I think ICPAS should be better positioned to answer your question.

You could check out http://www.icpas.org.sg

Be well and prosper.

I’m a recent accountancy graduate from one of the local unis. I’m not in an accounting firm nor accounting function now. Rather, I’m doing commercial banking RM (i.e. sales)/credit analysis, involving in-depth analysis of financial statements and annual reports.

Not sure if that qualifies as relevant experience. Do I still need a mentor? Can I still work towards being a non-practicing CPA?

Cheers.

Great to meet someone who walked a similar path as myself and ended up in an accounting related career.

It’s similar in internal audit, a lot of time is spent talking to my auditees to get information from them and to understand their business processes to assess their controls and review processes for effectiveness, efficiency and economy.

Most people equate accounting careers with financial accounting or book-keeping or churning out payroll etc. If one is not in a transaction processing role, it’s actually quite an interesting job because you talk to different folks to engage them on your subject matter. And also there’s the standard corporate stuff emails, meetings, HR/Financial reporting to HQ that sucks up available time as well

The barriers to entry can be low if the job is more transaction processing in nature. But CPAs do have a slight edge when it comes to barriers to entry though under our current open immigration model, this barrier is becoming lower over time.

A large number of ACCA candidates are increasingly from overseas.

Be well and prosper.

Having said that, I’m such a non accountant type person ..cant do mental sums, not great at excel, not really mathematical. i started my career in the big 4 doing Tax, never did a day in audit as i felt that the hours were way too long. Tax is interesting, spent 8 years at the big 4 and now in commercial also doing tax. I would say 70% of my work is on communication and explaining complex infomation and managing / quantifying risks and exposures related to tax. the remaining 30% …is really odds and ends – understanding accounting systems, how to extract the right numbers from the systems, computing stuff etc.

All things said and done, i dont regret being an accountant, its a good profession, not boring (as long as u dont do endless AP processing and journal entries etc), it pays decently and probably has sufficiently high barriers to entry (i.e. less riff raffs generalist to compete with you for jobs)

Cheers

Yes, the attrition rate can be very high in the Big 4.

I would say working in a big 4 helps you build up your resume as it’s the common starting point for many accountants, auditors and tax people in the industry.

It’s tough for the 1st few years because you are at the bottom of the food chain and have to do all the tough jobs. But that’s how one learns.

However, you can also start by working as a junior accountant/finance officer in corporates and work yourself up the career ladder. There’s really no fixed path. It’s all about what you want and what opportunities are available.

Email me at rod.loh at gmail.com if you need more specific advice.

Be well and prosper.

I believe to be a practicising CPA you would need to chalk up the 3-5 years (pls check with ICPAS website) of “structured experience” under an approved principal, i.e. you have to be working under a practising CPA doing audit, accounting or tax.

As the format of the forms/logbook etc. change over time, you should check with ICPAS or ACRA’s Practice monitoring side on what is the current requirement.

All the best in your accounting/audit/tax career.

Be well and prosper.

Would i have to take up courses like CA offered by ICAEW to qualify?

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