ACCA credentials: a global accounting passport

Just ask FIU Accounting Professor Kenneth Henry about the advantages of being qualified by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), the international body that is the analog of the U.S.-based Certified Public Accountant designation.

“ACCA is a passion,” he said. “Qualifying has given me opportunities I could never have imagined growing up in Jamaica.” That includes professional practice in three countries, along with serving in Saudi Arabia with the U.S. Treasury Department before he came to the School of Accounting.

Kenneth Henry
Kenneth Henry

It is because of Henry, who is one of 36 ACCA board members (and its only member from the United States) that FIU is among four U.S. universities taking part in a unique collaboration with ACCA. The partnership means that upon graduation, undergraduate accounting students will be deemed to have fulfilled eight of the organization’s 14 qualifying exams, and graduate students, four, with wider exemption arrangements in the works.

In October 2016, to mark the collaboration, ACCA representatives, including Warner Johnston, head of ACCA USA, traveled to FIU to meet with faculty, staff and students, and attend a networking event sponsored by the college’s two accounting societies, Beta Alpha Psi, and ALPFA, the Association of Latino Professionals For America.

The ACCA accreditation is considered a huge advantage for FIU’s accounting students, many of whom aspire to work for multinationals, are already fluent in other languages, or have come from abroad to study at the College of Business. It also serves as a recruiting tool for international faculty, Henry said.

ACCA is not as well known in the U.S. as is the CPA designation, but the organization, founded in 1904, is the accounting gold standard around the world. It has 188,000 members and 480,000 students in 178 countries. While U.S. firms want their accountants to be CPAs, multinationals and overseas companies, from Bombay and Shanghai to London and Kenya, look first for ACCA.

In an effort to expand and bring in more U.S. practitioners, ACCA is partnering with a select group of U.S. universities through a pilot program with four schools: Pace University, American University, St. John’s University and FIU.

“For FIU students, it’s a leg up into today’s global business environment,” Henry said, adding that businesses know this: “If they aren’t playing in a global field, they are losing to their competitors.”

For ACCA, it’s a chance to dramatically broaden its base, said ACCA’s Johnston during his October visit to FIU. Five years ago it opened its first U.S. office, in New York City. While ACCA is in the process of bringing in more U.S. universities, it won’t partner with every school, he said: “We want the best caliber student to become the best caliber member.”

It was not only a desire to expand membership that underlies outreach. Many student members around the world would like to study in the U.S., Johnston said, but also want to earn – or prepare for — ACCA accreditation. “With FIU, we have a way for students to get to the U.S. and they are able to study at a reputable American university,” he said.

It also helps FIU continue to attract top overseas students, said Ruth Ann McEwen, director of the School of Accounting and senior associate dean of the College of Business, who worked closely with Henry and Johnston to bring ACCA to FIU.

The school is already fielding phone calls from prospective students whose interest was piqued after hearing of the collaboration, she said. ACCA’s partnership helps FIU market itself to prospective students in India, China and other parts of Asia. And FIU’s current and future students will reap the big rewards. “They are unlimited in what they can do,” she said.

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