ICAI CA Foundation 2024: Check September Exam Dates, Registration & Admit Card

The starting salary of a Chartered Accountant in India is minimum INR 7 Lacs per annum. With experience of four-five years, the annual earning potential rises up to INR 24-25 Lacs per annum. The top notch CAs charge greater amount for their services. One can join a financial auditing company or start their independent practice depending on their choice of career path.

The prospects of a Chartered Accountancy as a career is very high in India as well as abroad. Since, the ICAI certificate is globally recognized, aspirants can seek career opportunities in the foreign countries after completing the course.

ICAI CA Foundation is the first level of the course. This level may be considered the easiest of all the courses. The syllabus of ICAI CA Foundation includes the following topics:

• Principles and Practice of Accounting
• Business Laws and Business
• Correspondence and Reporting
• Business Mathematics
• Logical Reasoning and Statistics
• Business Economics
• Business and Commercial Knowledge

Candidates need to clear all the papers relate to these subjects in order to move to Intermediate level. The minimum score requirement id 40 per cent in every paper.

After clearing the CA Foundation course, candidates move to the next level which is CA Intermediate. The syllabus of ICAI CA Intermediate course includes the following:

• Accounting
• Business Laws
• Ethics and Communication
• Cost Accounting and Financial Management
• Taxation
• Advanced Accounting
• Auditing and Assurance
• Information Technology and Strategic Management
• Financial Management and Economics for Finance.

These subjects are difficult to crack and need a good amount of dedication and coaching. Candidates need to score a minimum of 40 per cent in each paper to clear the course level.

CA Final is the last course level but the toughest one. The syllabus of ICAI CA Final course includes the following topics:

• Financial Reporting
• Strategic Financial Management
• Advanced Auditing and Professional Ethics
• Corporate and Economic Laws
• Strategic Cost Management and Performance Evaluation
• Risk Management
• Financial Services and Capital Markets
• International Taxation
• Economic Laws
• Global Financial Reporting Standards
• Multidisciplinary Case Study
• Direct Tax Laws and International Taxation
• Indirect Tax Laws

The minimum passing marks in this course level is all 40 per cent per paper.

The criteria for shortlisting candidates for placements is determined by the participating organizations themselves. The maximum number of shortlisting by recruiting entities cannot exceed 10 times the number of vacancies they declared for Chartered Accountancy.

Also, the participating organisations usually shortlist candidates depending upon overall educational qualifications, number of attempts, other attributes, Completion of Articleship training and in case a greater number of candidates qualify the selection criteria companies may choose on random basis as per their choice.

Organisations participating in the Campus Placement Programme prefer that the candidates selected by them should be ready to join the organisations immediately and should not claim that their Articleship training is pending and require more time to join.

Ernst & Young (EY), PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler (KPMG) and Deloitte are the top private companies that hire CAs. They are known as The Big Four. CA professionals can seek employment in these companies as well as other enterprises if they don't want to practice independently.

The ICAI has its own placement cell to, through which it provides placements to candidates who complete the Chartered Accountancy course. Some of the top companies that participate in the campus placements are Infosys, Pankaj Somaiya Associates LLP, Prism Johnson Limited, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, Bandhan AMC Ltd, Mahindra Rural Housing Finance Limited, Hindalco Industries, Ford Motor Private Limited, LIC Housing Finance Ltd, Axis Bank among others.