5 year Journey as a CA and as a Writer for CAclubindia

CA Anurag Sharma | Last updated: 21 July 2021

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Quick Summary

This article reflects on a five-year journey as a Chartered Accountant and writer for CAclubindia. The author shares personal experiences, including restarting their CA journey at 30 and the emotional significance of earning the CA designation. It contrasts the stability of a job with the significant challenges and rewards of independent practice, particularly in the early stages and during difficult economic times. The piece also highlights the importance of continuous learning, developing people skills, and the invaluable knowledge and community found on CAclubindia.

First of all thank you so much CAclubindia team and my lovely friends for the all the love and support you have showered on me. As I complete my CA journey and also when I wrote my first article, "Lost and Found" for this esteemed website, I want to share my experiences.

CA is not just a combination of words, but it's a journey or an emotion. Our parents gave us the name, but we earned this prefix CA.

Unlike many of my friends here, I re-started my CA Journey when I was 30 years of age and completed CA just before I turned 32. I heard a lot of flak for my decision to quit the job and pursue CA, but I was stubborn and confident that I would be able to clear it.

Job or Practice?

I applied for jobs and was lucky to get decent opportunities without any fuss before I stepped into the world of practice. I want to share few points of difference between job and practice which might help any of my friend to decide which path to choose after completing CA.

First thing first, you wont get a red carpet once you become CA. Your struggles wont end. You will have to constantly update and upgrade yourself in the stiff competition to survive. Nothing is going to come easy for you.

Job has its own positives where you get a fixed salary every month on a fixed date. You don't have to rush to anyone to get your dues. Most of the times salary will be credited to your account on a particular date and trust me that's the best feeling ever.

In practice if you are the first generation CA in your family then there will be struggles. Struggle to find your initial clients; struggle to arrange infrastructure and employees for your office; struggle to provide quality work to the clients and then the biggest struggle which I felt, struggle to get your fees from the clients.

At times, even I feel that I should quit practice and restart with jobs. You might see your friends working from home getting fixed dues every month, but you are rushing here and there and still getting excuses from clients. These COVID times have been very tough for practice as small businessmen have suffered big time and some businessmen take the excuse of COVID to give your payment. Moreover, our institute doesn't even allow us to keep working papers of the clients in case they don't pay your fees.

My 5-Year CA Journey and Writing for CAclubindia

In above all the ranting, I will narrate a saying, "This too shall pass". I have seen CAs who struggled badly initially in practice but they persisted with it and now earning much more then their counterparts who went for jobs and living more quality life than them,

Another most important thing in Practice is learning. You have to continuously update yourself of all the recent changes or amendments. Clients can or clients will ask you about it for sure and you should be ready with your answers. There are issues in portals too which add up to more fuss and mess for practitioners.

In our CA Journey we are not much taught about how to deal with people. This is the skill we need to learn and upgrade our selves and this will come with experience too. Initially you will trust people who will take advantage of you and you will repent about it. But you have to take it in your stride and move forward. These are part of your experiences and your journey in Practice or Profession.

Last but not the least, my experience with CAclubindia has been incredible. This website is a kind of heaven for knowledge seekers. You get to know recent amendments; you can check or answer queries relating to income tax, GST, companies act and every finance field; you get to learn from the experiences of your seniors and peers through the articles published by them; there are hell lot of incredible courses where you can learn new skills. In short, CAclubindia is a knowledge bank. I have learnt a lot from it and also made many good friends through this. I request you all to use this website to the maximum in gaining knowledge and experience.

Thank you all once again!

FAQ :

The author restarted their CA journey at the age of 30 and completed it just before turning 32.

A job offers a fixed salary on a fixed date, providing financial certainty. Practice, especially for first-generation CAs, involves struggles in finding clients, arranging infrastructure, and collecting fees, though it can lead to greater earnings and a better quality of life with persistence.

Challenges in practice include finding initial clients, setting up an office, delivering quality work, and most significantly, getting fees paid by clients. The COVID-19 pandemic also presented difficulties as businesses struggled.

Continuous learning is crucial for CAs to stay updated with recent changes and amendments in finance and tax laws, enabling them to answer client queries effectively and navigate issues with professional portals.

The author describes their experience with CAclubindia as incredible, calling it a 'heaven for knowledge seekers' that provides access to amendments, allows for answering queries, learning from peers, and offers valuable courses.