EY Is Now Paying a $10k CPA Bonus

Posted on by Going Concern News Desk
EY building exterior

Anyone in the mood for a bit of good news? Here goes: EY is doubling their CPA bonus for early career new hires who can manage to pass all four parts of the exam in their first year, starting with June 1 joiners. “This new structure replaces the previous bonus program and reflects our evolving talent strategy that prioritizes investing in the next generation of CPAs from day one,” said the firm on its 360 Careers page.

While increasing CPA bonuses is a step in the right direction (it’s been $5k for as far back as we can remember, so at least 20 years+), a year while working is a big ask. Would it be greedy to ask for a little extra time too?

If this had happened 10 years ago like it should have when the early “accountant shortage” concerns were in full swing we’d say EY’s competitors will be quick to announce CPA bonuses increases of their own but it’s 2026 so who even knows. They really should.

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Here’s What to Expect on the FAR Section of the CPA Exam

Friendly reminder (especially now that tax season is over), if you have a CPA exam question for us, shoot us a note, tweet us, or find us on Facebook and pester us until we answer. Up to you but we know you have questions so stop being shy.

Anyway. We have question from Twitter this week from @jacmelirose:

“What are the most heavily tested subjects for FAR? Help? Taking FAR in a month day for day.”

Alright, let’s start with the obvious: asking “what are the most heavily tested subjects” usually means you haven’t studied up until this point and are looking for a shortcut. Understandable but keep in mind this goes against the CPA exam guru’s advice. Just sayin’.


A good place to start is with the Content Specification Outlines for the section you are studying. For FAR, you can expect to see the following:

Financial statements (17% – 23%) – that means profit and loss, balance sheet, cashflows and footnotes/disclosures.

Typical items in financial statements (27% – 33%) – you’re talking marketable securities (pretty heavily tested or so we hear), receivables, bonds, leases, inventory, PP&E (depreciation, mostly), liabilities and revenue recognition. As much as you hate bonds, expect to see plenty on the subject so get cracking.

Transactional items (27% – 33%) – business combinations (yup, consolidations), contingent liabilities, discontinued operations, earnings per share and extraordinary items.

Government accounting (8% – 12%) – Everyone’s favorite! It’s not heavily tested but you will need to know a little about fund accounting, budgets, and government financial statements.

Not-for-profit accounting (8% – 12%) – Again, not heavily tested but it does show up (several MCQ and maybe a sim) so you will want to be sure to understand how NFP accounting works by understanding the 4 statements: financing, activities, cash flows and functional expenses.

Because we all know it’s against the rules to discuss what actually appears on the exam, we won’t tell you to expect BONDS, LEASES, and PENSIONS (and LOTS of them). We also will not tell you to be on the lookout for inventory in simulations because, again, that would assume we’re telling you we know what’s actually on the exam and of course we don’t.

FAR takes about 132 hours to prepare for – if you’ve got a month to do it, you need to be extra diligent about creating a study plan. Block out no less than 3 hours per day for MCQ/sim practice or lecture videos. Generally your brain tunes out if you’re studying any more than that per day but if you do the math, you realize you need more like 4 hours per day to meet the 132 hour requirement. In other words: a month is not really enough time to study for FAR. Here’s hoping you’ve been studying all along and are just looking for some last minute advice. Good luck!

CPA Exam Debuts Internationally in August

For those of you interested in taking the CPA exam in wild locales such as Bahrain or Kuwait, wait no longer, the CPA exam is officially international beginning August of 2011.

Initially announced along with CBT-e, international testing appeared to be slated to begin in January but security issues and further testing necessitated the delay.

So far Bahrain, Kuwait, Japan, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are the only countries in which the exam will be administered. After a long two year analysis, NASBA, AICPA and Prometric determined those areas to meet their stringent safety and security guidelines.


We know what you’re thinking. Bahrain?! According to the three agencies, candidate volume demand as demonstrated by candidates from those countries taking the exam in the United States was a huge factor in deciding where to administrate the exam. Sure, Japan seems like a no-brainer but up until now, international candidates have been forced to obtain a visa to physically appear in the United States for their exams, often for marathon sessions of more than one test in a two or three day period.

Other factors in deciding which countries included:

• The ability to deliver the Exam without legal obstacles.
• Security threat to the Exam (both physical security at test center and intellectual property security of Exam content) assessed at levels equivalent to those presented domestically.
• Existence of established Prometric test centers.

Other countries were analyzed ahead of this announcement but I know of at least a handful that were determined unfit for test administration based solely on security issues in those countries. Being proprietary and more heavily guarded than Colonel Sanders’ 11 herbs and spices, protecting CPA exam content was likely one of the largest concerns involved in taking the exam international.

While candidate volume and interest in the exam is also high in countries like India and Korea, security concerns are equally as high (if not higher), therefore excluding these areas for the time being. My understanding is that the AICPA is open to expanding international testing in the future and just with CBT-e, will be monitoring the situation closely after launch, ready to adjust based on results. International candidates will still have to apply with the state board of their choice and are invited to use NASBA’s Accounting Licensing Library to search for a jurisdiction in which to apply.

5 thoughts on “EY Is Now Paying a $10k CPA Bonus”

  1. Interesting there must be a shortage of people they can promote from manager to senior manager because so many don’t have their CPAs (or at least the people they would prefer to promote).

    I remember being told by multiple people that I should focus on working instead of getting my CPA within my first 2 years of employment at the firm BECAUSE it didn’t matter.

    Thankfully I disregarded that advice and got my CPA in 1.5 years…that was absolutely brutal and looking back it only made sense to help land my next opportunity. The personal/professional sacrifices to pass all 4 sections of the CPA didn’t seem worth it at the time.

    Nearly 10 years into my career, I am in a comfortable place in my career, thanks to that sacrifice, and those that told me to not get my CPA are stuck as managers…hopefully they can pass soon otherwise I’m sure these firms will have no issue “trimming the fat”.

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      1. For tax, you just need to be an EA. Maybe it’s different for other groups, but I know for a fact you can be promoted to tax manager with just at EA and no CPA. Promotion to Senior Manager requires a CPA.

  2. “…our evolving talent strategy that prioritizes investing in the next generation of CPAs from day one,” said the firm on its 360 Careers page.”

    Wow, this is some real bullshit. The firms aren’t investing in the next generation of CPAs. They’re investing in AI so that they can fire all their CPAs, so that the current partners can pocket even more cash. This $10k bonus is just the latest example of the firms throwing a (very small) bone to the help in order to distract from what they’re actively doing to destroy the accounting professional in the name of short-term profits.

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