Accounting & Commerce

Hi Prashant,
Company Secretary, as both an independent professional and an employee, is a professionally and financially rewarding career. The CS course is through correspondence and can be completed in three and a half years, and the registration is valid for five years. Students who have passed +2 in any stream, except fine arts, can register and appear for the foundation-level examination after nine months. The second level is executive level, after which employment can be sought in any company. The final or professional level has Nine elective subjects. For details refer to:
https://www.icsi.edu/webmodules/Student/ProspectusExcutive040913.pdf.

The name ICWAI was renamed as ICAI (Institute of Cost Accountants O India). Let's see the difference:
- CAs are mainly dealing with the audit of the financial statement. Tier duty is to form an opinion about the company he/she audit and give in his/her audit report. Whereas Cost Auditor deals with the audit of cost statement and he /she has to submit his /her report in Form CRA-3 within 180 days from closure of financial year to BOD and Form CRA-4 to Central Government.
- The syllabus for CA and CMA are similar but not same.
- The scope for CA is wider when compared to CMAs as CMAs are focused on costing only. U2013 Cost audit is not substituted for financial audit. It's an additional audit. Cost sheet data can be reconciled with financial data in order to ensure the reliability of the data. CA. Audit report shall be submitted to Income Tax department, whereas there is no need to submit Cost audit report to Income Tax department unless otherwise specified.
- While preparing Tax Audit Report CA. Should ascertain whether cost audit was carried out and details of any disqualification identified by Cost Auditor on any materials/items/quantity.
- While doing financial audit CA. Has to comply with Accounting Standards AD, Standards on auditing SA, Guidance, notifications etc. Issued by ICAI and other statutory bodies as and when. Cost auditors have to comply with Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) issued by the Institute of Cost Acc.