Let’s first answer a few basic and most common questions:

Shall I opt for DUMMY Articleship?

A BIG NO Articleship is the backbone of CA Course. If passing the exam is important than doing Articleship is also equally important. One should not think of dummy Articleship even in their wildest of thoughts.

Whether I should do it from my own city or from any big city?

If you belong to a very small city then it’s better to move to a bigger place to get a good exposure. But moving to a different place comes with lot of additional burdens. If you stay with your family you need not bother about your food and other basic necessity but the moment you move out, along with tuition and office you have even a home to manage. In case you are taking the decision of moving out get mentally prepared for the additional responsibility and see that you stay there for complete 3 years of your Articleship.

Shall I opt for a Big Firm, a Medium firm or a small firm?

Big Firms give the exposure to big corporates, highly professional environment and standard working procedures but at the same time they don’t give you exposure of different areas. If you are very sure about your interest area then you must go for big firms provided you get that section. For Ex. If a student is willing to expertise and practice in internal audits then he can approach big firms where he will get good exposure of the best of the audits. But if a student is not very sure about his interest area then preferably he must opt for mid-size firms that will help him to explore about his own interest. Small firms will not give much learning experience.

What if I go for big firm for 1st 1 year and then opt for transfer to some small or mid-size firm?

It’s not at all a good idea. When a student is in his first year of his Articleship he gets the preliminary task like vouching, reconciliations, balance confirmation etc. When he enters the second year of Articleship he is given the responsibility of ledger verification and making the draft reports and in the third year of Articleship the article gets the responsibility of handling the complete audit along with finalization and discussion with management. Now in case the student takes a transfer after first year of articleship he gets to learn only the preliminary task and the moment he switches to another firm the new firm may not directly treat him like a second year article because every firm has its own style of working and the student may have to invest something between 3 to 6 months to know the systems and procedure of the new place again ending up with the basic task.

In my opinion unless it’s an extreme situation one must not take transfer.

What are the different areas of work for a CA firm?

As per the present scenario the job of a CA firm is not restricted only to audits there are different areas in which a CA firms offer services. Some of the most commonly known are:

• Corporate Audits
• Tax Audits
• Indirect Tax Audits
• Bank Audits
• Stock Audits
• Company Law Work
• Project Finance
• Tax Planning & Consultancy
• Forensic Audit
• Internal Financial Control
• Return Filings etc

What preparation is required at my end to make the Articleship a wonderful learning experience?

• In order to make your Articleship a wonderful learning experience you need to first have lot of self-discipline and seriousness with respect to the task given.
• You should never make a comparison between the type of work given to you and to your other fellow article.
• It’s not possible to get all the work exposure in 3 years, so you must have a weekly group discussion with your fellow articles to share the experiences.
• Be updated academically and technically.
• Attend National Conferences and all the student gatherings. Participate in various competitions, present papers on topics of your interest, write articles in CA journals all this will help you create a brand image.

How can I be technically updated?

• You must have a very good understanding of accounting software.
• You must be excellent in using Excel and in case of big firms even in software like Idea & Tableau as well.
• Gone are the days when audit was through transactions now the audit is through system and of the system so you must know the intelligent and smart ways of doing audits. This will help you to have quality work in less time.

Still having queries then attend Articleship Boot Camp