With flying colors: guidelines to help your candidates pass the CPA Exam.

• Author: Brundage, Heidi
• Position: PRACTICEMANAGEMENT - Certified public accountants

How many licensed CPAs are there in your business? Now here's a more difficult question: How many will there be in three years or five years? That number will likely depend in large part on the number of CPA candidates in your business that pass the Uniform CPA Examination.

The benefits of having licensed CPAs on staff ranges from establishing your firm's succession plan, as licensed individuals can be trusted to take over in the future, to making it possible to provide the highest quality services and serve clients at higher rates.

ACTION REQUIRED

To maintain a healthy inflow of new and qualified CPAs into the profession, practitioners need to take an active role in helping their employees pass the CPA Exam. Here are some simple steps that businesses can take to implement a CPA Exam tracking process.

Gain commitment. Business owners must rally behind the cause and focus the business' culture on passing the CPA Exam. "The company clearly benefits when our people pass the Exam and demonstrate technical competence," says Tom Gard, department head for the audit division of Armanino McKenna LLP in San Ramon.

Armanino McKenna's executive committee recently revised and significantly enhanced its CPA promotion policy.

The revisions included increasing the amount of the bonus that was paid for successfully passing of the CPA Exam and setting up tiers for the bonus amounts (the amount of the bonus declines as the time period to pass the exam increases).

Gard says it was easy to convince the executive committee to revisit the policy because the number of CPAs in the business demonstrates technical competence in the market place, as well as the marketing of that competence.

Provide encouragement. This can come in any form--often without a cost--and demonstrates a commitment to the professional development of your team members. Businesses can promote the Exam with:

* Reminders during monthly team meetings or in newsletters.

* Links to applicable sites on the business' intranet.

* Information and tools from the California Board of Accountancy or CalCPA.

Start talking early. Gard has noticed that recent graduates are a bit burnt out from studying and often want to take a break before hitting the books again. So, when he works with new hires, he quickly explains why candidates should start preparing for the CPA Exam immediately. His reasons? "You are right out of school and in the mode of studying already," he says. Further, once candidates begin their...