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Accounting
The Profession

Competency Map 2.0: our path to the future

The CPA profession’s new guide to certification will prepare CPAs for a changing environment, while maintaining their core capabilities

Group of people having a business meeting in the office The new competency map is intended to serve as a guide that will inform the profession’s approach to ongoing growth and development for all CPAs (Getty Images/SrdjanPav)

As the pace of change accelerates, the CPA profession must adapt accordingly.

After more than two years of consultations with employers, educators, students/candidates and members across the country, the profession has introduced Leading the Way – Competency Map 2.0 – the path forward for our profession, which lays the foundation for the CPA certification program.

Developed under the guidance of the Competency Map Task Force, the new CM2.0 is meant to ensure current and future CPAs are equipped to move forward with the skills, resilience and knowledge necessary to thrive in a constantly evolving marketplace.

“It is essential that CPAs continue to be leaders in Canada’s economy and society, but we must be cognizant of the fact that our work takes place in a rapidly evolving environment. CM2.0 strives to balance our traditional professional competencies with the need to understand broader societal issues,” says Tim Jackson, FCPA, president and CEO of Shad Canada and chair of the Competency Map Task Force (CMTF).

DRIVERS OF CHANGE

Several key factors are influencing the dramatic shifts that we are seeing in the accounting profession. And the Competency Map 2.0 takes these into account in its approach.

These factors include:

  • Data governance, artificial intelligence and machine learning: Along with other innovative sectors, these areas are creating new opportunities for professional accountants who have, or acquire, the right skills.
  • Automation: This continues to present challenges to the profession. “Future CPAs need to be agile, adaptable and highly skilled while maintaining the assurance and ethical lenses that are essential to ensuring organizations are equipped to manage this transition,” says Jackson.
  • Shifting expectations of businesses and society: Already, CPAs are being required to use new skillsets and add value in non-traditional ways to analyze environmental and social performance measures, such as diversity, equity and inclusion.

Even as these factors drive change, protecting the public continues to be at the core of the profession. CPAs with public accounting licences play an important role in protecting the public interest by ensuring the integrity of capital markets and fostering public and investor confidence.

Also, as markets shift, data is being used increasingly to value companies. And CPAs have a vital role to play in providing assurance as value creation changes.

A PATH FOR ALL CPAs

The new map does not just focus on requirements for students and candidates. It is intended to serve as a guide that will inform the profession’s approach to ongoing growth and development for all CPAs.

“This is more than adjusting how we educate candidates. It will also ensure we are leading change within our profession,” says Irene Wiecek, FCPA, professor of accounting and director of the Master of Management and Professional Accounting Program at the Institute for Management and Innovation, University of Toronto and member of the CMTF.

In that sense, the Competency Map 2.0 takes the transformative forces (outlined above) and considers how they can be effectively integrated with CPAs’ evergreen competencies, while also contributing to the ongoing growth necessary for the future CPA.

For example, future students—pursuing public accounting or other related accounting streams—will continue to learn specific skills and competencies related to financial reporting, assurance and tax, but with more flexibility to ensure responsiveness and adaptation to new technology and shifts in societal values.

NEXT STEPS

With the map’s implementation planned for 2024-25, the profession is now working on how to operationalize it.  This next step, Certification 2.0, will determine how the map will affect the CPA certification and education process, including how the skills and competencies laid out in the map will be learned and assessed. 

Over the next few months, CPA Canada will keep you informed on what the new map will mean for members. In the meantime, please visit cpaleadstheway.ca to read the map, watch a video about it and keep up to date on continuing professional development opportunities.

“Our work is not done, this is only the beginning,” says Wiecek. “We know change can be challenging but it also presents us with an exciting opportunity to transform our profession, to deliver more value to organizations and to our society.”