The Best Accounting Certifications Employers Care About

In this video we're going to cover the accounting certifications that employers actually care about and that can actually benefit your career and we'll cover the how, the why, the what and some salary expectations. So the most common accounting certifications, and this will be mostly about the CPA because the CPA is the biggest, most respected, most valuable overall accounting certification. So you have the CPA, the CFA, CMA, EA and CIA. Now there are quite a few others out there. Usually most other things would be an add on to a CPA in general. So we'll start with the CPA, the CPA certified public accountant, this is the most valuable, most respected accounting certification for work in accounting, tax, audit, compliance, risk management, etc. It's granted by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants or the AICPA. The experience required. You need a year of experience working under a CPA, however that is after finishing a bachelor's degree and in pretty much every state at this point, you need a master's degree as well, or at least the equivalent credit hours of a master's degree. There are four exams to pass. Well there are four... The big national exams there are four of them, and then each state will usually have an ethics and a laws exam. So depending on the state might be different, but everyone has to pass these four main CPA exams. The exam time total, each exam you have four hours to complete each exam. The estimated cost for the CPA, again, this is after finishing a bachelors and a masters, so we're not counting those costs, but the actual costs to take the exam once you're eligible for the exam would be somewhere between $2,000 to $3,000. The next one is the CFA, which is a Chartered Financial Analyst. This is also a highly valuable certification for work in finance and investments. This one takes most people two plus years to pass the three exams. However, as we'll get to the experience level, you need four years of relevant experience, so it's granted by the CFA institute. Like I just said, you need four years of relevant experience. You do need a bachelor's degree. There are three levels. There's three exams. Each one has to be passed to be able to move on to the next one. I mentioned that because the CPA exams, you can take those four exams in any order. The exam time is 18 hours total. The estimated costs are similar, somewhere between $2,500 to $4,000 to pass your CFA. The next designation is a Certified Management Accountant, a CMA. This would be for specializing in internal management accounting functions. This one, again, this one is... Most people I would say would already have their CPA if they went and did this. Not always, but this is specifically for management accounting, meaning you're working on the accounting internally within an organization. This is granted by the IMA, the Institute of Management Accountants. The experience required is two years of relevant experience. The education requirement is a bachelor's degree. For this one there are two exams, 8 hours of total exam time and the estimated cost is around $2,000. The next designation would be an Enrolled Agent. Normally this would be for somebody who has done some tax preparation, they have some experience in tax preparation and they want to take the next step and become an Enrolled Agent. A CPA is definitely a level above an Enrolled Agent and a CPA can do anything the Enrolled Agent can do. Obviously prepare tax returns, you know, sign as the preparer, represent clients in front of the IRS. The CPA can do all of those things. But the EA specifically, it's for US based tax work. It's granted by the IRS. The experience required, there's no formal or quantified level of experience or a time stated, but normally no one would just go in off the street and try to take these exams. It would usually be somebody who has done some work in tax preparation and they just want to get an actual certification. The education required, there's not a formal requirement. There are three exams. The exam time is 12 hours total. Each one's four hours and the estimated cost to become an Enrolled Agent is around $1,500. The next designation is a CIA, a Certified Internal Auditor. This would be someone if you want to specialize in risk management and internal controls within an organization. This is granted by the Institute of Internal Auditors. The experience required is two years of relevant experience. It requires a bachelor's degree. For this one there are three exams. The total exam time is 6-1/2 hours and the estimated cost is somewhere around $1,500. So now we will talk more about the CPA, coming back to the CPA. The CPA is extremely highly valuable and it literally leads to making more money throughout your entire career and it provides a very high career ceiling.

[gamerbro-wqxq]

thanks for this video. I am interested in accounting but I have no experience in the field. is there any education/certificates I can persue before I find a job in accouting to help me?

[stevechuku]

It was a great opportunity watching this video. Thank you so much!

[StevenMangiameli]

Most of the worlds best tax professionals are EAs, not CPAs

[lancevance]

Thanks for the information.
May I know how US Cpa is different from Canadian Cpa

[christyjoseph]

which European countries can i get job after cma usa