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AICPA and Independence Training

Hello,

I am an IT person and recently was hired by a CPA firm to do IT Auditor and Staff Consultant. I was given an AICPA booklet and answer sheet and told to go to this website and finish/complete and pass said exam. Easy enough. I log on, take the 85 question test with no instructor/computer training and find that my score is 65 with 70 being the passing threshold. Frustrated, I get some material from AICPA, read it, read it again, and then take it only to get a 51. Subsequent attempts get me as high as 67, but never to pass it. Now I've exhausted my 7 attempts at passing and I'm extremely frustrated. I've had no formal training, there is little structure here at this firm to aid in 'training', and I've even had 3 lead managers (who never took this exam) over my shoulder and answered several of the harder questions, and never could get my score higher than a 67. They all agree, that this test is heavily worded, hard to read, and designed for CPAs, by CPAs, and for an IT guy to take it, seemed almost absurd.

My question is, are there better resources than a document called, "AICPA Plain English Guide to Independence" dated Sept.30,2006? I'm not saying this document isn't relevant, or even accurate. I'm asking are there more resources that ask better questions and give better answers?

Thanks, and have a great day.

Reply to
RedForeman
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"RedForeman" wrote

I don't know about good resources, although I'm sure there are some out there. What I think will help is that you take the Perry Mason or Columbo approach. Look at the situation from the viewpoint of the investor. Is there ~anything~ fishy about the situation that the most suspicious investor would squawk about? It's probably an independence problem.

Reply to
Paul Thomas

I'm not sure if "Independence training" is the same as the Ethics requirement for CPA registration/licensing requirements in some states. Independence is a subcomponent of ethics. Check out the state of IL ethics requirement and associated training CD:

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Their CD helped me get the 90% passing score needed for CPA registration.

Rick

Reply to
RaS

Rick, Thanks, but I'm not a CPA, nor will I ever BE a CPA....

I am an IT Auditor, an IS guy, not an accountant. Having been hired on by a CPA firm to do IT Auditing, they're pushing me toward learning some basic CPA stuff. When I heard basic, I thought, debit/credit, asset & liability stuff. But when I read thru this independence stuff, I realized it's not terrible, just tricky. Basic independence is not a problem, it's the whether you are independant from a parent company to a subsidiary, from a public company or a publicly traded company. It all gets blurry when you have governing bodies that have more AND less restrictive guidelines.

Now I'm not bauking at the need, just the lack of guidelines, training resources, etc. As one of the accountants told me, it's the 4 years of accounting training he's had that taught him all he knows. After he looked at some of the questions, he felt like he didn't know as much anymore... They are actually hard for seasoned CPAs. Which is why I asked...

Thanks anyway...

Reply to
RedForeman

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