I just began preparing for this exam, will sit for December, and was thumbing through the Stalla workbooks and it seems that about 40% of the material is covered in the BEC and the FAR sections of the CPA exam. Could anyone fill me in as to the accuracy of the statement above and did you find preparing for the CFA easier with the familiarity of having accounting knowledge. I just took the CPA so the ideas are still fresh in my mind. Any thoughts would be appreciated…
Well I am an Australian CA, so i’m not too up to speed on your crazy US GAAP, but i kind of skipped reading FSA CFAI book and just did Schweser questions. I got above 70% for FAR in the exam in June (and passed overall) so I guess you should be ok. Most of the FSA stuff is pretty logical for accountants, as long as you know the quirky accounting treatments that exist. Such as the double diminishing depreciation thing?? Who the hell came up with that… and who approved its use…?!? Not that IFRS is much better I guess.
I am a CPA too, and am finding FSA quite okay, but you need to look at it from a users(an analyst’s) perspective, not preparers. That said, study session 9 is a killer.
JOE2010 is absolutely correct. I too am a CPA and passed Level 1 in June. You will have to approach this material as an analyst and not an accountant. The CPA Exam did not have BEC when I took it so I don’t know what this is. We took all four sections at one time and had to pass two. Don’t take the material lightly but a CPA will have a slight advantage when covering the material. This will become especially evident in areas like Deferred Taxes, Inventory and Cash Flow Statement. Make sure you master the GAAP vs. Int’l Accounting section.