The Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam is a challenging and comprehensive test that serves as a gateway to a career in accounting. Preparing for the CPA exam requires a great deal of dedication and hard work, but the rewards can be well worth the effort. In this article, we'll provide some tips and strategies to help you prepare for the CPA exam and achieve success.
Signing up to sit for the CPA exam is a major milestone in your career. The long-term career benefits for earning a CPA license are clear. The Journal of Accountancy reports that newly minted CPA’s earn a $66,000 average salary and more experienced CPAs with 20 years of experience can earn up to $152,000.
Earning your CPA license can give your career a jumpstart. You will gain a significant advantage over the other accountants who don’t possess this credential. According to the 2019 Robert Half Salary Guide for Accounting and Finance Professionals, the midpoint CPA salary for tax professionals with one to three years of experience is $57,500, with auditing experts making $52,000. As you climb the organizational ladder, you can expect to earn substantially more. At the level of Manager of Tax Services, you could be making $104,000 annually! At the upper end of the salary range, your yearly compensation could even be as much as $164,250.
In the previous article on the CMA certification, we discussed the steps to become CMA certified such as fulfilling the examination, education, and experience requirements. In this article, let us take a closer look at the CMA exam itself, including exam specific content, recommended preparation time, sequence of taking the two parts, exam preparation strategies and so on.
In a previous article, we briefly introduced the other three major accounting certifications that can be added on to the CPA. In this article, we will focus on one of them: Certified Management Accountant (CMA).
The Certified Public Accountant (CPA) license is known as the most popular certification for accountants and has a reputation of the “gold standard” in the accounting industry. While many CPAs choose to practice in public accounting, a large number of them follow career paths in corporate accounting and other fields such as government, academia and the non-profit sector.