BODY

COST

The declared increase in CPD units among accountants has not been well received but rather viewed as
costly, specifically in terms of finances and time investment. The CPAs, especially those small and
medium size practitioners, ordinary employee, newly employed accountant who had just pass the board
exam and those employed in academe are concerned with the additional cost associated with the
increased CPD units’ requirements. Regular CPDs, specifically seminars and trainings which is costly
turned into business forcing CPA professionals to pay as much as – per seminar just to earn a single CPD
unit because prices of such were not regulated, considering the salaries of a minimum wage earners
specially those young professional, such CPDs are expensive relative to the salary levels of many CPAs
which is normally an amount equal to their cost of living. In fact, companies where professionals are
employed did not sponsor the expenses being incurred in earning credit units by that employee.

“To impose too heavy a burden on the CPD credit units upon them [professionals] is tantamount to a
significant deprivation of their income” De Lima added. Supported also by the theory of “Abraham
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs” would suggest that to prioritize the needs to earn the units to renew the
license would be impractical rather than prioritizing the basic needs of human for living.

AVAILABILITY AND TIME

Implementing the additional credit units which complied within a compliance period is impractical in
many instances such as employees availability and time. Some employers did not allow CPAs to attend
seminars and trainings when peak season. Employers tend to demand employees to be in the company
especially when there are many reports are needed to be accomplished. In addition, earning credit units
is time-consuming. CPAs are needed to balance their work and compliance to the CPD units.

ACCESSIBILITY

Accessibility also for those who are employed in rural areas and busy professionals is another issue. The
distance of the location where CPD activities are conducted is one of the hindrances among CPAs. It was
told that the CPAs in the province find it hard to attend the CPD activities such as seminars and training
programs that are generally offered in urban areas for it entails additional cost in terms of
transportation and accommodation. Despite the availability of alternatives for earning CPD credits,
considering the situation of those on rural areas, many still do not have the means to avail themselves of
these options. Problems such as lack of reliable internet access, the lack of resource to pursue higher
learning and the lack of time and skill to do research work arises. However, if they wait for they wait for
the offering of training programs in their area or place of practice, chances are they might not be able to
complete the required 120 units for CPD since the offerings are very limited and seasonal.
PERSONAL

Saturdays and Sundays are only the free days for most of the CPAs for them to have bond with their
families but due to the pressure of earning units to complete the required 120 units compromise this
quality time with their families.

“As professionals in the Philippines, we strive hard to make a living for our families. That small plastic
card we earned through our board exams, which took us four to six years in college to learn, is an
assuring edge for our tenure ship. Honestly, a lot of us now feel that having our licenses is more of a
burden than a privilege” Lavapie once said. This suggests that the additional requirements would have
been government subsidized programs for CPD units prepared before the law was implemented. It does
not only beneficial to the CPAs but also to his family.

COST-BENEFIT CONSIDERATION

There is a principle that cost must not exceed the benefits. In viewed of CPD Law, an additional unit
means creating additional cost to CPAs and creating a cost, means decreasing the revenue of CPAs.
However, because of the expensive fees of seminars and trainings, cost of compliance exceeds the
benefits of the implementation. Some companies also do not allow their employees to file leave just for
seminars that they do not endorse. Therefore, precious working hours are also at stake. Let’s consider
the situation that you spend your time attending to seminars and training and the like which cost found
to be unreasonable and accountant contend it’s too tedious, impractical and costly and compromise
your presence at work which does not only give you additional income but also an opportunity for you
to enhance your skill and to excel on your present job found to be impractical to do so. Many employers
also thought that engaging their CPAs to CPD is very costly and oftentimes not translated to greater
productivity and profitability. Few others believed that additional increase is CPDs among Accountants is
just a waste of time, money and energy especially when activities are inapplicable and irrelevant to both
present and future jobs.

Quality of programs and activities

Some seminars conducted were tedious, content of the lecture can be found through internet and
observed that speakers are incompetent. There were also an instances that incorrect information is
being disseminated which leads to questioning the significance of such activities and tend to override
the real purpose of CPD. ( tol mag add ka na lang)
CONCLUSION

The imposition of additional units (60) to CPAs is crucial/unfair/unjust.

The Act does not justify the democratic principle of the government. They tend to implement the act
without considering the differences of every professionals especially CPAs. And professional cannot do
anything but to comply because this was enacted and executed among CPAs.

Clear guidelines or implementing rules and regulations must be di

AVAILABILITY, TIME AND ACCESSIBILITY

Considering those on provinces that need to undergo stressful travel, numbers of CPD providers should
be expanded. The provinces colleges, universities and training centers are qualified and ready to
undertake the tasks of offering CPD programs under the supervision and support of the government.
This will address the issue of not just the accessibility of those on provinces but also the issue on time
and availability among the CPAs.

The need to enhance the value of CPD in the workplace should be given importance. The providers could
offer new approaches to training, such as experiential learning process and learning on the job. More
reliable evaluation techniques should be undertaken by the providers, the results of which become a
basis of improving the succeeding conduct of training. Findings and observations about the previous
training should be appropriately and extensively taken up by providers to ensure that the trainings
offered are aligned with the competency requirements in the market.

Hence, the policy recommendations are to establish mechanisms towards performance-based and
output-based CPD. In terms of performance-based, the government should expand the seminars and
trainings that are in line of the practice of CPAs. Performance-based focuses on the needs of
professional in conduct of his/her practice unlike on the current approach which is the input based that
focuses merely on the number of units earned and eventually viewed by the CPAs as a compliance in
order to renew their license rather than opportunities to enhance their competency. In this
performance-based, government should regulate the seminars being offered by the CPD providers that
is in benefit of the current job of CPAs, in fact, seminars being conducted nowadays are limited to one’s
line but not considering other practices. For example, a seminar that addressed the understanding a
certain issue that is not commonly needed by a CPA in a certain field but because of the compliance in
the credit units they tend to grab the opportunity to attend the seminar because there are no present
seminars being conducted in line to the practice of CPAs.

The government should assist and expand the CPD providers in conducting seminars and trainings that
are in line to one’s practice. There are many seminars nowadays being held but it is does not meet the
needs of certain professional in the practice of his/her profession. They tend to grab that opportunity to
attend not considering the impact of it to their profession. It’s their choice to attend or not but what if
that it is the only the available seminar to earn CPD credit units. And if there are seminars in line to the
practice of their current job government should consider the cost, availability and accessibility and time-
constraints. So, government should expand the availability of CPD providers that can be accessible, not
too costly and can meet the availability of CPAs.

The government should also regulate the CPD providers by requiring reasonable accreditation to them
to ensure the quality of services they provide to attendees of their seminars and trainings. By that, the
government will be able to assure that the seminars being attended by CPAs are reliable in a way that
the accredited CPD provider is consistently conducts seminars with activities that the learning can be
applied.

In addition, the government should create policy that employers should provide reasonable
reimbursement to the expenses incurred by employees who are attending seminars for earning CPD
units like registration fees when in fact this CPD units can help employers by the enhancement of
employee’s skills and expertise or rather competence and not only CPAs the one benefited to the
implementation of additional credit units.

Support from the government is not substantial in this kind of implementation instead they take
pressures on CPAs to comply as early as possible to renew their license given that there are other affairs
of CPAs needed to comply with.

One of the CPAs opinion, he attend a seminar thinking to improve his competency and can apply to his
current job but only 30% of the seminar talked about accounting related and the 70% talked about
personal development that can be learned through internet and considering the amount of fee that he
paid for that seminar. It is clearly denotes that the seminar he attended is now for compliance and not
for enhancement of competency.