CA DIARY OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ADMISSION TO MEMBERSHIP FOR TRAINEES IN PRACTICE INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS AND MENTORS JULY 2013
Introduction The CA Diary of Professional Development, which has been online since 2006, is the essential tool which records the trainees experience over the period of their training contract and forms part of their application for admission to Chartered Accountants Ireland membership. Full information on the guidelines, sample entries and user guides can be found on the webpage http://www.charteredaccountants.ie/students/student-services/ca-diary-information/ This document is divided into two sections. Section one contains information that all students need to know to apply for admission to membership. Section two contains information and frequently asked questions that students and mentors require on how to best use the report and information in the CA diary for admission to membership. It is intended that section two could be used by a trainee during their training on a yearly basis so they can bench mark their progression and attainment of competencies. Section to meet the following criteria: One In order to be eligible for admission to associate membership of Chartered Accountants Ireland, students are required Information for students applying for Admission to Membership Pass Chartered Accountants Ireland examinations Pass the Personal Computing for Accountants (PCA)/Accounting in a Computer Environment (ACE) assessment During test your where training applicable contract you are required to evidence attaining the core competencies by creating entries in your Serve CA Diary. their training Every six contract months in full your and mentor submit should the appropriate meet with Record you to of discuss Experience/CA your content, Diary lock of Professional it and submit Development, a review on your or serve record. in full recognized experience for qualification for Elevation Programme students and submit their CA diary of Professional Development. IMPORTANT TIME BAR RULE The time-bar rule applies to all students registered under training contract with effect from 1st July 2005. The rule specifies that students must apply for associate membership of the Institute within a ONE-YEAR period from the date they become eligible to apply for associate membership i.e. joining within 12 months of FAE success or expiry date of training contract, whichever is the latter. The eligibility of students who do not join within the ONE YEAR period may be required to: Re-sit examination(s) and/or Complete further relevant experience 1
Section 1 Information for students applying for Admission to Membership During your training contract you are required to evidence attaining the core competencies by creating entries in your CA Diary. Every six months your mentor should meet with you to discuss your content, lock it and submit a review on your record. All trainees are required to evidence the acquisition of competencies in the core competencies and one in depth area of experience. The core competencies are Financial Reporting FA1- FA4, Business Environment CB1-CB6, and Professional Values PV1- PV7. The areas of experience to demonstrate in-depth knowledge are Auditing (AU), Taxation (TX) and Finance (CF) and Information systems (IT/IS). At the beginning of your training we know that most tasks will be new to you and that therefore your entries will be mostly at an Understanding level. As you progress through your period under contract your knowledge levels with rise to an application level culminating with you recognising the integrative nature of the discipline. Using your CA diary to populate your Admission to Membership document When you create an entry it will list in your CA diary as unlocked. Unlocked entries have to be locked before they transfer into the Admission to membership document. Until your entry is locked is it not signed off by your mentor and your training firm. When your mentor locks an entry they retain the function to unlock the entry if for example you make a mistake that you need to correct. On the control panel of your CA diary, there is a button called Admission to Membership document. You have the ability to generate this all stages of your contract. Figure 1: View of the control panel in the student s CA diary login. The admission to membership document is the middle button on the second row. 2
As you progress through your training contract you have access to My Reports on the control panel of the CA Diary which allows you to check what competencies you are recording and more importantly what you have yet to evidence. To access My Reports you go to the control panel visible in Figure 1 above. It is important that you monitor your own progress during your training contract by using your reports section. It is possible that you are getting relevant experience but have overlooked it when recording your entries. Take for example the core area of Business Environment (CB1- CB6). When you start your training contract you may not have contact with clients so would not record CB4. As you progress in your training contract you will get client contact and a client focus in your work. As you are not in the habit of including the competency if you used My reports on a regular basis you would have picked up on this and included it in your next set of entries. Assuming that you are creating entries on a regular basis and your mentor is locking them at your six monthly reviews your Admission to membership document has started to build in the first year of your training contract. When you finish your training contract and become eligible to apply for admission to membership you generate your Admission to Membership form from the control panel in the CA diary. Your document should contain the sign off by the training partner and yourself on page 2 and page 3, all of your competencies on page 4, followed by a six monthly breakdown of your progression while you were in contract, all of your locked entries, your Final Review by your mentor and your six monthly reviews. Remember the student creates the entries with the competencies and the text of evidence. The mentor creates the six monthly reviews and locks the entries. The mentor also submits the final review. A mentor will only be allowed submit a final review when all the core competencies have been recorded by the student and locked by the mentor. Submitting your application for Admission to Membership Once eligible, students are required to submit a completed application for associate membership which consists of the following: Completed application form signed off by student and training partner Record of experience training summary sheet/ca Diary signed off by student and training partner, audit experience signed by RI Fees due Note: As students become eligible the membership department automatically sends out the relevant applications forms and invoices to students to assist them in applying for associate membership. 3
Completing the Application correctly All Students have access to their Admission to membership document on the control panel of the CA diary. When you are ready to apply you print off the document and ensure pages 2 and 3 (below) are signed off by both student and training partner prior to submission for admission to associate membership. On page two the training partner will sign the competencies that you have attained by ticking the box and signing their name on the line next to the competencies. Auto populated on this page is information entered in the student s diary e.g. sick leave, annual leave. The number of days audit experience is also shown here. You will see your contract dates and the box will be ticked automatically for the length of your training contract. The training partner can check your list of competencies by reading page four which has the full overview report for the CA diary entries. The report shows the competencies and the levels of learning. Page two 4
Page three As you can see above, the training partner and the student are required to sign this page and submit it for Admission to membership. All queries on Admission to membership should be directed to the Registry & Subscriptions Department. 5
Section 2 Information to assist student during their training period as part preparation for admission to membership All trainees are required to keep their CA Diary up-to-date throughout the training contract. A trainee must get a mentor to read, review and sign-off on the individual entries so that they can verify the achieved competencies. The review simply consists of locking the individual entries and submitting them online. As a trainee you are require to evidence your training contract. If you are not in work for example on study leave or annual leave, you account for this time in your Calendar section. Mentors are required to carry out bi-annual reviews of their trainees record of experience. As a trainee you should be pro active and remind your mentor to submit reviews so you can manage your training record. Once you have created your first entry you can start to use the reports section in your login. My reports in the CA diary will show you the competencies you have recorded. When your mentor locks your entries they populate in the Admission to Membership document. As you have access to this at all times you should generate it on a periodic basis to assess what competencies and level of learning you have recorded. If your entries are not locked by your mentor the entry will have not transferred into the Admission to membership document. You can view the entries in the My Reports section as this document contains both locked and unlocked entries. If you generate the Admission to membership document you will see on page four of the document a report called the Overall Competency Summary for the Trainees training contract in the Diary of Professional Development Summary Report. Again this will be populated by locked entries. The structure of the report is the core competencies are listed on the left hand side of the table and then the areas of experience are expanded into the level of learning (understand, apply and integrate). The core competencies are clearly marked with an asterisk. You are required to evidence experience in each of the core competencies and one area of experience in depth. A sample of this report is shown next for a student in the early stages of their training contract. 6
Ideally as you progress through your contract you should review this information on a yearly basis to monitor your progress and ensure you are recording the experience accurately. The competency summary report is repeated in your Admission to membership document from page five onwards in six monthly snap shots. This information assists both student and mentor to keep an overview of progress. And the area of experience are mapped out on the same page 7
FAQs Q: I have entries in my CA diary but my Admission to membership document is empty. What is wrong? A: Check that your mentor has locked your entries to transfer them to the admission to membership document. Q: How do I know if my entries have been locked? A: They will transfer into the Admission to membership document, you will have read only access to them and will not able to edit them. Q: Some of my colleagues have a paper booklet do I need to complete this as well? A: No, your admission to membership document is auto generated from your own profile. Q: When I finished my training contract I left the firm. How can I get a copy of the form to the firm for sign off? A: The mentor has access to your admission to membership document in their report section. It is attached to the report called Competency Summary. Q: In the My reports section of the CA diary there is a pdf document. Can I send this in to Chartered Accountants Ireland? A: No, this will not be accepted. This is a working draft for you to use during your training contract. It contains locked and unlocked entries and is not signed off by the firm. Q: How long will I have access to my CA Diary once I become eligibly for application for admission to membership? A: You will have access to your diary for one year. Q: I have finished my training contract but have FAE exams to take. Can I send in the CA Diary now for admission to membership? A: No, to apply for admission for membership you have to have all of your exams passed, your ACE exam passed and your training contract served. Q: I have six months left in my training contract. How do I ensure that my records will be of standard when I apply for admission to membership? A: Use the section of your CA diary called My Reports to see the competencies you have recorded and generate a copy of your admission to membership report and review page four. 8
Q: How many reviews should I have on my CA diary with my mentor for Admission to Membership? A: Every six months you should have a review submitted and one Final review submitted Q: I checked my report in my reports section and I have attained all of the required competencies, but when my mentor tries to submit a final review on my diary the system is not letting him. A: Your mentor has to lock all of the competencies. Only when all of the core competencies have been recorded by you and locked by your mentor will the mentor be allowed submit a Final Review. Q: I have attained understand apply and integrate for all my core competencies. How many times do I have to hit each of them? A: There is no set number. Depending how many entries you created and which competencies you have exposure to on a regular basis you may record some competencies on a more frequent basis than others. Q: How many entries should I have for admission to membership? A: There is no set number. What is required is that you evidence all of your training contract and the core competencies. Q: My entries when I started in my training contract first are a bit basic. Should I go back and change them? A: If they are an accurate reflection of your understanding and experience than not necessary. Once they met the standard of being clear and evidencing the competency you are claiming they can stay the same. Remember it is a good idea to evidence how you progressed as a trainee over the period of training and a way of demonstrating that is having deeper reflections of learning as you progress. Q: What will the reviewers check at admission to membership? A: All of the document is subject to review. The reviewers will firstly check the sign off by the firm, then the competency report and the entries as your evidence. Q: My mentor is ACCA/CPA qualified and has carried out my six monthly reviews and the final review. Can he sign my admission to membership document? A: No. ACCA/CPA qualified members are allowed act as mentors and submit reviews. However final sign off for admission to membership has to be a qualified member of Chartered Accountants Ireland. In contract this would be your training partner/responsible individual (RI). In larger firms your HR officer will inform you of the internal procedure. Q: I have attained experience in all the core competencies, but in one area I have not hit integrate for one competency? Will this be accepted? A: Yes, once your diary is accurate and you have evidenced your experienced clearly for your mentor and admission to membership. Ideally you should endeavor to reach integrate. 9
Q: The guidelines mention progression?. What does Chartered Accountants Ireland expect as evidence of progression level? A: Chartered Accountants Ireland expects that you have progressed from understand to apply and integrate, that you have developed breath and depth in your competencies. Q: My works tends to focus on the same areas and tasks on an annual basis, especially coming up to the tax season. Should I create an entry on this every year? A: Yes, cover your entire training contract. As you should be progressing it is possible that you will attain the same competency at each of the levels of learning e.g. TX 1 understand in year one, TX 1 apply in year two. Q: I have put in an entry on my study leave. Should I take this out? A: Chartered Accountants Ireland allows students to create entries to structure their own diary. Some firms ask their trainees to create a diary entry called student leave so the mentor can check that all time periods have been accounted for as they do not have access to your Calendar. If the mentor does not lock the entry it will not populate your Admission to Membership document so the firm can filter it out by leaving it unlocked. If you do create an entry and attach a competency to it you are required to evidence how you attained it by writing your reflection as evidence. Q: I have trained in Industry. Am I required to do anything different or additional? A: No all the information in this document and the guidelines apply. Q: How many audit days do you need for admission to membership on the CA Diary? A: There is not a minimum or maximum amount of days needed in auditing. You are required to evidence one area in depth. If the area that you are evidencing is auditing using your CA diary you have the ability to record the number of days auditing experience you attained under company audit or other audit type work. If you have 46 weeks of relevant auditing experience of which 23 weeks are Company audit and you have passed the auditing elective in the new FAE exams you will have meet the educational requirement under the Companies Act.. If you have taken the Auditing elective and do not have the 46 weeks auditing experience at the time of admission to membership you can gain the shortfall post qualification. Q: Do I have to use the Calendar? A: Yes, you should account for study leave, annual leave, overtime and days relating to audit/other audit work. To evidence your training contract you create entries and broadly speaking if you are not creating entries you should have evidence in your calendar to cover this period. When you create an audit entry it will transfer audit days automatically into the Calendar. Only add audit days to your calendar if it was overtime or weekend work as the entries assume a normal five day working week. V7/131 10