Articleship is an extremely important and considerable phase in CA Aspirant’s journey. A journey of approximately 3 years when an article actually gets a hands-on experience of the real-life business world. And in today’s time when we have a gamut of opportunities in everything, we are now more confused than ever. Most of us have no idea where we see ourselves in the next 5 years and hence deciding which articleship field to choose becomes haunting.
Hence through this blog, we are going to decode the pros and cons of each articleship field which might help you get a better understanding of different fields and help while making the big decision-
1. Statutory Audit
In the simplest terms, statutory audit requires to check the financial statements of the client and review that they have followed required provisions and regulations. Statutory audit is definitely one of the most common fields of articleship. It helps to get an overall understanding of how various business belonging to different industries work. It is extremely holistic in nature. It helps to get the knowledge of interpreting and understanding the financials of company which help in finance profiles too. The article is expected to visit Client’s office at times. It provides flexibility to switch profile in long run. It helps to gain confidence and in personality development as you might be expected to deal with senior level management of client too.
However, articleship in statutory audit in the recent times has become more about documentation and lacks creativity and innovation.
2.Taxation
Articleship in taxation could be done in both direct taxation and indirect taxation. Taxation is one extremely lucrative field of articleship nowadays. Usually, hard core lovers of taxation who wish to pursue career in tax computation, tax filing, tax advisory, tax structure, tax planning and tax litigation go for taxation. Pursuing articleship in taxation usually doesn’t involve much travelling. Even if you pursue articleship in Taxation from a mid-sized firm still Big4 value you as working at a mid-sized firm in taxation makes you well proficient in provisions, procedures and knowledge of even the minutest things in taxation
However, taxation is a niche area in terms of learning hence it might be difficult to switch profile later. Big4 companies also don’t hire for taxation field so often.
3.Internal Audit-Risk and advisory
It is done for the internal management of the company so as to ensure that the company is managing its internal risks properly. Reports of internal auditors help clients to improve their controls and performance. It is basically an audit of different processes of businesses. It helps in finding out whether the work is taking place as per the pre-decided policies and norms or not. It also involves a lot of travel and helps to understand businesses and improves communication skills. It also helps to get an in-depth knowledge of how processes and controls actually take place in a firm.
4.Mergers and acquisitions-Mergers and acquisitions being related to finance in its core is an upcoming field. It involves providing advises on mergers, acquisitions, investments and due diligence to corporates. Evaluate whether a particular investment or disinvestment is viable or not. It would help to get understanding about how actual valuations take place.
5.Forensic Audit-It as an extremely complex and technical field of articleship. Forensic audit deals with finding frauds and since it is a very sensitive matter hence mostly firms usually don’t offer articleship in same. It is basically an investigation to analyse and identify the evidences of frauds.
7.Transfer Pricing-Transfer pricing basically deals with international transactions and taxations. Though with increasing globalisation and wide spreading MNCs, the scope of transfer pricing is increasing, it is still at a very nascent stage in terms of articleship.
I hope that this helps you before taking the big decision. Try to find out what seems interesting to you and if that doesn’t help then try to get a opt for a field that provides more holistic learning so that you keep your options open for future. All the best!
Thank you for the information. It was really helpful