professional Ethics (PETH) examination with a minimum score of 90 percent. This is a self-study exam offered by the CalCPA Education Foundation, is administered online and the results are submitted directly to the CBA.

Continuing Professional Education: If your qualifying work experience occurred five or more years ago, then the CBA may require 48 hours of CPE courses in specific areas. It’s easy to obtain CPE credit from CalCPA chapter events and the CalCPA Education Foundation.

I encourage you to join CalCPA as a candidate member. Current candidate dues are $30 (free for the first year). CalCPA is your support and welcomes new members. I encourage you to become a CPA. Since each applicant’s situation is unique, I recommend reading the CPA Licensing Applicant Handbook, available from the CBA. CalCPA also offers licensing information online, including these FAQs.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 12:08 pm and is filed under President's Message. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.