Skip to content

Experience

Competencies

Before you may obtain your first Washington State CPA license, you must demonstrate that through your work experience you can now:

  • Understand the rules of professional conduct contained in chapter 4-25 WAC
  • Assess the achievement of an entity's objectives
  • Develop documentation and sufficient data to support analysis and conclusions
  • Understand transaction streams and information systems
  • Assess risk and design appropriate procedures
  • Make decisions, solve problems, and think critically in the context of analysis
  • Communicate scope of work, findings and conclusions effectively

Requirements

The experience must:

  • Total a minimum of 12-months. (this time period does not need to be consecutive)
  • Be a minimum of 2,000 hours
  • Be obtained through the use of accounting, attest, management advisory, financial advisory, tax, tax advisory or consulting skills
  • Be verified by a CPA who has been licensed to practice public accounting for at least five years in a US jurisdiction.
    • If the verifying CPA is not a Washington State CPA or has not practiced public accounting in Washington State for at least five years then:
      • You must submit the Verifying CPA – Experience Verification By Licensing Authority (Fillable PDF) to the other State Board for verification. Once the form is completed by the other State Board you must submit this form to our Board.
  • Be obtained within eight years prior to submitting a complete application for a license

Expectations of the Verifying CPA

The verifying CPA is expected to:

  1. Obtain the applicant's listing of the jobs the applicant held where the applicant attained each specific competency; (This expectation is met if the applicant worked for the verifying CPA.)
  2. Interview the applicant or otherwise obtain or possess knowledge sufficient to understand the skill sets applied, task performed, and time spent in the applicant's represented job functions;
  3. Assess whether the skill sets applied, tasks performed, and time spent would likely provide the experience and understanding sufficient to support the attainment of each specific competency; and
  4. Document this process and the basis for the conclusions the verifying CPA reached relative to each specific competency.

Experience Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

Audit or attest experience | Definitions of skill, competencies and experience | Verifying CPA | Can I be my own verifying CPA? | How do I document my experience? | Does my experience qualify?