It’s common practice for individuals who have undertaken a course or a qualification in accounting, and after passing their exams, to automatically refer to themselves as professional accountants; Certified Public Accountant (CPA) or Certified Accounting Technician (CAT) by adding the designation CPA (R) or CAT (R) after their names.

To continue engaging non-professional accountants is inappropriate and it is extremely unsafe for organisations. Besides, it is against any Professional Accountancy Organisation’s (PAO) laws for one to call himself or herself a professional accountant, when he or she is NOT.

For instance, in Rwanda, a member registered with the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Rwanda (ICPAR) is the only one allowed to use the above designations, provided he or she is in good standing.

Moreover, it is prohibited to use such a designation when you are a non-member in whatever category (i.e., student, affiliate, associate etc.); and punishable in accordance with the Penal Code and the Institute’s code of professional conduct and ethics.

Who is a professional accountant?

The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) defines the term professional accountant as a person who has expertise in the field of accountancy, achieved through formal education and practical experience, and who: demonstrates and maintains competence; Complies with a code of ethics; Is held to a high professional standard; and, Is subject to enforcement by a professional accountancy organization or other regulatory mechanism.

Why non-professional accountants might be an obstacle to economic development?

Provision of incompetent services

A skilled labour force that is needed in the achieving of a middle-income status as a knowledge-based economy is a major prerequisite in Rwanda today.

Reskilling and upskilling require embracing a program of lifelong learning and continuous development of professional competence so that Accountants are effectively innovative and are able to deal with the current unpredictable and dynamic business challenges, to which a non-professional accountant is unable to uphold.

Besides, IFAC stresses that individuals who are NOT up-to-date on current technical and general knowledge related to their work would only be providing inept professional services. Please watch out for individuals who masquerade as professional accountants yet they are not.

Nurturing of investors’ confidence

High quality corporate reporting contributes to enhanced transparency and accountability; a major ingredient in facilitating the mobilisation of both local and international investments that nurtures investor confidence, a major requirement towards financial stability promotion.

Without professional accountants, this may remain a mere dream and hence the urgent need to build a critical mass of professional staff across the entire Public Financial Management (PFM) occupational disciplines in an endeavour of addressing the current public sector capacity gaps whilst improving service delivery, thereby directly contributing to the country’s economic development.

Effective management of public funds

Mainly in the public sector, lack of enough qualified professional accountants is believed to escalate accountability and governance issues including ineffective management of public funds and this therefore requires an urgent need for professionalisation of public sector employees in the accountancy sector.

The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN) has really done a lot in reference to its PFM Learning and Development (L&D) Strategy that was developed to assist in realizing the PFM priority of enhancing training, professionalism, and capacity building which aims at building a critical mass of professional staff across the entire PFM occupational disciplines with one of the guiding principles being provision of specialised PFM staff training programmes and induction courses that deal with any identified competency gaps; nonetheless there is still a lot that has to be done.

To continue developing a critical mass of competent, professionally qualified, certified and motivated PFM Staff in the public entities, all the relevant stakeholders will need to work together aiming at addressing the persistent shortage of PFM skills and competencies that are fundamental in ensuring an efficient and effective utilization of citizens’ resources, thereby contributing to economic development and poverty eradication.

Enhanced confidence in financial and business reporting

A professional accountant is characterised with higher standards of ethical behaviour leading to increased confidence in financial and business reporting in both the public and private sectors, as well as mitigating the chances of fraud, corruption and money laundering driven by improved engagement on business-critical issues between professional accountants in business, regulators, and governmental bodies.

Effective means of dealing with an alleged professional misconduct

Non-regulated accountants are usually not accountable to anyone and most of them have continued to disguise as professionals since the general public sometimes do not understand the underlying differences.

When the client/ investor suffers a loss or incurs a liability owing it to an ill-advice; it becomes complicated to investigate such a professional misconduct, as at that point, the individual or organisation will not be accountable to ICPAR neither will the institute have any right to investigate such a case, even though the institute still serves in the public interest.

The institute can never intervene in any allegations of unprofessional behaviour from unregistered members or firms. Please cross check as to whether the individual or firm is registered on the ICPAR website before engaging them.

Which professional accountant to engage?

It will be somewhat difficult to have a business succeed without a professional accountant simply because, one of the main causes of small businesses failure lies under poor financial management.

Besides, the facilitation that a professional accountant may offer in terms of tracking an organisation’s finances, requires that you work with an accountant throughout the year, for example; as opposed to engaging him or her during the filing of tax declaration or during an audit. This is because many mispostings, mistakes or issues can be easily avoided if the guidance and advise of an accountant was sought early enough.

Likewise, business owners focus on the budget to be able to hire an accountant; but if you think about how much time and effort you could spend on trying to do the accountant’s work yourself, not mentioning the related losses from poor decision making, it certainly costs a fortune.

Hiring an accountant that is fit for purpose – if you are a small business, you may consider hiring a CAT – Certified Accounting Technician as opposed to a CPA – Certified Public Accountant. There, you would be in position to easily plan for the future with a collaborative approach with your accountant; and surely, the benefits certainly outweigh the cost.

Who is a CAT?

An Accounting Technician (AT) is a skilled person who undertakes many of the day-to-day functions in the accounting environment. He or she may work alone in smaller organizations but in larger organizations usually they work in support of senior accountants.

Accounting technicians work in all types of organizations, including commerce and industry, government, public services and private practice. In many other jurisdictions, ATs may be referred to with a different terminology such as Bookkeeper, Public Finance Accountant or Accounting Administrator. A CAT can be obtained as a standalone qualification.

However, individuals often study for CAT as an introductory qualification in accountancy prior to becoming a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) through the CPA qualification scheme. Consequently, CAT Stage 3 serves as Stage 1 of the revamped CPA Qualification.

CATs may offer several services including: Assisting with accounts preparation; processing company expenses; preparing and submitting tax returns; preparing ledger balances; creating reports, budgets and statements; and; processing invoices, among many others.

Where to find a professional accountant?

ICPAR publishes the list of its professional accountants annually (members in good standing – those who have renewed their subscription along with a CPD declaration submission) in the Official Gazette and on its website.

May you require more clarification regarding a professional accountant – a member of ICPAR either as a CAT or CPA, please engage the institute at info@icparwanda.com or pds@icparwanda.com.

The author is the Director, Professional Development Services – ICPAR