Certified Public Accountant Statutory Title Financial Auditors

Certified Public Accountant is a statutory title that is given to the accountants who have cleared Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination and having the required state education and experience that have been set for the certification in United States of America. They are the only people qualified and licensed to attest the Financial Statements including Auditing in most of United States except Arizona, Kansas, North Carolina and Wyoming.

The main functions of the Certified Public Accountants are Financial Auditing. Attestation of the CPAs means that the Financial Statements are having reasonable disclosures, no misstatements in materials, and are in line with the generally accepted accounting principles. They can also be employed as CFO or CEO of a private sector company in presence of required experience and knowledge in the field.

The areas in which a Certified Public Accountant certified accountant can be employed are almost all the important areas of financial accounting. Those include financial accounting, assurance and attest services, management consulting, financial analytics, corporate governance, estate planning and income tax. American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) holds Uniform Certified Public Accountants Examination which the candidate must clear in order to be CPA certified. This examination is administered by National Association of State Boards of Accountancy.

The eligibility criteria for the uniform Certified Public Accountant examination are normally set by the state boards of Accountancy that can differ from one state to another. Some of the common requirements are a bachelors degree from US which has minimum of accountancy and business administration in their total duration, along with an extra year of study. The qualified overseas accountants can sit for International Qualification Examination which is similar to the Uniform CPA examination.

According to the working of the Certified Public Accountant certified accountants, the states of US can be subdivided into two categories- 1-tier states and 2-tier states. In a 1-tier state, the CPA has the authority to attest from the time he has cleared the Uniform CPA examination and has met the required work experience in public accounting. In the 2-tier states they have to work for a stipulated amount of time after clearing the examination before they can have the authority to attest.

Some of the other qualifications that a Certified Public Accountant has to have are a certification in ethics and continuing professional education for at least 40 hours annually for maintaining the CPA certification. The characteristics that are required for a CPA aspirant would be having a knack for problem solving and research, strong communicational skill, highly ethical, good in IT and having an understanding of the business perspective. The CPA program is best suitable for CA, CFA, MBA, CWA, CS professionals. Professionals in accounting and students of commerce, economics, statistics and management can also take CPA as their career path. Certified Public Accountant