A Counting School - Hardcore Chartered Accountancy : Economics, ICAO

Good news: the CICA lowered CA fees for 2013-2014

Krupo — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 18:00:00 GMT

There's a small decrease in the professional fees you or your firm is paying for the privilege of calling yourself a Chartered Accountant: the full member fee for 2013-2014 came out to be $22.60 lower than the $1107.40 that was charged last year. Savings of 2%.

The total fee is still a hefty $1084.80 including taxes, and breaks down to $520 paid to Ontario's ICAO, $440 paid to the overall Canadian CICA, and $124.80 in HST, and it represents the "on time" payment amount - late fees of $100 extra are charged if you pay after June 1, 2013.

The ICAO kindly explained that the savings are courtesy of a $20 decrease in the CICA portion of the fee.

At least CAs can't complain about rising fees this year.

Curmudgeons are welcome, however, to scoff at the following warning message that is plastered on the bottom of the ICAO's website.

"The ICAO website is optimized using Microsoft's Internet Explorer and it's use is strongly recommended to ensure that all pages load and act as designed. The use of other web browsers such as Mozilla's Firefox is not recommended and not supported."

IE? Seriously?

I ran the payment through IE for kicks. I had nothing but annoying prompts every step of the way. Not ideal. Back to Firefox next year.

You may also kvetch about the limited amount of Foie Gras you're able to procure with these savings.

Can you get your 51 CA credits in a year and a half?

Krupo — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 08:34:00 GMT

If you started, say, an engineering program at one given university, could you switch partway through to a Chartered Accountant prep program instead in the same university's business school, and quickly get all the credits you need to graduate in a mere year and a half?

One of the regular CA 'commentators' on the blogs and forums, sardaukar - who does an excellent public service in opening people's eyes to the "hell years" that await them as CA students, incidentally - did just that, and people wondered how this is even possible.

Since I'm not really into Sudoku, and this is just the sort of "puzzle" I enjoy solving, I'll answer the question for the writer of comment #427.

The funny thing about this exercise is that when you review the list of courses needed - I include links at the end of this article - many courses will count for "3 hours" even though they're full year, or half year. That means you can't divide 51 by 3 and decide that means you have to take 17 full year courses. Neither does it mean you need 17 half credits - you have to review the whole list. In addition, the University of Toronto requires that you take 20 credits in total to graduate, unless you started in 2000, the last year I'm aware of where they allowed you to finish with a three year degree.

Remember that the example we're dealing with involves someone who took electrical engineering - doing a quick edit before hitting "publish", yes I do that, made me realize I missed one assumption on my first run. I left my mistake in the post, but you'll see my correction at the end of the post.

The army of Chinese elementary school students leaving class just before the clock struck 6 p.m. is an image that somehow pops up when thinking back to the Commerce program. Very strange reason given the distinct lack of jumpsuits and long days in the classroom.

Your typical engineer faces a situation where the extra credits to hit 20 are already accounted for - let's take a look at what you need year-by-year, along with comments.

First year: Economics, Intro Commerce and Math.

An engineer will have math accounted for no problem, and it'll be "hard math", not the "easier" Commerce math course with which you can squeak by, and still end up learning more than you will ever end up actually using. Running tally: 2 full year credits - excluding the math credit I presume you already got prior to deciding to become a CA. I was happy to get into the Commerce program without having to take the "Intro Commerce" full year program. I'm sure it's quite useful and helps give you a "big picture" of what you're getting yourself into, but I managed just fine without having my hand held by the Commerce administration in first year, thank you.

Second year: For the ECO side, Microeconomics and Stats. For the Commerce side, Financial Accounting, Intermediate Financial Accounting I, Management ("Cost") Accounting and the Legal Environment of Business ("Krupo's other favorite").
Plus add choice of side salad, fries or baked potato (translation: Financial Markets, Marketing, or Organizational Behaviour)

The "ECO" credits are both full year, the "MGT" credits (they call the course codes "RSM" after the wealthy Mr. Rotman's generous donation to the program, but like hell I'm going with the new taxonomy, I'm a product of the Old School) are all half credits. If I can still add despite being a CA, that's 4.5 more full year credits in total - running tally: 6.5 full year credits. Second year, if you were not rushing, would involve a nearly-full plate of courses in the Commerce program.

Two other fun facts about second year: the "Legal" course, which I loved, was previously a third year course, but for whatever reason they bumped it up earlier in the schedule, perhaps to encourage students to get to it sooner. Macroeconomics, to my dismay, is "strongly encouraged" but not required. That's a pity, and no doubt explains why someone in this stream would no longer be an automatic Economics Major. I find one of the strengths of becoming a CA is the strong background you get in Economics, which is why this development is such a shame.

Third year: Intermediate Financial Accounting II, Advanced Financial Accounting Topics, Managerial Accounting and Decision Making ("Advanced Cost Accounting"), Auditing I ("Welcome to AuditLand"), and Canadian Income Taxation I ("Personal Tax. Those of you at Big Four firms may never again touch this topic after the UFE unless you leave for a smaller firm or do your own/friends taxes later"). The Finance MGTs: Capital Market Theory and Intro to Corporate Finance

There you go - 3.5 MGT credits plus an ECO of your choice* - total 4.5, running tally 11 full year credits.

A few more observations are in order - shoving the fourth year taxation course into third year is pretty clever, as it makes Rotman's students more competitive when applying for summer jobs with accounting firms, having some formal tax learning under their belts. Good call there. Advanced Financial Accounting is another fourth year course moved up in the queue. Presumably to also get those interns and summer co-ops in a stronger position in their summer jobs, I guess.

Splitting the full year Finance course into two halves was a surprise to me. Perhaps the ICAO's requirements were behind this. If anyone knows I'd be happy to know more behind that split, but nothing shocking there.

*There's that little asterisk popping up like a delightful footnote warning you that we've stumbled upon something that mildly infuriates me more than dropping Macroeconomics from the "required" list, and that's the list of courses you can't take towards your requirement. That "your choice" excludes what looks like the entire list of third and fourth year Economic History courses, it seems. Perhaps one or two snuck through, but my quick review suggests that this is not the case. Maybe this was always the case; the Economic History credit I took perhaps not doubt counted only towards my history minor and economics major, but I consider discouraging Commies from studying the lessons of the past an idiotic path to embark upon.

My friends agreed that the Economic History course we happened to take - Canada's, in case you're curious - was one of the biggest eye-openers throughout university. The amount of intellectual maturity a course like that can bestow upon you is simply amazing - it's one of those courses you hope to experience. The kind that makes you challenge everything you're taught in the other "this is how things work, don't question it and you'll do fine" courses.

If anything, taking something that makes you really think should be made mandatory. Anyway, let's climb off the soapbox and check out what lies ahead.

Let's not even get me started on taking the third year "Business Information Systems" course down from "required" to "strongly recommended." CAs need to be strong on their IT skills. Or at least not laughably deficient. Removing this course from the "required" list is a poor choice, although it definitely brings you a half credit closer to your target of rushing through the courses to get your "51 hour requirement" with a minimum of fuss.

Fourth Year: Management Control, Auditing II ("Going deeper into Auditland"), Canadian Income Taxation II ("Welcome to the Suck"), Critical Thinking, Analysis and Decision Making ("U of T's UFE Prep course. Please do well here, and can one several of you please then get on the Honour Roll to get us to stop looking bad compared to Laurier?"), and Auditing and Information Systems ("Krupo's favourite")

Six more half credits, equal three full year courses. Running tally: 14 full year credits.

It would be 15, but as I stated above, but we'll assume you already nailed the first math requirement as an engineering student.

Come to think of it, an engineer would probably already have taken a "hard stats" course, so you're down to the need to take 13. Missing "Stats" is the mistake I alluded to at the start of my post - did you catch it? If so, you win five bonus points, now add them to your Hello Kitty scorebook.

Is the 1.5 Year Thunder Run possible?

So can you do it in 1.5 years? Last time I checked, you can take 2 courses per summer term - and possibly 3 with special permission, if they still allow you to apply for that option - and 6 credits per winter.

Let's hold off on the "special beg" and see what we get as a "normal" student: start in "summer one" with 2, take a "full winter" of 6, and "summer two" with another 2. That's 10 credits right there. Then take your last three credits during half a winter term.

Boom, CA credits accounted for in a "long" year and a half.

Definitely doable, albeit at the cost of a couple of your summers: you're ready to graduate since I've assumed your engineering courses gave you math, stats and the other five credits you needed, no doubt including the "science breadth requirement".

In fact, if you could petition to "overload" your schedule and take 3 courses in summer and 7 in the winter term, you could start the process in September and finish it in August the next year - basically one calendar year!

Even hardcore Engies used to killing themselves with long hours of coursework might, however, find that a bit on the ridiculous side. Not that I doubt they could handle the load, but the more realistic argument for "spreading" things out over the extra half year or so is the schedule of "pre-requisite" courses which would conspire to slow down your sprint through the course catalog.

Edit: after I finished writing up this post I saw a follow-up post by Sardaukar explaining that the economics course were done as the "Engineering electives" prior to entering commerce. That reduces the load of courses even further, with the first, second and third year courses off the radar - all you then need is 10 credits, done with two summers and a winter term.

Source?

If you're wondering where all this information came from, you just need to search for the ICAO's 51 course credit requirements, or just skip that step and check out my links to the ICAO's webpage for the Rotman Commerce program, which then leads you to the Rotman page itself. There's also a detailed ICAO page for people who don't feel like getting a "Specialist in Accounting" designation, but they'll be one course short of the full 51 credits - that list is here.

The ICAO is quite helpful for everyone in Ontario, mind you - a list of all other schools is also available here if you're attempting this from any other place in the province.

To answer one question I already heard, the secret to this approach is doing it at the same university. Generally speaking 100% of your credits are transferable within the same school. When you start jumping from school to school you encounter limits on the number of "transfer" credits which are eligible for your degree - some limit you to 5 which would make the above strategy, which relies on 7 credits, less feasible.

Is this approach insane? Well I didn't it, but it's both doable and has been done - I welcome your comments - click here to start leaving them.

If you got all the way to the bottom of this admittedly lengthy post you must be a superfan - so it's worth mentioning to you that I somehow got listed a while ago on the top accounting sites "magazine rack" at Alltop. Thanks, readers, for following along the adventure.

I feel bad for the undergrads at York University: the strike continues

Krupo — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 11:21:00 GMT

Since November 6, most undergraduate students at Toronto's York University have been suffering from a strike that has shut down the university. CUPE, the union involved, represents both Teaching Assistants (read: horribly underpaid grad students) and part-time professors. Presumably if no professors were in this union the university could have just kept on going without its TAs.

As the photo above suggests, I didn't go to York for my undergrad - but all Ontario CA students spend the month of June there at the School of Accountancy, where this photo was taken. It's a mix of small seminar-sized courses with 30 people or less, and a few larger lectures where SOA-wide announcements are made to all - generally right before or after the practice tests.

For CA students, I'm curious to know what effect this strike will have.on the SOA - will it still be at York University this year? Or if classes resume and get pushed back into the summer, will the venue of that august institution get shifted to another university that will actually be in summer mode - with presumably more empty classrooms?

I'm sure the staff responsible for booking facilities at Ryerson and the University of Toronto are salivating at the prospect of a lucrative new June source of income.

I would be a good little reporter and actually ask the ICAO to declare what their plan is, but without a resolution to the strike in place, I'm guessing the above theory is as good as any and no firm plans have been made until things simmer down.

Status of the strike itself: selected comments

I've learned to avoid reading the often silly and inflammatory comments on the Star's website when I want to avoid watching petty grudge matches, but the articles on the strike are worth checking out. You get to see the union mentality and that of people fed up with these strikes.

1. "With all due respect, you do not know what you are talking about. First, the economic times (to which you constantly appeal) have nothing to do with the current negotiations. Income derived from tuition last year rose from $316 million to $332 million at York and the York Foundation Fund is estimated at $160 million. Everyone knows that revenue from student enrolment is inversely related to economic decline."

2. "Every time I turn around either government or some union is trying to pick my pocket....unions get pay raises because they are good at exacting RANSOMS.....they DO NOT get raises because they deserve them...most union members would be unemployed, under-employed or on welfare if they had to make it in the REAL WORLD....DOWN WITH UNIONS!!!!"

Good times. Oh wait, here's another good comment.

3. York University is a parking authority and money making machine that happens to grant degrees as a lucrative sideline. Teaching assistants are terminated at the end of each year and then have to re-apply for their jobs, often not hearing the results until the last minute. The strike is about job security and a degree of fairness. The type of degree that York doesn't care about.

I sympathize with the plight of a TA to the extent that I would never want to be in their position - trying to support myself on their pay alone. "dodgingwrenches" wrote on the Star's site that five years ago a grad student earned $31 an hour - that's excellent pay, but I imagine the caveat is that they didn't work many hours, leading to their low total income.

And it's true - being located at the extreme fringe of Toronto's city limits, if you don't have a car the commute to the campus is killer - as a result the parking authority jab is well justified. These suggestions are fun to read and poke for fun - here comes a truly brilliant suggestion from a University of Windsor alumnus.

4. If York U students wish to get this settled they should take action. At UofW in '96 we had a strike that became violent. The student body however advised all the students to stop taking sides. We the students stormed a senate meeting with about 100 of us, showing them a list of over 3k students noting we would form a barrier around them the next time and that they would have to cross OUR picket line. We were basically saying once they got into a meeting in order to leave they would have to have a solution or else cross our picket line. We planned on doing that at the union office the next day however the plan worked as a day later the strike was solved. Obviously it was not the only deciding factor in the end of the strike however all strikes are eventually resolved so figure out what that resolution is now, not in 6 more months. The 3k student list was not a bluff either as with the university on strike, dorm students especially did not have much of anything to do.

A quick and lazy search for articles about the strike didn't turn up any support, but if that's true, it's hilarious.

5. I just want the money back that I paid York in September. I believe that I'm going to have to drop some courses now, which means that I'll loose all the money I paid.

I hope that wasn't written by an English major. The following, on the other hand, was clearly written by someone who is a romantic idealist - and would be smacked silly with a sack of doorknobs if they tried to say it in a room full of angry students missing out on their education:

6. Ms Blondin says: "I can think of no other service where you would pay up front and then not get the service you paid for." And there is the heart of the matter: parents, students, and the university administration have degraded learning into little more than a service for money -- like buying sausages or real estate -- and this crippled vision of learning leaves us with factory style universities where learning takes a back seat. What these parents and students fail to understand is that learning can change your life, if done well by dedicated teachers. That dedication demands fair treatment, which the striking members at York are not getting from either the administration, or, it would appear, from far too many parents and teachers. The future looks grim indeed, if this is the vision of learning these parents and students hold in so high regard.

There's more than one person who calls it the "York University Corporation", as if calling it "corporate" means the administratin is "evil" and they're "fighting the man." Good luck with that angle.

7. Once teaching was a vocation, then gradually it was infested with parasites!

Ouch, that's a little more harsh than what I was thinking.

8. York probably has the highest number of strikes among all universities in North America in recent years. The overall academic standard of this university is also not impressive. Why would I want my kids go to York?

The more I read about this sad state of affairs, the more this sounds like the PTA Disbands, the classic Simpsons episode. Bashing the academic integrity of the institution (I think the exhaust leak is linked to the low test scores), and otherwise just giving the university a bad name - it sounds more and more like Springfield Elementary.

Homer: Lousy teachers, trying to palm off our kids on us!
Lisa: But, Dad, by striking, they're trying to effect a change in
       management so that they can be happier and more productive.
Homer: Lisa, if you don't like your job, you don't strike: you just go
       in every day and do it really half-assed.  That's the American
       way.

Students at York's own Osgoode law school have a stronger administration looking out for their interests, which didn't 'palm off' the students on their parents: they went back to school halfway into the strike. The MBA program, naturally, is also unaffected. Big money brings better service.

When will the rest of the university recover? And are we setting ourselves up for a world of hurt in 2010?

The future of the CA profession and other light topics

Krupo — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:21:00 GMT

I just wrote a post inspired by an earlier article by Steve McIntyre-Smith, but that wasn't the only commentary on his writings I decided to prepare. I was also intrigued by his note regarding the fact that only 953 people, out of 2357 nationally, successfully passed the UFE in Ontario last year. He goes on to speculate about the demographic time bomb facing the profession.

In the near future, the baby-boomer CAs are going retire. Steve, as are many, is worried that not enough students are joining the profession to fill their spots.

He argues that current CAs should do more to "sell" the CA designation.

When asked "what do you do?", they need something captivating to share with the listener, instead of just saying, "I'm a CA". Instead, saying something like "I make millionaires" through the work you do is more likely to grab people's attention.

When speaking to junior staff, I myself have always liked to half-jokingly point out that as auditors, we're Defenders of Capitalism.

It makes life in the audit room a little more fun if you think you're part of a great epic crusade in defense of our economic system.

And it's also true.

Just picture it: wouldn't you have more fun if you didn't think of it was ticking and bopping a bunch of spreadsheets, but a valiant struggle as the thin line of laptop equipped vigilantes which is all that stands between upholding order against the great unwashed hordes of the socialist menace that make hard edged business people lose sleep at night?

Even in wealthy Malibu, epic home of millionaires, there are people who ride buses and bikes.

Actually, if you're not very good at your job that idea and you easily accept the stretch of the imagination needed to dream it up, can make you sleep poorly too.

Regardless, the fact that we do more than just accounting led to conversations I had with several people regarding the CA recently. The conclusion was that the "A" should stand for something more appropriate, like "Asskicker", since audit and accounting is far too narrow a description for the many flavours of "awesome" professionals both young and old deliver their clients.

With a mindset like that, one could truly engage in some Hardcore Chartered Accountancy.

Now that we know the career itself is an easy sell - it really is, without even coming close to using apocalyptic bombast - I look at Steve's points.

They are terrifically valid, and find several factors that his discussion should also consider:

Tuition for University Commerce (and related CA) programs is at or above the level of law school tuition. $10,000 a year or more is common now. Scary.
Despite the very high tuition, Commerce programs fill up fast and it's safe to say that there's a surplus supply of students who want to get into these programs, despite the scary tuition.
Even after getting top marks in your courses, you won't necessarily land a job with an Approved Training Office.

CAs can do their part to improve things - expanding the range of Approved Training Offices is an excellent move - but it's clearly not just one little factor like a "boring reputation" which is setting us back.

There are some tough barriers to entry at the university level.

Do we need more people to volunteer to teach courses? More encouragement for students to try out at "second tier" universities where the programs might not full up as fast? Encouragement to the firms to hire from those 'other' schools?

Or do we need something completely different, like more people in the profession who will laugh hysterically at phrases like "the socialist menace", to show that CAs aren't a bunch of 'money-freaks'?

I doubt the last idea is necessary. But I don't want you to get the wrong idea - after all, my education was delivered via Canada's wonderful socialistic system and in our rough market, you will always need to maintain a fine balance between government intervention and Liberterian chaos.

I have a vocal contingent of readers who are young CA students or still in university. I'd be curious to hear their take on the 'big picture' of taking the CA route. Is it primarily the hard road to entering a valuable profession, or just an easy street to riches?

Deloitte joins the rest of the Big Four - staff to receive overtime

Krupo — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 07:14:00 GMT

I'm not at all surprised that you'll find my site if you Google big four Canada overtime - I already pointed out that three of the big four are paying out overtime to their non-CA staff and seniors. n.b. provincial laws treat CA, CGA, CMA and CPA and students registered to study for those designations as "professionals" ineligible for overtime pay, regardless of rank.

Well now it turns out that all of the big four are doing it - Deloitte & Touche has joined the party.

A kind reader who worked for Deloitte pointed this out to me - Deloitte's non-CA staff's overtime hours are about to stop being "unpaid".

The news isn't that fresh, but this isn't the sort of thing you see on the front page of the newspaper - unless you Googled "deloitte Canada overtime" you might not be aware of it.

All the facts for Deloitte are available at the website they setup otplan.ca - a URL which redirects straight to a deloitte.com page.

The general details are the same as with the other Big Four firms. After KPMG got smacked by the courts who pointed out that if you weren't registered as a CA, CGA, CMA - full members or student - everyone realized they better pay up or face lawsuits.

It's a shame it took the threat of massive lawsuits to straighten things out, but hey, no one's complaining once they have cash to look forward to, eh?

Deloitte reports it'll pay within 30 days of receipt of your acceptance of their offer to settle things up.

Letters started going out at the start of June and should all be sent out by August 1, 2008 - if you don't get one - contact the "OT Administrator" through the appropriate channels. such as the official website or 1-866-669-6615. Remember that number is only valid until August 1, 2008.

Interestingly enough, that 866 number belongs to legal firm Koskie Minsky LLP and is used to settle other legal issues like class action lawsuits.

Deloitte's short term savings, long term pain

Another intriguing fact is that Deloitte's practice has been to NOT pay for their summer interns' CA student fees.

The interns, not surprisingly, generally don't end up signing up as CA students, reasoning - correctly - that the firm would pay their fees when they return as full-time employees. The Ontario CA institute - the ICAO - will even let you pick up 8 months of time you spent before becoming legally registered as a CA student, so the interns had all the incentives in the world to take this approach.

All the incentives plus one: by not being legally registered CA students, their work was all subject to overtime labour laws.

Does A Counting School believe Deloitte is going insist on having all their interns getting registered as soon as they show up for work?

Well.

There's not a rhetorical device strong enough to emphasize how obviously they're going to do just that moving forward.

Other facts

As usual employees in Quebec need not apply - Quebec, ironically for being such a leftist jursidiction, has one of the worst rules from the employee's point of view. Unless your effective hourly wage dips below the legal minimum wage times 50% (i.e., less than $12 an hour for last year), you get nothing.

Something I don't recall seeing on the other OT plan sites is the offer to cover up to 50% of legal fees ($250 of $500) to have an independent lawyer review their offer.

Cool.

Full details:

Can I get a lawyer to review my Assessment Letter before accepting?

Yes, you are welcome to have external counsel review the Assessment Letter before you accept it. Should you wish to retain legal counsel at any point in this process, Deloitte will pay fifty percent of the legal fees you incur, up to a maximum contribution of $250 from Deloitte.

I was planning on writing about the nature of being an accountant and more observations on exam prep, but that'll wait, as this is pretty time sensitive - not to mention a popular topic I find. Writing up something decent that isn't "news" takes more time if you want to get your point across completely and concisely.

I guess the only questions left after this are how the "mid-tier" firms that have non-CA staff will handle matters, and how this'll affect our friends to the south. American labour laws are quite different - I mean, minimum wage alone is about $3 lower in many jurisdictions! - so our precedents may not carry much weight on a purely legal level.

But on a cultural level, seeing the way we're treated will no doubt cause some consternation or interest if word spreads far enough.

So I suppose this is just the sort of story you'll expect to see supressed or "conveniently ignored" by those who have the power to do so. At the same time, I imagine the class action lawsuit squads from California and other more "labour-friendly-ish" states will be all over this like the proverbial seagull on a table of leftovers.

How to get an accounting job in the 'off season'

Krupo — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:55:00 GMT

If you're not familiar with CA firms, you may be a little surprised to know that there's such a thing as "recruiting season."

Employers will come around university and college campuses during set times of the year - both in Canada and the US - to interview potential employees en masse.

The phenomenon of ‘campus visits’ is especially pronounced in the US where there’s a plethora of colleges to visit - smaller campuses often miss out on visits from the Big Four and students who want to get noticed with an in-person interview end up having to travel to a campus visit taking place at another larger school.

A reader asks what to do if you had the misfortune to miss out on recruiting season - or were simply unsuccessful in the hunt for a position.

Above: Non-big-four recruiting poster in Buffalo's airport. Photo credit: Krupo (as usual)

I'm grouping both scenarios together because the methods of dealing with either scenario are ultimately the same.

Figure out what you're applying for

You've graduated from university with a shiny Bachelor's Degree in Commerce or Business Administration. Your tuition was two or three times more expensive than that of your friends with English degrees, but it's okay you tell yourself, you'll get a high paying job that'll pay off your debts quickly.

Except where will you work?

A BComm or BBA is a great degree to have, job-wise, but when planning your job search you have to keep in mind that the specializations you studied for will have a major influence your job search. Organizational Behaviour (HR), Finance, and Marketing people will be generally looking for positions that are pretty different from someone with an Accounting specialization.

Ultimately you will hopefully pick third and fourth year courses in areas you enjoy working in. Of course, some people end up finishing a four-year program with the sickening realization that they really didn't enjoy any of the materials they studied. The prospect of a double major to switch directions towards something they enjoy may be daunting, but if they disliked studying the topic, there's a high probability they may not enjoy working in that field either.

But let's put all those hypotheticals aside to simplify things - you studied Accounting because this DR/CR stuff sounds interesting and you're actually intrigued by the prospect of showing up on peoples' doorsteps and demanding, politely, that they show you all their secret files - you want to try your hand at audit!

You want to become a CA.

Stay busy

There's one catch - to become a CA, you need to become a CA student.

To become a CA student, you need to work for an Approved Training Office.

You don't necessarily have to love that a google search for that phrase automatically hits Canadian CA websites, but it helps.

Anyway, you tried your best, but you you didn't get hired.

What to do?

The single most important tactic is to keep yourself busy.

Find something to keep you occupied - and to pay off those mounting debts or at least keep you from mooching off your parents so much if you're so lucky to have their support.

If the job is at least tangentially related to accounting, that's excellent, but you don't have to be too picky.

Don't turn your nose up at a small family business that can't afford to pay you as much as a medium-sized company, but which will let you help them improve all aspects of their business. This can give you an extremely rich resume which will come in handy the second time you come calling on the doors of your favourite CA firms.

I know this is an excellent idea because it's exactly what I did, and more than a few of my colleagues did the same thing - both locally and down in the US. Speaking with one of them we marvelled at the fact that our experiences were similar. For various reasons, we passed up on the 'mainstream' recruiting season and ended up in our niche practice.

Before sneaking during an 'off-season' recruiting drive - yes, they do exist and I'll get back to that - we both worked as severely underpaid "jack of all trades" types, working wonders for our old bosses, helping transform, modernize and improve their businesses - and in the process realizing that, "wow, we really did learn something in school."

Note the precious mix of cynicism and positivity in that last sentiment.

The key, of course, was not to think "how can I do something at this business that'll look good on my resume," but to just do even the most menial tasks if everyone was busy and to then find a way to improve things to make the menial things automated or faster - that's probably the quickest basic summary of what "business process improvement" means and practising that skill will help you in life incredibly.

While working elsewhere, keep looking for that opening

If you're in Ontario, keep checking out Ontario's Approved Training Office list.

As of June 17, 2008, in addition to all the regular CA firms, there are now 9 offices approved to train CA students in "non-traditional career paths" including the Royal Bank of Canada, Manulife, Telus and others.

Every province except Alberta currently has approved this training option; it's very new, though, which is why the list of companies to pick from is so desperately short.

Watch this list grow significantly in coming years - even Alberta is expected to approve this change in the near future according to the ICAO's page. The reasoning behind this shift is relatively straightforward: Canada still has a shortage of CAs.

The traditional method of filling the ranks with new CAs - through hiring in the regular accounting and audit firms - is insufficient now because all the baby boomers are about to start retiring in droves. It would be uneconomical for the CA firms to hire people "just to train them", so the CAs collectively decided that the best way to keep the market well supplied with people that have their valuable designation is to find other companies that can offer the adequate supervision and guidance needed to help young CA students hone their fledgling Professional Judgement and prepare for the UFE.

"Alternately" trained CAs will be trained to the exact same standards as 'mainstream' trained CAs, and will have the same rights and privileges with one minor catch - they will have to gain some experience in 'proper' audit firms to get a license to audit - a "public accounting" license.

The ICAO explains that:

With the implementation of CA Practical Experience Requirements 2007, practical experience requirements for a Licence to Practise Public Accounting are recognized separately from practical experience requirements for CA Qualification.

This, of course, is just fine for someone who doesn't care for doing audit - they can stay inside companies where an 'independent audit' isn't something that they have to explicitly worry about or carry out. Considering the number of CAs who jump out of accounting firms quickly and never look back, it's a rather logical solution.

If you ever change your mind, you'll probably have several years of experience under your belt - any mature audit firm will be more than happy to hire you to leverage all that you've learned in the intervening years in private industry and provide you with the training necessary to get your public accounting license. The ICAO FAQ goes into more detail if you need to know about this option. If the small business or alternate industry option isn't appealing, all is not lost.

Off-season recruiting

If you're persistent, though, you may find an office or department that needs to hire people outside the regular recruiting seasons. Keep the following tactics in mind to help find a place that will look at your application:

Check the Approved Training Offices pages to find small and mid-sized companies that might not follow the regular recruiting season.
Check the websites of larger companies to see if any positions are being advertised.
Check the job posting boards for any positions not advertised on the companies' own sites.
Stay in touch with your old university's career centre - they might get notice of positions that aren't being advertised to the general public.
Stay in touch with your friends in case they hear of other positions being posted internally, or to get a recommendation for publicly known positions.
Look for positions outside your home city.

If you've been keeping busy at a small or medium sized non-accounting firm, keep in mind that you will likely still be treated as a 'raw recruit' hired at the entry level, unless your current/previous job is tightly related to audit - say, an internal audit position in a larger firm or a related accounting position. Basically, any job that doesn't involve teaching you the things you'll pick up as a first or second year 'junior' won't count towards your 'experience level' when they hire you - you'll be treated like any raw recruit whether you're 22 or 38. More experience will still help, however, in helping you stand out against some kids fresh out of university, though.

And don't forget those alternative options might be just as attractive if not moreso. Lots of companies lack skilled internal auditors, so keep an eye out for such postings, even at the entry level your academic background might be enough to get your foot in the door even if you don't have fancy experience. And the government has its own audit offices - don't forget to look into those options too.

Keep it up - before you know it, you'll be studying for the UFE and getting swag for writing about it.