Some Food for Thought on CA Articleship and CA Articles

Issued In The Interest of Article Trainee's (AT)

Many of the students are in dilemma whether Articleship is useful for the future career. The answer is neither Yes nor No. It all depends on the factors which I am mentioning below.

“It is very important for every principle to treat his/her article in a proper manner and should utilize the skills for the benefit of student/article trainee (AT)” very true , but question is how far the principles are following the guidelines provided by CA Inst. When they (CA Inst) is banning articelship
transfer why not they impose some restriction on CAs in practice to stop misutilization of there right i.e. harassing the articles undergoing training under them by any means.

There is lot of options available to make articleship impressive from the current state. Few suggestions are to organize Financial Quizzes, get together meets, separate grievance for article trainees etc.

Financial Quizzes : To judge and built article trainees (ATs) analytical skills
Get together : Best way to increase networking
Grievance forum : To resolve queries and grievances of article trainee (AT) on time
Lot of students are getting limited knowledge in the articles period why because their principle is using them for their personal work say deposit light bill, telephone bills etc. We can not imagine how far they may go!
L
One of my bro’s friend goes to of office just to deposits bills, or to do personal work of CA or other works like courier etc.

Then in such environment do you think even students would like to do articleship? Answer is no, they don’t want to be just trainee in articleship. Even they can not raise their voice to protect themselves from the obvious injustice. What is the reason? May be CA Institute, which is empowered to power articles, could not provide proper rights to the AT’s. Opposite to it, it has imposed restriction on articles by banning transfers etc. I think AT’s right should not be limited to their principle but should also be govern by CA Inst. I am sure that would help to improve articles situation.

Now some of you say “The ground realities are different, we have joined a professional course but if we are not getting professional work at of offices then what is the need of that articleship. Have we joined course to know how
to get a drop a bill in billbox or how to get a railway ticket or carry files behind our principle just to stay outside the room of AO. What kind of development is this?”
I agreed with the above text, it is the hard fact which we all know but can not do anything until given the power.

CA Inst has it but of no use if not use it correctly.

Things get worse when the first batch of CPT students passed out. The result was humungous. Almost 67% !!! & there was shortage of CA  firms to absorb them. Many students got articlehsip in the  firms which were not of their choice but they had to continue articleship anyhow. Since then CA Inst could not make the situation much better.

ICAI should have thought of such shortcomings but what they did and what happened in reality , they only can answer.
Read it somewhere that now the situation is totally different. Now u might see vacancies in the CA firms as the supply has been cut down due to the introduction of IPCC scheme. Now you can get the articleship in a comparatively good firm. In fact now the CA firms are ready to pay more stipend.

Where are the good firms ? Are you talking about Big 4, they are still reluctant to take article trainee who don’t have a good approach. If you are not agreeing with me, pls write reasons for mismatch.
One more suggestion to improve AT’s situation is to set a committee which only reviews & take care about ATs queries and conduct inquiry into affaires of CA’s against which they are getting continues complain. This committee can be part of the Grievance forum which I suggested above.

Further one best way to reach large number of students and members are to go online. CA Inst have one forum which many of you may not be aware of but it does not work faster so no use in going their. So I would drop my discussion on this topic here only.
When I was in PE-II, my seniors used to say that every article has to do basic work like  filing, vouching , ledger scrutiny etc. which I think is essential as always its better to know the concept  first and then you can better perform.
Plz do ponder on these things and provide our valuable suggestion here.

Cheers, the Helping Hand
CA CS Prakash Somani

Industry or Practise ??

WHETHER TO GO FOR PRACTICE OR INDUSTRY

Every one of us will become CA today or tomorrow and after becoming CA the question which popup in our mind is "Whether to go for Practice or Industry?" 

This article will help you to provide answer to the above question.

If we think about the demand aspect there is more demand of CAs in practice then in industry and most of us are well aware of this fact but don’t want to go for practice why? As per my opinion below are the reasons:

1.       Not having good networking

2.       Not having enough money

3.       Not having good knowledge or communication skill

4.       Not having enough confidence or fear of failure

5.       Don’t know how to go in practice or what are the compliances we need to obey

6.       Getting very good job somewhere else in industry

7.       Joining family business

8.       Whether to start proprietorship or partnership

If we talk about the favorable aspects of going into practice then it could be below:

1.       You, yourself is the boss

2.       You can freely make decisions to improve your Business / Profession

3.       All the return from the Business / Profession belongs to you

4.       In long term your business will grow up thus it will provide you very good returns then provided by an Industry

5.       You can spare the time for your family and friends

6.       There are little number of CA who is in practice so you will always be in demand

7.       You can train the article trainee's (No dummy pls)

8.       Finally no tension of applying for leave etc

Even after having lot of benefits being into practice members are not willing to go for it because members are not properly motivated by ICAI. We generally see big statements from ICAI that go in practice but never got the answers to the points mentioned above in first para.

Really speaking if CA institute can do something to help us on above points then it could be a big help. For the same my suggestions to the CA institute are:

Organize the free seminar to let the members know the real & practical benefits of going into practice

Tie up with various banks to provide the financial assistance to the members wants to go in Practice

Built a professional park like we have IT parks (One of the best suggestion I can thought about)

Deep scrutiny into the operations of big firms or medium size firms to check how far they complying with the Professional Ethics provided by the CA institute.

Organize free seminars to build the confidence among members and improve their communication skills

Provide them the practical solutions to the practical problems for being into practice

CA CS Prakash Somani

Be what you are

BE WHAT YOU ARE

Ever you seen a person intelligent then you? Yes, most of you say that every other person is intelligent in some or other way from you. It means that other person also think the same way what you are thinking. So it can be concluded that everybody is intelligent in their own capacity.

There are some who are excellent in painting, some in writing, some in poeting, some in singing and so on. The list is never ending. Nobody is perfect in this world but have you ever meet nobody, who is perfect! So be happy with what you are. God have created you by taking his own sweet time and sent you to this world to leave your mark. It’s up to you that you change yourself and live life like you are nothing to anybody.

Be happy that god has given you life of a mankind who is most intelligent among rest of the creatures on the earth. I don’t know about you but I feel obliged to have this life and I further feel proud when I think that yes I am living it in my own way. Everybody is unique in some way or other so maintain that uniqueness of you as there is nobody else who is exactly like you though you may have heard that there are at least 5 person of same face like you but nobody will have same mind like you.

No people can keep everybody happy so even if you try to do well for everyone there could be someone who will feel jealous of you so be what you are and don’t put yourself into other’s shoes forever. If you feel like whatever you are doing is correct then does listen to the world just listen to your heart and do what your inner self ask you to do.

If you want full satisfaction in everything you do then convince yourself about rightness of doing that work. If you are half convinced or not convinced at all about anything then don initiate that activity else there could be chances that you may have to leave that mid way.. unfinished / incomplete.

In order to remain yourself I would suggest to have a good friend circle who never let you down and always keeps your sprit up. “Books and friends should be few but good” (My words). Once you understand the real meaning of this slogan you will never lose yourself for anybody.

Wish you luck and success “Don’t be me rather Try to be yourself” I hope this article will help you understand yourself which is the most difficult task. Now a day’s people are more interested into others life rather than their own so you think out of the box and think about yourself as there is whole* world to think about you.

A Helping Hand

CA CS Prakash Somani