[hoopsfan2014]

Hi guys, I’m approaching 10 years in the workforce as an accountant. I work for a CPA firm now without my CPA (I tried a few times in the past and failed). I am being paid very well, I work in a big city and have decent benefits. I am getting calls and emails constantly from recruiters knowing I do not have my CPA. Is the CPA really the end all be all for accountants? I understand how great it is to have one and respect the amount of effort that goes into this. I know it opens more doors and opportunities. But I am miserable studying for it especially FAR. I work primarily in personal tax and some entity tax and enjoy that. I also have dabbled with the thought of buying a tax practice (non cpa / enrolled agent) which there are an abundance of in my area. Am I really setting myself up for disaster by just giving up on taking the CPA? Thanks for any advice !

[SomeSomeCPA]

I passed the CPA back in March 2017 but decided to stop in the old stomping grounds here at A71 to say hi. I realize the test has changed a bit since I passed but here would be my advice.

Ask my fiancé or any of my family or friends and they’ll let you know that the 16 months that I banged my head against the proverbial CPA brick-wall was not one of the most enjoyable periods of my life. Any CPA candidate will let you know, CPA does not stand for Certified Public Accountant but rather “Can’t Pass Again”. After struggling (aka failing) my first 3 tests over the first 7 months of my CPA journey, I felt stuck. But then I reevaluated everything and discovered the 5 key solutions to get me to the promised land.

1. Purchase a review program that works best for how you learn.
Seriously, this sounds obvious but barely anyone follows it. Almost every review course on the market offers a free trial period. If you’re smart, use EVERY course’s free trial until you pass your first test. If the course that you passed with works for you, buy it. If not, take a step back, EVALUATE YOUR STUDY HABITS (see pt2), and try a different study course if need be. I personally purchased 3 over my journey because I didn’t know better and purchased the “best”, aka the one that marketed well, before trying any other review programs.

2. Schedule and evaluate your study habits daily
The CPA exam, unless you’re already a tenured accounting genius, is not a walk in the park. Like a lot of things in life that take effort, if you’re not planning for success, you’re planning to fail. After my early failure I started creating daily schedules of which chapter and how many MCQs (Multiple Choice Questions) I would complete. Shoot for 20 hours a week. Personally, I liked to do 2-3 hours every weekday and 8-10 hours over the weekend.

3. 80/20 rule
After you have successfully figured out which study program works best for you and have a schedule you can follow, you have to figure out how you LEARN. This was one of the hardest parts for me and unless you have taken strenuous exams in the past, you probably don’t know how you learn best. Check out my post on How you learn for more on this. Spend 80% of your time on 20% of the review material. Generally a given review course will have 100+ hours of videos, 1000+ pages of review books, dozens of pages of notes, hours and hours of audio notes, etc etc. Figure out which of these ways of learning works best for you and spend 80% of your time on that 20% of material. For me it was MCQ. When I first started studying I tried to do everything, watch 4 hours of a video, do 2 hours of flashcards, read the notes for an hour, then do an hour of MCQ. I realized that those first 7 hours were ultimately WORTHLESS for how I learn. After changing up my study habits and doing 80% MCQ and 20% everything else, that’s when the passes started coming.

4. Evaluate your prior knowledge and experience and leverage it for your first pass.
This may be counter intuitive to some but in my opinion, leveraging prior education and work experience to get that first pass can be critical to building momentum. I can’t tell you how many colleagues I have that tried to pass their first test and couldn’t do it, so they gave up. Take the test that you can relate to first to build momentum. As an example, I have a B.S in Mathematics and a minor in Business. After going back to school for my accounting credits I still was a little shaky on book keeping and financial statements. I tried to hammer through FAR without a good foundation and it just did not work. I decided to go to a subject a bit more calculation and business intensive, BEC, and received my first pass! After that I had momentum and went on to finish the exams.

5. Take 2 exams every testing period and most importantly, DON’T QUIT.
One thing I noticed other CPA candidates doing when I was testing was they would spend 10-14 weeks studying for one test, fail it, and then feel like the world had just ended. Many of those candidates decided to quit after doing that twice. Put some pressure on yourself and take 2 exams every testing period. Yes this will cost more if you fail them but I assure you, even with 10-14 weeks of studying you will NEVER walk into a testing center feeling 100% confident and ready. Schedule your first exam on the 2nd or 3rd week of the testing period, that way you have the entire dead month to study for it, and your last exam the last week of a testing period. This means from the last test you took, you have 6 weeks to study for the first and 6 weeks to study for the second.

FAR: 39,59,TBD
BEC: 74,79
AUD: 77
REG: September

[Anonymous]

I guess if it works for you in your situation for now, then it works. Although if your situation changes, you may wish you had stuck it out.

But it's almost impossible for someone like myself who's over 40 and just trying to get my foot in the industry door. Hundreds of swings and misses. I was planning on starting the CPA process once I landed my first accounting job, but maybe that was a mistake.

[Nicole]

honestly- if you get laid off (which can happen, and often does) you will have a very hard time finding a job without one.

FAR NOV 1,2011
REG JAN 31,2012
AUD AUG 31,2011- 54 RESCH FEB 4 2012
BEC JULY 1,2011- 71 RESCH

[AcctDataMan]

Hello,

The exam is outdated. The exam is graded on a curve, which means mediocrity is the bar that you need to surpass. There's not enough data analytical concepts involved. You have a huge % passing the exam with little to no work experience. That leads me to believe that most folks don't understand what they are passing.

Studying and thoroughly understanding the concepts is the only way that you'll gain from this process. The discipline involved, is equivalent to the discipline of an athlete.

Your future is up to you…..it's not written on a resume or justified with credentials.

[dukenuke]

I think having a CPA is pretty much the standard if you want to reach the controller level or higher.

[Ralphie Dos Nachos]

everyone has their reasons for committing to this animal, whether personal, financial, etc. It's a bit of both for me. I'm 24 and it's a personal goal in that I'd be happy to say I accomplished this and make my family proud. I didn't have best GPA in college so I'm hoping that once I pass these exams I can apply to some top 10 firms and hopefully get an offer proving that I'm willing, dedicated and hard-working.

[El]

@AcctDataMan – CPA exam is not graded on a curve, a quick google search will show that.

Why would it be outdated? It is updated every year.

Huge % passing the exam? If you think 44% FAR pass rate is huge then ok. Yes, most candidates have little experience, all the new CPAs I know are Jr. or Sr. Accountants.

“There's not enough data analytical concepts involved.” Agreed, accountants are not data scientists. We want to be CFOs, not CIOs.

“That leads me to believe that most folks don't understand what they are passing.” In my experience, the exam is not very forgiving to people that do not understand the concepts. Look around these boards and see how many people studied their ass off and still failed. It takes a lot of repetition and frustration to sit down an understand what they are being asked because of all the nuances in CPA topics.

I can go on with my rant but I just to leave it with this: don't try to downplay the difficulty of this exam or the amount of hours needed to pass. It isn't the upper division accounting course we all crammed for on Finals week and ended up passing with an 85.

[PNS2CLT]

@AcctDataMan – That's erroneous; per the AICPA, the exam is not curved, and the wild passing fluctuation support this. Instead, the AICPA has set a standard that they deem a CPA must meet. Remember, the AICPA takes your raw score (total points earned, based on the weight of each correct answer), inputs it into a fence that's determined before your exam is taken (e.g. Business Law = 10% of your score), and uses a series of algorithms to validate your performance (among other things, to reduce the luck element in passing).

And it's a test of knowledge (and arguably intelligence) – not a test of experience. In fact, under the “new” exam, the simulations are suppose to mimick work that an accountant would do early in their career at a CPA firm.

@Nicole – If you want to stay in public, sure, but in the hot economy, there's tons of firms that will hire experienced accountants regardless of the license.

[Nicole]

im an assistant controller, and i will never get higher unless i have my cpa

FAR NOV 1,2011
REG JAN 31,2012
AUD AUG 31,2011- 54 RESCH FEB 4 2012
BEC JULY 1,2011- 71 RESCH

[B4BeanCounter]

Not the end of the world, but when it comes down to you and another candidate who's just as qualified as you are and gunning for the same position, but this candidate has CPA, then you know what happens.

[Nicole]

@PNS2CLt i am actually not in public, never have been. I got the public requirement waived b/c a cpa signed off on my experience

FAR NOV 1,2011
REG JAN 31,2012
AUD AUG 31,2011- 54 RESCH FEB 4 2012
BEC JULY 1,2011- 71 RESCH

[Accounting_is_Taxing]

They say it's not curved but that should really be in quotation marks. They have never explained how it's actually graded so I truly believe it's “curved”.

This whole exam is just a memory dump.

[Silent]

The reality is that CPA is not needed. I would go so far as to argue that even having bachelor degree in accounting or related field is not needed. The trend in many industry not just accounting is to care more about experience compare to formal education. Employers now do not care that much if you do not have bachelor degree and some don't even care if you have associate degree as long as you have the needed experience. Obviously the smaller the city, higher unemployment having both more credentials helps. So no CPA is not needed as long as you can keep finding a job. If you are not going to be working for yourself doing taxes then neither CPA or EA is needed.

[Silent]

@Jimmy G and the Boys I totally agree with you. It's like any professional test, it's all about memory dump. Bar exam is no different, 90% of it you will ever see again but you need to prove that you could retain/learn the material at minimum 1 time. CPA test is no different, big part of what is being tested, people will never see again.

[ixlr82day]

I echo the others and believe if you were to move to a different job it will be difficult to find a good job without a CPA…especially a job in public that will pay you more than you are making now.

I pushed to pass the exam because it was frustrating correcting my own family members and friends who would introduce me as a CPA and I would need to correct them or to clients who thought I was a CPA.

[Author]

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