[Anonymous]

Hi everyone, I am thinking of taking the CPA exam and I have couple questions if anyone can answer.

1. Is there a time limit from passing the CPA exam to getting licensed? I graduated with 121 credits and currently I have a full time job, so it will take a while for me to fulfill the 150 credit requirement even if I pass the exam.

2. I work at a private company with 60 employees and only 3 are doing the accounting work including me. None of us have CPA license and my area of work mostly consisted of preparing invoices, doing payroll and expense reimbursements. Will that qualify as required work experience? If so, I have to get an outside CPA to sign off right? Does anyone have any experience regarding this?

3. On average, how many hours of study is recommended for each section of the CPA exam? If I plan to study 4 hours a day on weekdays and 5 hours on weekends, that will be 30 hours a week. When should I start the study if I plan to take a section of the exam in October?

4. I know that once you pass the 1st exam, you must pass the other 3 within 18 months. However, I heard that if you repeatably fail 1 exam, it will invalidate other exams that you have already passed and you have to take them again?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

1. Check with your state board, this can and does vary from state to state.

2. Same as “1”

3. This really depends on your prior knowledge of the subject mater and your ability to retain information. Start as early as possible and feel it out from there.

4. your scores only expire or become void after 18 months, repeated failures will not impact this.

Best of luck.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, things do vary a decent bit from state to state,so some of this we couldn't hope to guess without knowing what state you're in and/or being familiar with the rules of that state. So like Adrost said, 1 and 2, check with your state! But in every state I'm familiar with, you *would* have to get an outside CPA to sign off on it. And honestly, the CPA's opinion will matter as much as your state board's opinion, cause if the board says “That counts” but your CPA contact says “I don't think it's good enough, I won't sign”, then you're still in a tough spot!

3 really varies from person to person. You can read around on here and get a million different opinions, but until you actually do it, you won't know what your personal needs are. The course that you choose will also effect how long it takes you to study. Personally, I'm taking tests every 6 weeks or so (though I have AUD scheduled about 4 weeks after FAR…we'll see how that goes 😛 ), and I'm not even close to 30 hours/week of study. But, there are others who study 40-50 hours a week and take 8 or 10 weeks per section!

My advice would be to talk to your state board about the timing for getting your educational requirements post-exam-completion, and see if you need to get your credits or pass the exam first. (More on this below.) Then, if you can do the exam first, I would get some study materials, pick the section that you think will be easiest for you, and start studying like crazy. Get registered for the exam, and see if you can't be ready in time to take it the end of August. Why? Because why not? For myself, I know that I won't study as seriously when the exam is way out there…or if I'm just “getting my feet wet” to see when might work well. So for me, I had to schedule it, and then I could study like I meant it, and then I passed. I'm not saying you have to take it in August, but if you aim for that, then you'll study seriously, and then you can decide to wait till October and you'll be way ahead of the game!

And…for the educational requirements…do you need specific things (like more business or accounting hours), or do you just need hours of any sort? If you look around here, you'll find several people's suggestions for quick, easy credits to get – here's one spot that I posted my best ideas: https://www.another71.com/cpa-exam-forum/topic/just-need-two-quick-education-credit-hours-can-be-any-level#post-336943 Note that the FEMA courses I talked about, if you transferred them to Thomas Edison State College, they'd charge $600 to transfer as many credits as you wanted. They also accept all CLEPs, DSSTs, etc. I don't want to completely hijack this thread with education discussion, but wanted to share that thread since you might be able to get your remaining credits very quickly and easily!

[mla1169]

In MA, you can get what is called a “non reporting license” (you can't sign off on Financial Statements as having provided attest services) without having your experience signed off by a CPA but you have to have a masters degree as a substitute for the experience requirement.

FAR- 77
AUD -49, 71, 84
REG -56,75!
BEC -75

Massachusetts CPA (non reporting) since 3/12.

[Author]

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