Sipho was born in South Africa and is an ACCA member who is a senior auditor working for a large private audit firm, which is registered with IRBA. Sipho has 12 years of practical audit experience. Sipho was admitted as an ACCA member eight years ago and has been working at the same employer since.

Sipho had a six-month career break shortly after he was admitted to membership, and has been working full time with no interruptions over the last seven and a half years. Sipho had obtained a broad range of audit experience and is now looking forward to the next step in his career. Sipho is looking to become a registered auditor as he intends to set-up his own audit firm and work for himself.

As Sipho has more than three years of audit experience and more than two years of that was obtained postmembership, he can successfully demonstrate the achievement of this requirement of ACCA’s Professional Development Programme (PDP).

Sipho’s work experience is also recent and there have not been any gaps in the last five years. This covers the second part of the work experience requirement in terms of the age of the experience.

During his time as an ACCA trainee, Sipho passed the South African variants of the equivalent of the Corporate and Business Law exam and the Taxation exam from the Applied Skills level as well as the Advanced Taxation exam from the Strategic Professional level. His other Options exam at the Strategic Professional level was the International variant of the Advanced Audit and Assurance exam.

As part of his application to ACCA Sipho needs to complete the relevant training record in order to demonstrate that he meets the required nine audit competences as specified in Annexure 4 of the Recognised Prior Learning Policy. Sipho also needs to complete the competence-based submission which forms part of ACCA’s South Africa Audit Qualification (SA AQ) application form. This is designed to demonstrate a member’s knowledge of auditing in the Republic of South Africa. The training record must be verified by a suitably qualified principal* who has detailed knowledge of Sipho’s work over the last five years.

Sipho also needs to demonstrate full compliance with ACCA’s CPD requirements over the last two years and specifically in relation to his audit related CPD. This needs to be included in Sipho’s application for the ACCA SA AQ.

Based on the work experience that Sipho has to date and the exams he has successfully passed, Sipho is eligible to get credit for ACCA’s Professional Development Programme. This allows Sipho to apply for ACCA’s South Africa Audit Qualification (SA AQ) as per ACCA’s Recognised Prior Learning Policy. After the award of the SA AQ and the credit he has obtained for ACCA’s PDP, Sipho can register onto IRBA’s ADP.

Ntsako is a resident of South Africa. He is an ACCA member who is currently working as an audit assistant manager for a large audit firm in Johannesburg.

In his previous employment (at an IRBA registered audit firm) and as part of his ACCA studies, Ntsako spent a year working in the accounting department and two years in the audit one. Ntsako then became an ACCA member and since then has been working at his current employer, which is an IRBA registered audit firm. Overall, Ntsako has four years of audit experience (two in his previous employment and two in the current one). Ntsako is looking to obtain registered auditor status in the future as he is looking to progress his career.

As Ntsako has more than three years of audit experience, of which two have been obtained post-membership in an IRBA registered audit firm, he can successfully demonstrate the achievement of this work experience requirement of ACCA’s Professional Development Programme.

During his time as an ACCA trainee Ntsako passed the South African variants of the Corporate Business Law exam and the Taxation exam from the Applied Skills level. At the Strategic Professional level, he sat Advanced Financial Management and Advanced Performance Management. As Ntsako did not choose to sit the Advanced Audit and Assurance exam during his studies, he will need to successfully pass the International variant together with a competence-based submission in order to comply with the exam requirements for obtaining the ACCA’s SA AQ.

In order to obtain credit for ACCA’s PDP, Ntsako needs to document his work experience in the relevant training record and demonstrate that he has met the required nine audit competencies as specified in Annexure 4 of the RPL. Ntsako also needs to complete the competence-based submission which forms part of the SA AQ application form. This is designed to demonstrate a member’s knowledge of auditing in the Republic of South Africa. The training record must be verified by a suitably qualified principal* who has detailed knowledge of Ntsako’s work.

Ntsako also needs to demonstrate full compliance with ACCA’s CPD requirements over the last two years and specifically in relation to audit related CPD. This needs to be included in Ntsako’s application for the ACCA SA AQ. After the award of the SA AQ and the credit he has obtained for ACCA’s PDP, Ntsako can register onto IRBA’s ADP.

* A principal is defined as an appropriately qualified member of a professional accountancy body who has overall responsibility for supervising the training of individuals towards ACCA’s practising certificates (and audit qualification) and acts as guarantor to ACCA that individuals have reached the required standards. In order to be eligible to act as a training principal, the individual must be a registered auditor in South Africa.