• Email Address: hello@greenkeyllc.com
  • Phone Number: 888-368-5336
Submit Your Resume

First Continuous Testing CPA Scores Due Out This Week

06Jun
Green KeyAccounting + Finance

The first group of accountants to take the CPA exam under the new continuous testing policy will begin to get scores Friday. Those who passed, will be celebrating. Those who didn’t will, for the first time, be eligible to retake the test almost immediately.

As of July 1, the rigorous 4-part, 4-hour exam for accountants who want to earn the coveted Certified Public Accountant designation is offered throughout the year. The new “Continuous Testing” approach replaces the previous schedule where candidates could take one or more parts of the exam only once during each of the four annual testing windows.

Now, as soon as a candidate gets their results, they can retake the failed part within a matter of days.

Continuous testing has been under discussion by the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy and the American Institute of CPAs for a few years. Supported by college accounting departments, state accounting boards and other organizations, candidates have long asked for a more frequent testing process. The COVID-19 pandemic shutdown spurred the accounting organizations to act.

“Continuous testing has been a goal for some time, and it comes in direct response to feedback from CPA exam candidates and their desire to test more frequently throughout the year,” said NASBA Executive Vice President & COO Colleen Conrad, CPA.

“NASBA is proud to work in collaboration with the AICPA, Prometric (the testing administrator) and the 55 U.S. Boards of Accountancy to continue to ensure the security of the exam and to implement a successful transition,” she said in a statement issued the day the continuous testing program began.

The CPA exam is administered nationwide, however CPA licensing is the function of each state and territory. While most states have approved the continuous testing change, each had to implement the transition. According to NASBA’s testing status map, three states had not yet completed the process, but were expected to by the July 1 start. It is not clear they made that deadline. South Carolina will not offer continuous testing until next year.

[bdp_post_carousel]

Related Post

Accounting + Finance, Financial Services
Jun 6, 2023

Banks Seek to Improve Their Senior Level Diversity

Accounting + Finance, Financial Services
Jun 6, 2023

Banks Seek to Improve Their Senior Level Diversity

The world’s largest banks may have slowed their overall hiring, but responding to #BlackLivesMatter and other pressures to be more diverse, they are placing greater emphasis on recruiting women and minorities, especially for senior positions.

“It’s not tokenism,” one London-based recruiter told eFinancialCareers.”It’s more that if you have a candidate who fulfills diversity criteria they are likely to sail through the approval process more quickly. This is getting more attention now.”

As a whole, the nation’s largest banks have a workforce that approximates the racial and gender makeup of the US. But as the House Committee on Financial Services reported in February, when it comes to their senior leaders they are 81% white and 71% male.

“Blacks and Latinos comprise four percent or less of banks’ executive and senior level employees and six percent or less of their first/mid-level leadership employees,” the committee report found.

Recruiting women for key positions became a priority last year when Barclays, RBC Capital Markets and Morgan Stanley offered executive search recruiters bonuses to encourage them to present more women for senior positions. The Financial Times said the “premiums are being offered among a range of sweeteners for recruiters, including the promise of additional work, as pressure builds on banks to increase the number of women in top jobs.”

Broader diversity hiring has been a focus of bank hiring for several years, though it’s largely been confined to lower and entry-level positions. eFinancialCareers cites Goldman Sachs published diversity goals, which pertain only to analysts and entry-level associates.

Noting that “Hard targets are less explicit for more senior hires,” the eFinancialCareers article points out that, “With attention being paid to the number of diverse candidates who make managing director, banks have good reason to ensure recruiters aren’t overlooking talented minority candidates when they recruit externally.”

“Diversity hiring is going to be far more important now,” agreed an executive search recruiter who works in London and Wall Street. “This will be a big story for the recruitment business.”

Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash

[bdp_post_carousel]

Read Continue
Accounting + Finance
Jun 6, 2023

Advice for New Accountants Just Starting Out

Accounting + Finance
Jun 6, 2023

Advice for New Accountants Just Starting Out

Starting your first job is stressful enough. Now add in the challenge of beginning your accounting career remotely, meeting colleagues and maybe your boss virtually, in an economic environment roiled by a pandemic and wild market gyrations.

In the understated words of Wes Bricker, PwC vice chair and assurance leader for the U.S. and Mexico, “an already milestone-level experience becomes inherently more complicated.”

While no accountant – or, for that matter, anyone just beginning their career – has ever faced a world like ours today, Bricker says in an article for Accounting Today that there are opportunities to make a difference.

“As a new accountant, setting yourself up for success amid uncertainty may seem like an uphill battle, but it’s really a pivotal opportunity,” he counsels.

Drawing on his own experiences, Bricker offers four “key guidelines” to help new accountants navigate today’s uncharted waters.

  1. Adopt a people-first mindset – Accounting, says Bricker, is a people-focused profession. “The importance of investing in the people around you and building strong relationships cannot be overlooked,” he writes. “Building strong relationships with all your stakeholders is paramount. Practice mutual respect with everyone at all times.”
  2. Seek out learning opportunities – Continue to learn, especially by being open to the help from senior accountants. “On-the-job counsel from others can teach you things you won’t be able to learn elsewhere.”
  3. Use technology to your advantage – Acknowledging that developing relationships remotely is not easy, Bricker says new accountants must use technology to do virtually what predecessors did in person. He counsels embracing technology to “make once time-consuming tasks faster and easier. Become an advocate for efficiency and lead by example.”
  4. Hold true to your purpose – “Respect the privilege and power of accounting. Honor commitments and deadlines. Have integrity. Be ethical. Tell the truth always. Practice objectivity and professional skepticism. Be a steward of accountability. Remember that trust is foundational to quality financial reporting; it underpins the entire financial ecosystem.”

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

[bdp_post_carousel]

Read Continue
 
Required 'Candidate' login to applying this job. Click here to logout And try again
 
 

Answers

 

Account Activation

Before you can login, you must activate your account with the code sent to your email address. If you did not receive this email, please check your junk/spam folder. Click here to resend the activation email. If you entered an incorrect email address, you will need to re-register with the correct email address.