keep posting
I can only say that Articleship really helps if done from a Good Firm.
Yes, it helps the CAs to find cheap and non-bargaining labourers.. j/k.. ;) If you get into a decent firm with decent people with a decent learning approach, it helps.. Helps you learn the tricks of the trade and also improve your personality.
Now it's worthless to ask that if that helps, it is just like asking how, knowing a bus of a motherboard in a computer will help a CA?? You gotta do it, it's in the curriculum. Only time tells whether what you learned during articleship was helpful or not.
What? articleship? You are asking this from whom? Us? Ask ICAI. There is no point on having any coaching for this, as it may turn out that what you do in articleship, you don't do it eventually, you get into a different line, there are a lot of services a CA passed person provides. If you intend to be a practising CA, you obviously can't learn everything during articleship period, for that you can dig into various manuals, attend seminars/ workshops/ do CPEs (continuing professional education) organised by regional councils/ chapters.
What's your definition of a perfect professional? Someone who is truthful to his profession or one who can make good bucks or, how exactly you define? Barely anyone cares what it's staff and trainees become or do in future.. You are supposed to do their thing, make money for them, if you learn and earn anything doing that, it's a by-product of the process.
Alternative to articleship? ICAI doesn't provide that option.. However you may do industrial training during the final year of articleship, I can't tell if that'd be any good for someone.
Choose a reputed firm, you may it's present trainees about the work and culture there.
There are pros and cons of all types of firms: big-four/ big-firms, mid-sized firms, small firms. In big firms you specialise in one area, in small you get a taste of almost all areas. Mid-sized may act as blend of both. So, I suggest mid-sized firms.
From my experience, don't go for small proprietorship firms, which rely too much on articled assistants, i.e. articles run the firm, there aren't much knowledgeable people to learn from.
I suggest you to make as much contacts as possible during articleship and don't hesitate to learn, keeping in mind you gotta study too and be aware when you being exploited and when are learning..
Let me make this clear to you, articleship does not solely mean to give a to-be-CA a first hand experience of how things work at a CA firm, but also to provide CAs cheap work force. So find an alternate to this, and then you can suggest ways how to learn the tricks of the trade. ICAI/ CAs might not explicitly say this, but this is an implicit truth.
Problems are because of some Principals/ Trainees, and in any work place, one can have that can kind of bosses and employees.
Big-Fours have a better way to handle things, provide initial training, have perks, but of course they might drain your out and make you specialise in one area, at this stage I would recommend to have a bit of as many things possible, helps in exams.. And by the way, a lot of non-big four firms are good and handle big assignments..
You may read Business Today, February 22, 2009 edition which has a cover story on auditing, some interesting stuff.
https://businesstoday.intoday.in/bt/issue/47/1/
I can't assure you whether you can learn something in articleship which maybe useful to you in future, but can surely assure you that you can't learn everything in articleship, which will be useful to you in future, whether you are in job or in practice.
You will still miss out a lot of areas, which you might not require to look into and you might not even bother about it. However, if you wish to, you may have to join another firm as a paid staff (after articleship) or ask your seniors to allocate work in those areas (if they agree) and/ or as an associate in same or another firm. You can never learn everything!
Regarding the compulsory 2-3 month course yearly, you think and suggest, you can't compile and explain all the possible situations one may face in real life.. Like they explain how to audit in books, what SAs to follow, etc.. but, do they explain how hard it can be to get through some stubborn people during audit?? How you can get facts and information from people? How can you find contradictory records?
You can't resign as an auditor, as it would be yours boss's decision to stay on it, you just get scolded by your boss and also hear nonsense from the auditee. In tax, Mr. V.K. Singhania may give you a lot of income tax cases to study, but still there are a plenty peculiar situations to see.
All the more ICAI had troubles providing facilities for IT training only and may even still be having.. you can't expect them to provide more training.. And, as I mentioned one doesn't know what the future holds (practice/ service/ sector) for you, so 2 months additional articleship training is worthless, at least in my opinion.
For most cases, initially it is real fun and interesting in articleship, but just like marginal utility, slowly it gets annoying, irritating and you just want to be out of it.. Of course, you may have a different experience all in all.
It won't be like, you won't learn anything, you will as you are an empty vessel right now, anything will be good!
What I say, try to learn as much during initial days, as they're very interesting initially, as you won't get much responsibilities and you can always blame your seniors for not telling you. ;)
Take this as an opportunity of a lifetime, to learn and play with things yet not be held responsible for it.. When you are a CA there's a sword always hanging on your neck..
Once you have suffered through articleship, i.e. completed it ;), then ask yourself whether there should be an alternate? You might come up with an answer, when I've gone through such troubles, the new kids too should.. yeahhhh...
Hope you've chosen a firm which will be good for you, wish you luck for your results.
satisfied sir...n thnx 4 ur time n participatn..really appriciate tht
CAclubindia
