New Avenues for Chartered Accountants to Practice

After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant, I immediately opted for Practice after weighing Pros and cons of Job and Practice. In order to help young Chartered Accountants, I previously wrote articles on following topics:

1. CA in Practice Vs CA in Job : Who is better in the Long Run?

2. A Guide to seek Clients For New Chartered Accountants in Practice

3. How to grow CA firm practice?

After having interaction with many new Chartered Accountants over the years, I realized most of them are struggling with their practice and are not able to earn handsome income. Everyone’s reason for struggle was different from another, however there was one common cause of struggle for all of them, i.e. not knowing the new Avenues of practice. Most of the new Chartered Accountants tend to start with traditional and routine work like Income Tax, Audits and Indirect Tax in which competition is already high. In this article I will share few Non-traditional areas of practice for newly Qualified Chartered Accountants so that they can establish themselves in the market and earn good amount of money as well as reputation in the society.

1. Business Set up Consultants:

Acting as Business consultants may be little tough for newly qualified but after having experience of year or two and dealing with various clients, A Chartered Accountant can help new entrepreneurs setup their business and at the same time he can help existing entrepreneurs in business expansion. This requires working knowledge of industry, related regulatory framework, land and building requirements, market research, product knowledge, technological advancements in the industry, funding arrangements, manpower resource arrangements etc. Initially you can begin with one Industry and slowly can expand to others.

2. Payroll accounting & Related compliances:

Many IT companies, call centers and medium & small entities does not set up an In-house Human Resource department but requires payroll accounting experts as there are so much complexities involved in it. This opens up the new practicing avenue for Chartered Accountants. You need accounting Knowledge as well as knowledge of laws such as TDS, PF, ESI, PT and other retirement related laws. You can also buy payroll software to manage the accounting and related compliances efficiently.

3. Valuation:

Even though it require certain post qualification experience to get a degree of certified Valuer, still it is one of most lucrative area of Practice due to very less competition in it.

4. Forensic audit and fraud Detection/prevention:

With the increased money laundering cases and bank frauds, Forensic audit is the need of hour. You have to get a certificate to act as Forensic Auditor, initially one should work with an expert to improve his/her skills, then slowly one can start his/her own practice in this area. Fraud detection and prevention consultancy is also one of the most sought after consultancy that an Experienced Chartered Accountant can provide to Businesses so that they can be saved from loss of money and assets due to fraud. It involves detailed understanding of working of Industry as well as of Frauds that has been already occurred or frauds that may occur in future. An appropriate fraud detection and reporting plan has to be drafted. This involves incorporating check mechanism in the business processes for early identification and reporting of frauds as well as modification in business process to prevent occurrence of such frauds.

5. Loan Syndication:

All businesses need fund and who better than a Chartered Accountant to help them out. For this you have to make a good relationship with bank managers, understand the different loan products they have to offer, get yourself familiar loan documentation process. You can provide tailor made loan consultancy that suits the business needs of the client.

6. Subsidy facilitation:

Government of India as well as state governments are providing various subsidy to businesses to help them set up the business as well as for business expansion. Most businesses are unaware of these subsidies. All you need to do is study the subsidy scheme, understand the application procedure. This require efforts initially but once you are familiar with the overall process, it will be relative easier for you to practice afterwards.

7. Virtual CFO (Retainership Services):

Many small and mid-sized businesses can’t afford whole time CFO to manage their businesses, hence a new concept of Virtual CFO has emerged. You can act as virtual CFO in few entities and manage their business.

8. RERA Consultant:

This is a new area to practice, all you need is the knowledge of RERA act of your state and related procedures. This could be one such area in which you can make name and fame for yourself.

9. Consolidation of Accounts:

With IFRS and IND AS, complexities in finalizing financial statements has been increased manifolds and requires intervention of an expert. You can first do a certification course to gain theoretical knowledge and can approach various corporates to gain work exposure.

10. Others:

There are many other avenues such as Trade mark consultancy, Liquidation of businesses, International Taxation, Transfer pricing etc for new chartered accountants to practice.

(Author of this article is practicing at Indore city and can also be reached at [email protected])