Kentucky - Become a CPA
Becoming a CPA in Kentucky requires a lot of hard work and dedication but is achievable within a few years of receiving a bachelor’s degree in accounting. Unlike many states, Kentucky requires CPA candidates to work with its state board of accountancy to determine eligibility for taking the Uniform CPA Examination, rather than applying through the national state board association.
Education Requirements
In Kentucky, future CPAs must complete 150 semester hours from an accredited college and obtain a bachelor’s degree. These must include 39 hours of business courses, of which 27 hours are specifically for accounting. Courses in the following subjects may make up 12 hours or more:
Business
Computers
Economics
Finance
Marketing
Statistics
If you attended a foreign college or university, a member credentialing agency of the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services, Inc. (NACES) must evaluate your academic credits. Contact NACES directly to arrange an evaluation. The results are sent to the Kentucky State Board of Accountancy (KSBA)
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Exam Requirements in Kentucky
Individuals who have completed at least 120 semester hours of college and have earned a bachelor’s degree are eligible to sit for the Uniform CPA Examination. Visit the KSBA website to apply for the exam. Once you receive the application packet, fill out the forms and send in official transcripts from your school, along with the applicable fees. These fees include an initial examination fee, and fees for each of the four sections of the exam, along with other fees detailed in the application. Take the application to a notary before signing, and after notarization, send the package to:
Kentucky State Board of Accountancy
332 W. Broadway, #310
Louisville, KY 40202
Once the KSBA approves your application, it sends an “Authorization to Test” to the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA). You will receive an invoice from NASBA, which is payable within 90 days. Once NASBA receives the funds, you will receive a Notice to Schedule the Uniform CPA Examination. You receive this notice via the method chosen in your application, either via email, fax or regular mail.
1. The Uniform CPA Examination
The Uniform CPA Examination consists of four separate components: Financial accounting and reporting; Business environment and concepts; Regulation and Auditing and Attestation. The test for each component lasts four hours, for a total of 16 hours of testing. You can take each exam on separate dates or take the entire exam in one 16-hour sitting. All components of the exam must be completed within 18 months of passing the initial component.
2. Exam scheduling
The Uniform CPA Examination is held in three Kentucky cities: Florence, Lexington and Louisville. Visit the Prometric website to schedule your exam. On the day of the testing, arrive at the test site at least 30 minutes before the time the test is set to begin. You will need official identification to take the test, such as a driver’s license or some other form of identification including your photograph. After you complete the exam, your scores are mailed to you.
The Uniform CPA Examination consists of four separate components.
Experience Needed
After passing the Uniform CPA Examination, you can begin to gain the necessary experience qualifying you for Kentucky CPA licensing. Kentucky requires CPA candidates to complete 2,000 hours of practical experience over one year. You must complete the experience portion within five years of passing the Uniform CPA Examination. Experience is overseen and verified by a licensed CPA, but Kentucky does not require that CPA to hold Kentucky licensure.
You may gain experience working in academia, government, industry or public practice accounting or auditing. You may work for more than one employer to gain the required number of hours.
The verifying CPA must complete a Certificate of Experience for you, which is included when you apply for your licensure. Information on the certificate includes:
Employer’s name and address
Employment dates
Total hours worked
Professional titles held
Description of work duties
If you gained your experience in academia, you must include all courses you taught, and the course titles and dates and number of semester hours.
Getting Your CPA License in Kentucky
After completing your experience and having the certified CPA verify it, you may apply for licensure. Download the Application for an Initial License as Kentucky Certified Public Accountant. When sending in the application, include a 2” x 2” photo of yourself. Along with the Certificate of Experience, send along your official college transcripts and an application fee with a check made out to the KSBA. You must complete and sign the application in the presence of a notary public. Mail the completed and notarized application to the KSBA.
1. Reciprocal licensing
If you already hold a license in any U.S. state or territory other than the Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico, you may apply for a reciprocal license. Fill out the application for Initial License as a Kentucky Certified Public Account by Reciprocity. You must also send an Authorization for Interstate Exchange of Information form to the board of the state in which you passed the Uniform CPA Examination. If that is not the same state in which your license is held, you must send the authorization form to that state. Attach a 2” x 2” photograph of yourself to the application. The application must include one of the following:
Verification of one year of experience by a certified CPA
Certified copies of experience forms filed with another state accountancy board
Copies of your firm’s license application
Schedule C of your personal income tax return
Letter from a CPA or lawyer familiar with your practice
Public accounting omissions and errors insurance
You must also send the applicable fees in a check made payable to the KSBA. Have the application’s certificate and acknowledgement page notarized and send the entire package to the KSBA.
Continuing Professional Education Requirements
Kentucky’s Continuing Professional Education (CPE) requirements vary depending on your job. If the previous two years of your work took place in a public accounting firm and you worked 3,000 hours or more, you must complete 80 CPE hours every two years. All other licensed CPAs must complete 60 CPE hours every two years.
You will receive CPE credits by the KSBA for classes in the following subjects:
Auditing and accounting
Business law
Communication arts
Economics
Ethics
Finance
Information systems
Management services
Marketing
Mathematics
Statistics
Taxation
You may also receive CPE credit for administrative procedures dealing with attest services and courses in specialized areas of the industry. Such specialization include financial analysis, cost accounting, management consulting, academia and government accounting.
Certain CPA programs count for CPE credit. These include:
In-house educational programs
Credited college and university courses
Non-credit college and university courses
Formal independent study courses, including those online
Professional accounting organization’s professional development courses
Article and book publishing may account for up to 25 percent of your CPE credits. Lecturing, speaking or leading discussions may account for up to 60 percent of your CPE credits.
Once you have completed your CPE credits, hold on to the documentation for at least five years. This documentation includes the titles and descriptions of courses, the dates attended, the sponsor and how many CPE hours you are claiming for each course.
There are lots of various means to become a CPA yet what should you do if you want to be one as well as can not obtain sufficient training? There are a great deal of ways to become a CPA that will certainly help you along the road. A few of them are fantastic, some not so great.
The way to end up being a CPA is by taking the Certified Public Accountant Test (CPAT) along with taking the initial part of the CPA Evaluation Expert Exam (CPA APPE). Nevertheless, to get these certifications, you must have gone through the program work needed in order to sit for the examination and after that passing it.
There are a couple of various other methods to end up being a CPA. For example, by ending up being a Certified Public Accountant is by attending proceeding education and learning courses. Proceeding education and learning courses are available from several institutions including a public accounting school.
There are also some workshops that give coursework, especially those on just how to end up being a CPA. Continuing education classes are typically funded by different accounting firms, so check them out to see if they have programs being supplied. In addition, there are several various other online continuing education courses that you may want to check into.
One more means to come to be a CPA is by working for a business that requires a CPA. Exactly how this works is that you register as well as take a continuing education training course when you begin working for the firm. You take the course as well as at the end of the year you will certainly be offered a certificate with your name on it. If you need to see this certificate, you can discover the URL for the certification you will certainly get at the end of the year on your firm's internet site.
If you are mosting likely to become a CPA, you will certainly need to find out about tax legislation and you will need to understand the regulations concerning a certain area of accounting. Nonetheless, in order to acquire experience you can take the CPA Evaluation and take the CPAT as well as the CPA APPE.
The CPA Examination benefits the very first part of the exam and afterwards you take the CPA APPE at the end of the program. The CPAT and CPA APPE are both provided at various times of the year. It may be that you take the CPAT or CPA APPE prior to completion of the tax year or it may be that you take the CPAT or CPA APPE after the end of the tax year.
What is essential is that you experience every one of the needed training and also the proceeding education that is needed to end up being a CPA. You need to also bear in mind that there are various other means to be a CPA and also it will help you turn into one that does not need sitting for the CPA test.
A great accountant is one that does his/her work well. This means that they recognize the accounting fundamentals as well as they recognize exactly how to handle their company also. They ought to additionally have abilities in interaction as well as follow-up.
Organisations that have numerous locations of focus such as money, personnels, monitoring, as well as infotech will normally have to have employees that have every one of these types of skills. If you do not have these skills, you will not be a very good accountant.
By finding out more regarding how to become a CPA, you will certainly have the ability to better serve your clients. This is due to the fact that if you want to do great for your customers, you will certainly require to know just how to come to be a CPA and this knowledge can be gotten via an online level program, continuing education training courses, and special accreditations from your accountant firm.
If you are wanting to enter the business of being a CPA, but aren't sure where to start, there are a variety of resources readily available. First, look for a CPA training and accreditation program and after that look for an excellent neighborhood accountant that will be able to provide you suggestions regarding obtaining your accreditation.
Typical law responsibility consists of neglect, rip-offs and also breach of contract, while lawful regulation includes any type of state or government defenses regulations. The first expert organization for accountants, the American Organization of Public Accountants, was developed in 1887, as CPAs were extremely initially licensed in 1896. Bookkeeping grew as a crucial occupation throughout the industrial change.
An accounting specialist can generate and likewise send out costs to your customers so you can get paid. For your firm to do well, you need to recognize what you remain in fact selling, precisely how much you're marketing as well as at what earnings. An accountant can keep an eye on your neighborhood organisation's sales as well as run records. By doing this you comprehend what your largest suppliers are, which things to end, and also simply how much stock you need for the following month.
The larger your organisation comes to be, the a lot more stuff you'll call for to make it run. Your accounting specialist will pay your suppliers (in addition to keep an eye on those costs) so you recognize just exactly how lucrative your company truly is. The quantity of humans resources did your assistant run in June and also simply just how much was she paid? Your accountant can track and also compute her pay, plus educate you just how much you need to keep for quarterly payroll tax commitments.