Blog: Career

A lot of accounting careers are gated by a degree. The CPA license requires college coursework under every state's law, and most of the well-known corporate finance certifications expect a bachelor's degree too. That leaves a common question from bookkeepers, seasonal tax preparers, career changers and people who started working before they finished school: which accounting certifications can you actually earn without a degree?

More than most people expect. The most ...

A Certified Fraud Examiner is a professional who has been credentialed by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) as competent to prevent, detect and investigate fraud. The credential sits at the intersection of accounting, investigation and law, which is why it attracts auditors and accountants, but also compliance officers, loss prevention managers, investigators and attorneys.

For accountants, the CFE is usually a specialization decision rather than a first credential.

An enrolled agent is a tax practitioner who has been granted the right to practice before the Internal Revenue Service by the IRS itself. Most people earn it by passing the three-part Special Enrollment Examination (SEE); a smaller group qualifies through technical experience as former IRS employees. The IRS describes it as the highest credential it awards, and the description is accurate in one specific sense: an enrolled agent has the same unlimited representation rights ...

You can become a CPA without an accounting degree. You cannot become a CPA without a degree. That distinction is the whole article in one line, and getting it wrong in either direction costs people years.

Every US jurisdiction requires a bachelor's degree for licensure. What most do not require is that the degree be in accounting. The model law that state boards draw from, the Uniform Accountancy Act published by NASBA and the AICPA, describes the education requirement as a ...