Copy of Career Research Paper - Google Docs

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APEC Schools - G. Tuazon
Sampaloc, Manila

Senior High School Department

A Journey to Become a
Certified Public Accountant

A Career Research Paper

May 15, 2018

Ma. Gloria C. Paat
11AM-1

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Abstract

This career research paper is all about being a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). All of
the informations are divided into 6 categories: History and Background of the Career;
Educational Requirements; Skills and Talents; Challenges; Goals & Opportunities; and Tasks and
Responsibilities of an Accountant. It serves as a guide for everyone especially for those aspiring
accountants and undecided students in what career path they’re going to take in the future. The
survey was conducted through Google Forms to 5 persons who are working in accounting
industry and gathered informations from a blog, news, and books. In becoming a successful
CPA, there are specific required skills like interpersonal skills in which related with
communications. From all the responsibilities they have, the respondents can accomplish it for
about 8-10 hours. As for cce.assumption.edu’s data, the job growth is expected at 11% from year
2014-2024 that’s why 4 out of 5 of the respondents are somewhat satisfied with their current job.

The most interesting part of being an accountant is building a good relationship to
different type of people and helping the company to have a wise decision by providing a
recommendation. From the researcher’s point of view, being a Certified Public Accountant is a
privilege and it suits her skills and interests with regards to the given duties of an accountant
that’s why she still wants to pursue this career in the future despite of the disadvantages of
staying in this career because this is what she dream of since she was 8 yrs. old.

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Introduction

This career research paper will give a better evaluation and picture of what is like to
become a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) and other facts. This will also helps the viewers to
decide whether you’ll still pursue your chosen career or not.

From the top 6 of the researcher’s joblist: Accountant, Engineer, Money Manager, IT,
CEO, and Docto; she chose Accountant as her topic since she’s taking into consideration to some
factors such as hobbies, talents, skills, interests and the results from taken career tests. The rest
jobs have some factors that are not involved in her abilities and interests like having a lot of
mathematics and science subjects, etc.

Growing up, she’s always comfortable working with numbers especially in solving word
problems, playing indoor games like damath, sudoku. When she was a kid, her dream is to
become a doctor. She want to cure sick people that’s why in the age of 4-7 yrs. old, she started
playing toys for her to look like a real doctor but it didn’t last for long because when she
watched Dae Jam Geum, she saw a doctor doing an acupuncture that makes the blood comes out
from the patient’s skin. After this, the researcher then wanted to become a CPA.

Aiming this career will help her to fulfill her career goals like having a stable job and a
favorable salary so that she can help people who are in need and help her parents too. If the
researcher has an opportunity in the future, she will build her own accounting firm just like Don
Vicente F. Fabella, the first Filipino Accountant, at the age of 70, he build his own accounting
firm titled “Vicente Fabella and Company” (Macasaet).

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Scope and Limitation

The purpose of this research is to discover facts and opinions about being a CPA. It will
generally covers the information about the job like what does an accountant do during his/her
working hours. It also consists information that will focus on being a CPA. Some specific
accounting jobs (e.g. Auditor) won’t discuss in this research.

This research paper will discuss some information falls under different categories: brief
history and background of the career; skills and educational requirements that a person should
have in becoming an CPA; tasks, responsibilities, goals and opportunities of an accountant and;
potential challenges that an accountant may face.

The researcher conducted a survey using Google Forms to gather primary data that
provides an opinion of someone that is in the accounting fieldwork and gathered secondary data
from online sources and printed publications like books and magazines.

The study was conducted from the month of March to May, year 2018. However, there
are informations came from articles, online sources that were produced in between year
2013-2018. Data gathered are based on events in the Philippines and from other countries.

Students who aim to become a CPA and undecided students will benefit from this paper.
Parent who wants their children take accounting course will benefit from this research. This will
help them decide carefully and have a meaningful and relevant knowledge on what future is
waiting for them.

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Review of Related Literature

This chapter will focus on statistics and facts about CPA. It will discuss how accounting
developed during the ancient time until today’s generation; how a person would achieve his/her
goals in life so this will also serve as a guide for everyone on how to be a successful CPA in the
future.

Background and History of the Career:

The earliest accounting system was found as early as 2000BC in the cities of Babylonia,
Greece, Egypt and in 3500B.C in Assyria. It consists of records of taxes that are required by the
king and were collected from the people by their tax collectors as well as the records of
materials, labor and overhead which the pharaoh required during the constructions of the
pyramids in Egypt (Manuel 3).

Five thousand years before the appearance of double entry, the Mesopotamian’s scribe,
equivalent of today’s accountant, used moist clay in recording transactions that would be dry
later on instead of using papyrus since it’s expensive and insufficient than clay. The clay was
molded for agreement terms and the scribe used a wooden rod with a triangular end in recording
the names of the contracting parties then the parties will signed their names by impressing their
respective seals consist of owner’s name and the religious symbols like picture and name of God
they worshipped (Alexander 3).

In 15th century, there are terms that became known such as creditor and debtor. Creditor is
the one who lends money or sells goods or services to be collected in the future while the debtor

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is the one who borrows a money that needs to be paid in the future. These two accounting terms
were derived from the words debit and credit. In late 16th century, the calculation of profit and
the preparation of a profit and loss report were made.

The changes happened in 19th century are became necessary to improve the process of
recording and reporting financial informations since it has the information of business
combinations, mergers and consolidations. With the presence of information age driven by
electronic devices such as computer, the design for processing information turned from manual
to electronical assisted. In this period, there were at least 4 funds statements in used- those that
summarizes changes in cash, in current asset, in working capital and overall financial activities.
In 1940s, accounting professions used the funds statements to measure the flow of monies rather
than simply the capital between balance sheet dates (Manuel 3; Alexander 3).

Here, the 4 stages of how accounting developed will discuss for brief explanations
(Akinyemi, et. al 18-19):

1. Pre-Capitalist Period, 4000BC - 1000AD: Wealth tended to accrue to those who held in
religions and mainly kept in public work by the government.

2. Commercial Capitalism 1000-1750 AD: In this era, there was improvement in business
social, activities and politics.

3. Industrial Capitalism, 1760-1830AD: In this period they used double entry system instead
of sigle entry system for a better control purposes and facilitated the preparation of
financial accounts.

4. Financial Capitalism, 1830AD to date: Here the changes in accounting were emphasize:

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a. Separation of capital expenditure from revenue expenditure
b. The valuation of fixed assets
c. Calculation of periodic profit and
d. The appropriate form and content of financial statements

As a Filipino, we should know who was/were the first accountant since accounting is one
of the well-known courses in our country so we must be proud of who they are.(1) Don Vicente
F. Fabella was born on 7th day of May, 1881 in Pagsanjan, Laguna. He was known as an
educator, economist, civic leader and the first Filipino certified public accountant. In 1912, he
got his bachelor’s degree in Philosophy at UP and he migrated to US to earn his bachelor’s
degree in Philosophy and in Commerce in the University of Chicago and in Northwestern
University respectively. As of 1915, he became a CPA and as a year past, he opened his own
accounting firm “Vicente Fabella and Company” and it became the basis of ACT 3105 the CPA
Law of the Philippines (“First Filipino Accountant: Vicente F. Fabella”; “3 Admirable Filipino
CPAs Any Aspiring Accountant Should Know About”). His statue can be found in the JRU (Jose
Rizal University) Quadrangle as a sign of respect and also in honoring of his greatful memory
since he’s the founder of Jose Rizal College (“The rizalian monuments”).

The salary of a CPA every month is different according to your position in a company,
additional payment or bonus you’ll get, and how long you’ve been working in the company. The
salary range from P14,313-P50,210 and if the company will give them a bonus, their salary every
month would possibly ranges from P14,356 to P54,238 (“Accountant Salary”). Based on

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indeed.com.ph, the salary ranges from P3,800 - P56,000 (“Accountant Salaries in the
Philippines”). Here are the several positions and their monthly salary according to their
experiences (“Basic Salary Report”):

● Assitant Manager/Manager: P25,000 - P40,000
● Supervisor/ 5years & up experience employee: P18,000 - P25,000
● 1-4 Years Experienced Employee: P13,000 - P18,000
● Fresh Grad /< 1 Year Experienced Employee: P9,200 - P15,000

There are lot of choices field in accounting and here are some of those that a person
aiming to be a CPA might wandering on choosing one of these accounting field in the future:

1. Public accounting - also known as assurance services, the broadest and varied type of
accounting. This field investigates the financial statements and supporting accounting
systems of client companies so you experience bookkeeping, financial analysis, and
account management services. It requires and excellent knowledge of the accounting
framework (Martinez “Different Types of Accounting Services”; Bragg “The types of
accounting”).

2. Financial accounting - concern with aggregation of financial information into external
reports. It requires a knowledge of the accounting framework used by the reader of
company’s financial statements. Here, reviewing company or firm’s financial
management practices, checking for mismanagements, fraud and waste will part of an
experience.

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3. Governmental accounting - it involves public accounting duties for government agencies
(Martinez “Different Types of Accounting Services”).

4. Tax accounting - this field concerned with a proper compliance with tax regulations, tax
filings and tax planning to reduce company’s tax burden in the future (“The 4 Main
Accounting Types”).

Tasks and Responsibilities of an Accountant:

Accountant is responsible in providing financial information management by researching
and analyzing financial data to prepare financial reports (“Accountant General Job Description
Sample”). He/She is also responsible in maintaining records of assets, liabilities, profit and loss,
tax liability, or other financial activities within an organization. Here are some of the duties of an
accountant (“Job Description for Accountant”):

1. Recommends financial actions by analyzing accounting options.
2. Maintains financial security by following internal controls
3. Secures financial informations through data base backups
4. Accomplishes the result by performing the duty
5. Prepares payments by verifying documentation and requesting for disbursements.
6. Processing customer payments and balancing accounts

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Educational Requirements:

Before getting a CPA license, you need to pass first the Uniform CPA Exam (“Experience
Requirements for a CPA License”) which considered as the toughest licensure test and licensing
ethics exam and most boards accept the AICPA’s comprehensive ethics course and exam that
could be take anytime during your testing experience. Uniform CPA Exam is a 16-hour exam,
computer based test comprises of four sections: Auditing and Attestation (AUD), Business
Environment and Concepts (BEC), Financial Accounting and Reporting (FAR), and Regulation
(REG) (“What is the Uniform CPA Examination?”). The two given tests are part of the 4Es as
requirements in applying as a CPA. The rest of the 4Es are Education and Experience in which
you need a bachelor’s degree to fulfill the educational requirement and 150 semester hours of
education; and an experience of 1 to 2 years of experience under the supervision of an active
CPA to fulfill the experience as part of the 4Es (“Preparing for the CPA Exam Part III: The Next
Step”).

In becoming a CPA, you must earn Bachelor’s of Accountancy or Bachelor’s Business
with a 150-credit hour of Bachelor’s degree or a minimum of 120 credit hours if it’s a bachelor’s
degree program majoring accounting (“How to Become an Accountant”; “What Degree do I
Need to Become a CPA?; “What Degree is Needed to Take the CPA Exam?”).

In 2016 from a news posted in news.abs-cbn.com, UP Diliman got the first in top
accounting schools with a 100% of licensure passing rate, while the rest is from 2nd to 5th

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respectively: UST with 90.72%, De La Salle University 88.66%, Ateneo de Zamboangga with
87.14% and Bicol University-Daraga with 84.93% (“LIST: Top performing accounting schools
in the Philippines”). In 2017, UP Diliman still got the place with 100% but UST has been
overlapped by De La Salle University since it got only 91.99% compared to La Salle’s passing
rate of 92.66% but according to localpulse.net, the rankings are not the same. Based on overall
board exam performance, number of examinees, top performing examinees, accreditation status,
and faculty-student ratio, top 1-5 has been changed: De La Salle University with 88.32%,
University of Santo Tomas with 86.42%, University of San Jose-Recoletos with 79.08%,
University of the Philippines-Diliman with 78.95%, and Ateneo de Davao University with
75.97% respectively (“20 Best Accountancy Schools to Study”).

In becoming a CPA, you should meet usually 1800 working hours (“How to Become an
Accountant”) or an internship as an assistant in preparing financial statements, conducting audits
and communicating with clients under the supervision of an active CPA (“How to Become an
Accountant: Education and Career Roadmap”). This training will have six areas (“Training”):

1. Financial Accounting
2. Auditing & Statutory Compliance
3. Taxation
4. Information & Financial Systems
5. Corporate Planning, Control & Treasury Management
6. General Management

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Skills and Talents of an Accountant:

Being a Certified Public Accountant is such an honor for someone yet you’ll have several
responsibilities and duties to fulfill and in order for you to accomplish and meet the high
standards or expectations of the company, you must possess some of these skills:

1. Analytical -this is a basic skill needed for accounting. It is an ability to analyze numbers
and interpret figures and data to make conclusions and decisions. Here are some ability
which are related to this skill:
a. Accuracy
b. Analysis
c. Attention to Detail
d. Compliance
e. Mathematical
f. Numerical Competence

2. Communication/Interpersonal - to be able to communicate with other departments,
colleagues, and clients through email, in person, or over the phone. Their written and oral
communicaton must be strong. One must know how to get along with people, motivate
them, organize and delgate tasks, withstand and resolve conflicts (Manuel 23).

3. Detail Oriented - must pay attention to every little data, keep track of tasks and limit
distractions.

4. Organizationa/Business - this skill is important for an accountant to be able to keep
clients’ documents in orer and manage each of its data. This includes focus oriented

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ability, prioritization, and multi-tasking skills.
5. Time-management - as an accountant, you’ll need to manage your time to manage all

your workload. The ability to work with deadlines will not only take you far but this will
impress your boss, co-workers and clients.
6. Information Technology - accoungting jobs often require knowledge about computer
programs and system. Also a good knowledge to be able to work with different
accounting software. Accountant often use wide range of tools such as payroll sofware,
timekeeping software, etc. (Doyle “Accounting: Job Description, Resume, Cover Letter,
Skills”; Valchev “Accounting Skills, Qualifications & Duties”).
7. Adaptability - being adaptable will help you to serve clients and do works easily with a
better services.
8. Leadership - this includes strategic thinking and long-term planning. This skill means that
you’re a good role model and making yourself approachable at the same time (Topan “6
Skills You Need To Succeed In Accounting”).

Goals and Opportunities of an Accountant:

A work of an accountant is tough for a person. In this case, you, as an aspirants of being
an accountant, aims to have benefits while working. Well, everyone wants a benefit or
opportunities in the field of work but in order for you to receive this, you mind as well look for
company you’ll work for. In looking for a company, you need to know who are the top
accounting firms in the Philippines and how many years of experience you need to have the
benefits you’re looking for.

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According to Martinez, Deloitte, PWC (PricewaterhouseCoopers), Ernst & Young, and
Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler are the Big 4, Top Accounting Firms but the place of Deloitte
and PWC changed or has been switched according to a survey as of year 2017 (vault.com “The
50 Best Accounting Firms to Work For”). For all recent board passers, Granville Industrial
Chemical Corp. (GICC), Happy Lemon Group Philippines Inc., Staff Alliance Inc., PHINMA
Property Holdings Corp., and Healthy Options, Corp. are the companies that suites all newly
board passers (“New CPA’s, Here Are 5 Companies Who Want To Hire You Now”).

According to Tracy, people who are successful and received a highest-paid mostly took
them 10 to 20 years to be in their place where they’re now. When they get promoted, there are
some opportunities like being in a higher level authority and responsibilities with a higher salary
but before that, you need to wait at least 2 years unless you had a discussion that timeline being
shortened before you were even hired (“Up or out? When to leave if you're not getting
promoted”). This is different to a blog from squiresgroup.com, you need to wait 5years and up
patiently for a promotion such as being a senior acocuntant. This means that you’ll have to look
forward for every entry-level position in your company for long term (“How to Become a Senior
Accountant”).

There are some benefits of being an accountant such as health care, pensions and an
opportunity to be a partner when you start to buid your own firm (big4accounting.firms.org “The
Performance Benefits of Being an Accountant [Top 10]”) as well as having an opportunity to
build your own business and manage it from time to time (Hanson). Nevertheless, the job growth
is expected at 11% from 2014 to 2024 and the salary is favorable according to your workstyle (“4
Surprising Benefits of Being an Accountant”).

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Methods and Results

This chapter will narrate what other people, working in accounting field, thought about a
certain thing, their experiences in this field. The researcher was able to get in touch with 5 CPAs
that has an experience of 4 months to 23 years in the working field. The survey was conducted
on April 16 to May 6 using Google Forms that consists of 6 open-ended questions.

The first CPA that the researcher was able to conduct a survey is currently working at
Bell-Kenz Pharma Inc. as a finance manager. The second person is an accountant at Yaletrack
Philippines Inc. The third person is a SB (Service Bureau) Bookkeeper of Social Security System
Main Office. The fourth person that was asked to answer the survey is a treasury management
trainee at Bell-Kenz Pharma Inc. and the last person is a Director - People Advisory Services of
Sycip Gorres Velayo & Co. (SGV & Co.).

1. How satisfied are you with your job?
4 out of 5 respondents said that

they are somewhat satisfied because their
work and the things they learned before
are related so it’s somehow satisfying and
as 3 of them said that their job as an
accountant has a satisfying career
development and career growth which
also gives them an income as a source of living while one of them said that he’s having a hard
time to reach the level of his colleagues or can’t do what other can do especially when it comes

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to technology. On the other hand, one of the respondents rate her satisfaction regarding her job as
3 out of 5 because she has a lot of things to do even in having an overtime work yet the company
doesn’t pay for it.

2. How many hours do you spent working in a day? What do you do during these
hours?
According to a Finance Manager, a

SB Bookkeeper and a Treasury
Management Trainee during their 8 hours
of duty, they do the work of managing
Finance Division 3, monitoring and
analyze accounts receivable, what the
company needs to get in the future in
exchange of the service they performed or what the clients owe to the company, and checking the
company’s treasury to make sure that it’s doing fine respectively. While during the 10 hours of
work of an Accountant and a Director, they prepare financial reports and performing tax review,
advisory and HR advisory.

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3. How much free time do you have every working days? Is it enough for you? Why or
Why not?
According to a Finance Manager and a SB Bookkeeper, they have free 3 hours every

working days while for an Accountant,
he only has free 2 hours and from the
statement of a Treasury Management
Trainee, she has free 4 hours during
her working day. This number of hours
of free time is enough for them
because they can use their weekends
as a quality time for their family to have some bondings as well as having the time to take a rest.
As an opposite of the side of the other 4 respondents, having 6 hours of free time is not enough
for the Director because he has a lot of works to do.

4. What is your reputation as an accountant?
According to the respondents, the reputations of an accountant are mostly: (1) being a

person with integrity, (2) a good person in terms of being hardworking and wise that he/she can
think what’s the best thing to do for the sake of his/her future, (3) and has an ability to achieve
ones goal and to secure license (CPA) by doing his/her work well and accurate.

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5. As an accountant, what challenges have you encountered so far? How did you
overcome it?
There are lot of potential challenges but some of those are narrated. 2 out of 5

respondents said that communicating with different type of people such as a demanding one is
difficult for them so in order for them to overcome it, first they need to have a good relationship
with the clients and talk to them professionally. Aside from this, the rest of the respondents said
that meeting the expectations of their boss and meeting the deadlines of the reports or regulatory
requirements are part of their challenges they faced that’s why they’re doing their best to pass all
reports on time by rendering some overtime to work and have a proper time managment.

6. As an accountant, what do you like the most in your job?
From the statements of the respondents, they like having a great opportunities and

benefits like knowing the financial status of the company, providing an information what a
company or a client to know so that they can decide wisely, and get to know the different types
of tax compliance. Moreover, they like being an accountant because they can apply what they
studied before in their work.

What do you dislike the most?
Based on the overall answer, what they dislike the most in their job is not being paid yet
they work with so much expectations and having a workloads except for the Director because as
what he said, he dislike nothing in his job.

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Conclusion

From this study, the researcher learned about the CPAs including their experiences. There
are lot of advantages of being a CPA such as: salary increase based on the person’s work
experience, discover unfamilliar things that are related to accounting, meeting different people,
having benefits like pensions, health care, etc. Aside of advantages, there are also disadvantages
to be a CPA like having a workloads that an accountant needs to render an overtime to finish
his/her reports, low starting salary, etc.

There are schools that offer accounting courses such as UP Diliman, UST and De La
Salle University with a licensure passing rate of 100%, 91.99% and 92.66% respectively in year
2017 in which it can be consider as one factor for a first step in becoming a CPA (Bianc).
Choosing one of these schools may help an aspiring student since it gives an assumption that
there will be a high chance of passing the board exam based on the given passing rate of the
schools.

Overall, the researcher still wants to pursue this career even if there’s a lot of
disadvantages of being a CPA because this is what she dream of and she believes that if you love
your work, you’ll pursue it no matter what hindrance may face. She know that she can enjoy
pursuing this career because from what she discovered, her skills and interests suit the
responsibilities of being a CPA like preparing financial reports for the company, getting to know
different types of tax, and others. Additional to that, being an accountant is a kind of privilege
since this is one of the well-known jobs and there are several opportunities waiting for her.