2008 Advanced Certified Pro Advisor Exam

Hi Laura!

I've heard the same comments from people on the IASB (speaker's bureau) list. Unfortunately, I haven't heard of anyone who has passed it yet. I haven't even tried it yet. I'm waiting for the 'bugs' to be worked out!

Michelle L. Long, CPA, MBA Author of: Successful QuickBooks Consulting: The Complete Guide to Starting and Growing a QuickBooks Consulting Business

Do you have any contacts at Intuit? They did add a "feedback" page last week which I have used but I don't know if they are really listening. At this point I won't be continuing the cert. I am also debating whether I will renew my Pro Advisor membership in May. The poor quality of this exam is a really bad reflection on the company in my mind.

Hi Laura!

I've heard the same comments from people on the IASB (speaker's bureau) list. Unfortunately, I haven't heard of anyone who has passed it yet. I haven't even tried it yet. I'm waiting for the 'bugs' to be worked out!

Michelle L. Long, CPA, MBA Author of: Successful QuickBooks Consulting: The Complete Guide to Starting and Growing a QuickBooks Consulting Business

Hi Laura!

I posted some comments on the aipb list for you. Be patient--any time there is something new, it may take some 'tweaking' to get it right. They are listening to the feedback--putting that page there is evidence that they want to hear what people have to say. But, give them time to investigate, discuss and try to come up with an appropriate solution.

The ProAdvisor program still offers MANY benefits that make it worthwhile! The Certified QB ProAdvisor logo on your website and business cards helps your image with clients. Not to mention the software and the tech support available to ProAdvisors!

Michelle L. Long, CPA, MBA Author of: Successful QuickBooks Consulting: The Complete Guide to Starting and Growing a QuickBooks Consulting Business

Laura, I am also trying the exam. There are some questions that are just very very strange. There are so many assumptions, and some questions are so ambiguous, its makes it very difficult. I am looking at one question where they ask for adjustments to a trial balance, and nothing looks wrong except for maybe the sales tax, and its for 6 points - doesn't make sense. I couldn't agree with you more about this exam - I really hope they sort it out. Unfortunately, for us first- timers it really is a bit of a waste of time trying to work through an eroneous exam. I wish we could get more help on this.

Several of us ended up reaching out to Intuit. We have been in contact with the project manager. She took our comments and is supposed to be reviewing the exam with the development team. That was the status a month ago. Efforts to get an update on their status has failed.

In the meantime, make sure you leave your detailed feedback in the course locker page so that the project manager will see more people making the same comments. Leave very detailed, question specific comments. I also do not suggest trying to pass the exam again.

I don't think it is passable. Not because the exam is hard but because there are too many unknown variables. For example any questions that require allocating expenses to classes the number of decimal places used in the percentages was not specified. Your final answer will vary depending whether you use 2, 3, 4 etc places. We have no idea how many places they developers used when setting up the computerized grading system.

If you have any contacts at Sleeter and/or Intuit try reaching out to them for help. The project manager is taking too much time to correct this problem.

Post the question here.

Haskel,

It's not that type of exam. It was a hands on practicum. Not multiple choice. They gave us QB files and excel spreadsheets. Our answers were actual numbers that we calculated. Think of a math exam in school. Your answer was dependent on how you approached the questions as well as what assumptions you made. Simple assumptions like how many decimal places to use when allocating expenses to accounts or classes. Some questions clearly had errors in them. Did you answer the incorrect answer because that is what you think the developer used?

For the particular question that was discussed by the OP we were given the

This sounds like a typical conversion setup when moving a client's old accounting system to QuickBooks. It does help if one knows their debits and credits.

Yes, it is a typical conversion setup exercise. There are multiple ways of accomplishing the setup that yield the same result. The problem is we don't know which method was used by the developers when they designed the exam answers. That is what is causing the exam to be unpassable.

What makes you so certain that there is only one answer?

I beleive there are multiple answers but given the exam is being graded by a computer there is only ONE possible answer. It may even be programed to look for the wrong answer.

It isn't even necessarily so that the grading 'bot look at only one answer. That's easiest, certainly, but surely not the only possible outcome.