CPA Practical
Experience:
What You
Need to
Know
Enabling
Competencies
• Professional and ethical
behaviour
FINANCIAL
REPORTING
• Financial reporting needs
and systems
• Accounting policies and
transactions
• Financial report preparation
• Financial statement
analysis
MANAGEMENT
ACCOUNTING
• Management reporting needs
and systems
• Planning, budgeting, and forecasting
• Cost/revenue/profitability
management
• Organizational/individual performance
management
AUDIT AND
ASSURANCE
• Internal control
• Internal audit or external assurance
requirements (basis and risk
assessment)
• Internal audit projects or
external audit engagements
(risk response and
reporting)
T
he CPA certification model offers
future CPAs the opportunity to
obtain their practical experience
in a variety of employment settings. All
future CPAs need to meet the same
general standards, as outlined in the
CPA practical experience requirements
(PER), but they have the flexibility to
align their experience with their overall
career goals and areas of interest by
developing different competencies
and seek ing employment along
different experience routes.
The CPA PER outlines the requirements
for certification. Prescribed requirements for public accounting registration are currently under development
and additional information will be
available later in 2015. Until these new
requirements come into effect, the
current public accounting requirements will remain in place.
Experience
All future CPAs need to obtain at
least 30 months of relevant practical
experience. During this time, they must
develop two types of competencies
– technical and enabling – at set
proficiency levels.
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Six
Competency
Areas
SIX
COMPETENCY
SUB-AREAS
FINANCE
• Financial planning and analysis
• Treasury management
• Capital budgeting/valuation/
corporate finance
The technical work that CPAs do is
reflected in six competencies (each
of which contains three or four subcompetency areas):
• financial reporting;
• management accounting;
• audit and assurance;
• governance and strategy;
• finance; and
• taxation.
The enabling competencies reflect the
ethics, attitudes, and behaviours that
CPAs draw upon in undertaking their
work and include five areas:
• professional and ethical behaviour;
p
• roblem-solving and decisionmaking;
• communication;
• self-management; and
• teamwork and leadership.
I N D U S T R Y U P D AT E
• Problem-solving and
decision-making
• Communication
• Self-management
• Teamwork and
leadership
STRATEGY AND
GOVERNANCE
• Governance, mission,
values, and mandate
• Strategy development and
implementation
• Enterprise risk management
TAXATION
• Income tax legislation and
research
• Tax compliance: corporate
or personal
• Tax planning: corporate
or personal
As future CPAs gain autonomy and
their work increases in complexity,
routine tasks decrease and their level
of proficiency increases:
• Level 0 reflects work of a clerical
or administrative nature;
• Level 1 reflects work of a
professional level, but not yet that
of a newly certified CPA; and
L
• evel 2 reflects work expected of
a newly certified CPA.
Future CPAs do not need to develop all
of the technical competencies through
their practical experience, since the
CPA Professional Education Program
covers all of the technical competency
areas. They only need to satisfy the
core, depth, and breadth requirements
of the technical competencies that
t h e y d o u n d e r t a k e, w h i c h a re
also embedded with progression
requirements.