[Anonymous]

I passed the CPA exam about two years ago and am interested in obtaining the CFE designation. I know the CFE is easier to pass in comparison to the CPA. However, the CFE is pretty expensive, costing $845 for study materials which contain 1500 questions. Over 50 cents a question.

Anyway, I’m trying to get the firm that I work for to pay for the study material and testing fees, about $1,200 total. The firm has a seperate departments for work related to fraud, tax, and audit, for which I am in the audit dept. I am having some trouble answering this key question.

How does this certification benefit the firm? (Keep in mind I’m an auditor.)

Some of the answers I came up with are:

• 35 CPE credits for completing the CFE Exam Prep Course

• Improves risk assessment abilities

• Improves fraud detection abilities

• Possibly increases my billing rate

• Ability to provide better client service

• Looks better on proposals

Can anybody help me come up with some more tangible benefits of obtaining the CFE designation?

[HFinn]

Confused…are you planning on staying in Audit or are you planning on moving to the Fraud department?

[porschify]

Instead of “Improves fraud detection abilities” I would put that it lowers firm professional liability. I would think that having the credential would be very beneficial in audit because auditors should always be assessing fraud throughout the audit.

REG- 81
BEC- 72,76
AUD- 67,88
FAR- 78

Done!

[Anonymous]

I'm planning on staying in audit. The point I was trying to get across was that in the event we discover fraud during an engagement, we would reach out to that dept.

[Anonymous]

@Klinc0…it's an extra, but you also need to compare the benefit and the cost of getting/mentaining it. CFE is more for fraud and for someone who wants to become a forensic accountant. The CFE is very easy compared to CPA. I did my CFE within a month, but if you study full time, you can pass in two weeks. Just studied those1,500 MCQs and sorta memorize the answers you will be fine. I attended couple ACEF meeting, and the quality of the attendees were not that impressive. It appeared to me they were there more interested in the foods/paid lunch……

[Author]

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