Illinois - Become a CPA

Getting your CPA license in Illinois doesn’t have to be a hassle if you’re well prepared. Here’s what you need to know prior to securing your certified public accountant licensure.

Pre-exam education requirements

Before you’re allowed to sit for your CPA exam, Illinois regulation requires candidates to have completed a bachelor’s degree or above, as well as 150 credit hours from an accredited university or institution.

You must also meet one of the following prerequisites:

• • Hold a graduate degree in accounting from an institution accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) or the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP)

  • Hold a graduate degree in business from a school that’s been accredited by the AACSB or ACBSP, along with two accounting research hours and 30 credit hours of accounting courses including:

  • Auditing

  • Tax

  • Financial accounting

  • Managerial accounting

  • Economics

  • Business law

  • Business statistics

  • Business ethics (may not count for more than three semester hours)

  • Business communication (may not count for more than three semester hours)

  • Marketing

  • Finance

  • Quantitative methods

  • Internship or experience (may not count for more than three semester hours)

  • Hold a Bachelor's Degree with the following requirements met:

  • Auditing

  • Tax

  • Financial accounting

  • Managerial accounting

  • Two semester hours in accounting research and analysis

  • Internship or life experience (may not count for more than three semester hours)

  • 24 semester hours studying business as an undergrad or grad student, including:

  • Economics

  • Business law

  • Business statistics

  • Business ethics (may not count for more than three semester hours)

  • Business communication (may not count for more than two semester hours)

  • Marketing

  • Management

  • Information systems

  • Finance

  • Quantitative methods

  • Internship or experience (may not count for more than three semester hours)

If you’ve not yet met all of these requirements but you’re in the process of completing your education, you may be able to obtain provisional approval to sit for the exam. If granted, you’ll have 120 days from the time you take your exam to submit your final college transcripts.

Students who attended a university outside of the United States will need to submit their credentials for verification to the National Association of Boards of Accountancy (NASBA).

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Taking the Uniform CPA Exam

Once you’ve completed the necessary education requirements, you can move forward and get ready to take your exam. Here’s what you’ll need to do:

• • In the Illinois Board of Examiners (ILBOE) online system, you’ll need to create an account so you can submit your application. Choose one of the following application types that best fits your circumstances:

  • Pre-Evaluation

  • Domestic Evaluation

  • Foreign Evaluation

  • Total Transfer of Credit

  • International Qualifications Exam

Be careful not to leave out any information about the colleges or institutions you’ve attended. You’ll be able to pay the $200 application fee online with a credit card upon applying. Foreign applications are free of charge if all credits were earned out of the United States.

Submit your final transcripts to the ILBOE upon completion of all the education prerequisites. Original copies can be sent by mail to Illinois Board of Examiners, 1120 E. Diehl Rd, Suite 110, Naperville, IL 60563. You can also email transcripts to etranscripts@ilboe.org.

Go to the ILBOE online system to complete the Initial Examination Request. Expect to be charged a fee ranging from $40 to $120 (depending on how many exam sections you’re looking to schedule).

Sit back and wait for a letter of approval from the ILBOE to arrive. If you haven’t paid your fee yet, you’ll receive a payment coupon that will be good for 90 days. If not paid by then, you’ll have to reapply. Once all fees are paid, you’ll receive a Notice to Schedule (NTS). You must schedule an exam appointment within six months.

You can now go ahead and schedule your exam through Prometric’s website. Contact the ILBOE or consult their website for information regarding scheduling details. Be sure to sufficiently study, and complete your exam at the scheduled time. You can expect to receive your score within one to two weeks.

CPA candidates must complete a class on professional ethics offered by the AICPA, followed by an open book exam on which you must score a 90 percent or higher. AICPA will send your results to the ILBOE upon request.

Once you’ve completed these steps, you’ll receive a certification of CPA Exam Completion as well as a certification from the ILBOE as a CPA. However, this doesn’t mean that you’re licensed to start practicing on your own.

Required Experience

After completing the education and exam steps, you’ll need to get some experience under your belt before you’re able to become a licensed CPA. These are the steps you’ll need to take to move forward with your licensure.

Complete one year of experience under the guidance of a manager or supervisor. You’ll need to be able to provide proof of service or consultation in the following areas:

• • Accounting

  • Attestation

  • Management advisory

  • Financial advisory

  • Tax consultation

On the Verification of Employment/Experience form located in the Application for CPA Licensure paperwork, document your completed work experience. This will need to be signed by your supervisor.

License requirements

After you’ve finished your year of supervised CPA employment, you’ll be eligible to apply for your CPA license.

On the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) website, locate and download the application packet. Submit the application along with any supplemental information (including experience verification) and required fees to Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, ATTN: Division of Professional Regulation, P.O. Box 7007, Springfield, IL 62791.

Maintaining your license

Once you’ve received your Illinois CPA license, you’ll need to routinely brush up on your skills to make sure you’re up to date on current regulations and information.

Every three years, the state of Illinois requires CPAs to complete 120 hours of continued professional education (CPE), four of which must pertain to ethics. For your first license renewal, you’ll be exempt from the CPE requirement, but be prepared to take future classes to keep your skills sharp.

To find CPE courses, consult the Illinois CPA Society or the NASBA registry.

You may also consider joining a professional group to make sure you’re on top of current news and regulations. The Illinois CPA Society is a great local choice, as is the American Institute of CPAs (a nationally based group).

To come to be a Certified Public Accountant, one must fulfill a collection of requirements. There are different types of CPA qualification, and each has its own set of needs for coming to be a CPA.

The person who holds the Certified Public Accountant classification might hold any variety of certifications from one program to an additional. If the individual is benefiting a federal government company or comparable, she or he will need to go via a series of examinations as well as tests in order to pass.

After passing the exams, you can call on your own an ACA. To become a CPA, it is required to call on your own an ACA.

All accountants should also be certified in their state of job. These licenses differ by state. You need to learn what your state's licensing requirements are for this type of tax accountancy and also make sure that you meet them prior to your attempt to become a CPA.

It is also important to keep in mind that the much more qualifications you have for ending up being a CPA, the more cash you can make in your career. Those that have been Licensed Public Accountants for a long time might actually be able to make greater than those that did not experience as much training as they had actually wished to.

Along with the above certifications, the CPA program itself might likewise vary from one program to another. There are several variations on just how these training courses are educated, yet it is constantly a good suggestion to discover what is being educated, and also what locations of tax the CPA will certainly be dealing with regularly.

By doing this, when you are experiencing the procedure of obtaining the CPA qualification, you will certainly understand just how to tackle doing it. As a CPA, it is important that you have the appropriate qualifications to use in your workplace, because most people will be looking to employ somebody with such credentials.

Although there are many different exams that can be taken, a person will only make money if she or he gets to pass the exam. Because of this, the CPA courses and also examinations have actually all been specifically created so that you have the maximum amount of time to examine and get ready for the examination.

In order to truly comprehend just how to become a Certified Public Accountant, you will require to discover all the info concerning taxation and also accounting that you can. There are a lot of books and also ebooks that can aid you get a handle on this topic, as well as you must always seek them whenever you can.

An additional crucial point to recognize about how to become a CPA is that you will have to be a bit extra resourceful when it involves the important things that you require to do to make a living. Naturally, this does not mean that you should lack abilities when it pertains to money management, as well as financial planning.

You can constantly have a couple of customers when you're seeking work as a CPA, which is why you are required to refer to as long as you can about accounting and tax obligations too. You will be assisting lots of people as a CPA, and also you want to have the ability to speak with individuals regarding exactly how they can benefit from such expertise.

Those that are taking the CPA program will figure out that they will certainly discover a great deal about tax planning, financial planning, as well as some accounting also. Recognizing exactly how to end up being a CPA is something that you need to invest the time needed for in order to achieve success.

While sitting for the Certified Public Accountant can create improved work potential customers as well as opportunities in new markets, it furthermore requires a great deal of time, sources, along with campaign - in addition to isn't required for numerous accountancy work. Spend time completely considering your objectives to ensure that if you undertake this challenge, you're utilizing your time meticulously.

That shows that it depends on you to establish where you believe you'll fit best. Think about your goals: do you mean to profit a consulting company, where you'll have a number of customers, or would absolutely you prefer to be on the audit team in an unique business or not-for-profit organization? Your interest in certain account areas will also dictate the sorts of services you can aid - if you have an interest in internal bookkeeping, opportunities are you'll need to think about bigger firms.

Certified public accountants along with prospective Cpas have a selection of job courses where to select. Within public accounting, you can benefit any type of sized company, differing from a big, globally Certified Public Accountant company to a little regional audit approach. Within the company, you can run in such areas as audit, tax and also administration consulting.

State-licensed accountants can additionally offer solutions in specialized locations of accounting like monetary forensics, business assessment, personal monetary preparation, in addition to IT speaking with. Within the federal government, you can develop a training course to succeed at either the federal government, state or area level. Non-profit business as well as additional education also use countless different opportunities.

Have you ever before considered the several work courses for State-licensed accountants? In college, lots of accounting pupils normally move in the direction of among the large 4 accountancy companies. The significant 4 accountancy firms have a significant presence on countless university universities and they run a really trusted recruiting procedure at those colleges. Beginning in an entrance level bookkeeping or tax responsibility at one of the big public accounting businesses is a terrific means to begin your job.

The task will certainly allow you to fulfill your CPA job experience needs as well as you will absolutely have a possibility to work straight with a variety of industry customers as you gather your accounting experience. However, after the initial couple of years, you'll start to notice that getting that following promotion obtains a little harder as well as also less of your first peers are still with you at the very same company.