What to expect from CA2025
Many people when asked to describe a typical chartered accountant (‘CA’) will visualise someone in a grey suit with matching shoes, with their eyes glued to the figures on the screen in front of them. Or, that trio of similarly clad people arriving at your office with bulging briefcases and sombre attitudes, to delve into the morass that are your books. A decade or two ago this would have been fairly accurate, but today’s CA has to be someone with a much more diverse set of skills, simply being a great accountant is not enough anymore.
The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (‘SAICA’) is the accountancy body that has the huge responsibility of developing, nurturing, and maintaining the CA qualification in South Africa (‘CA(SA)’). They do this by setting out a framework of competencies that each aspiring CA(SA) has to demonstrate before they can receive the coveted title of CA(SA). On 1 March 2021, SAICA officially launched the new CA2025 competency framework. This framework was effective from 1 January 2022.
The CA2025 competency framework is unrecognisable when compared to the previous 2016 competency framework. Some of the key changes are:
- Increased focus on digital competencies
- Increased focus on understanding business
- Increased focus on ethics (personal, business, and professional)
- Increased focus on integrated thinking
- Being more forward looking
- Technical competencies will not be rated.
Each accredited SAICA training office is today able to craft the exposure to each of these acumens that the trainees will receive while completing their articles.
Gone are the days where “one-size-fits-all” for training offices, with aspiring CA (SA) needing to think carefully when choosing which SAICA training office suits their specific skills and will give them the exposure they need. The same goes for those employing newly qualified CA (SA).