1.

The various areas of accounting practices are public, private, government

accounting and academe. These main areas provide different fields and services
where a CPA get to choose to practice their profession.

Public accounting mostly are the practitioners, or firms that offer independent
and accounting services to the public. Their commitments are to help those
businesses and agencies with their financial statements and other accounting related
matters that may influence or for the benefit of the public. Accountants in this field
usually offer auditing services, taxation and management consultancy services.

On the other hand, private accounting refers to those CPA’s that engaged in
companies and other business entities as a staff, internal auditor and other
accounting related jobs. Their duty is to ensure that the business complied with the
laws and rules provided by the government agencies and standard-setting bodies
and meet all the requirements needed to operate a business.

Government accounting is different from public and private accounting because

CPA’s in this area perform accounting activities that involve the utilization of
government funds and property. They are authorized to safe keep and administer
public funds. These practitioners can be found in government branches like COA, BIR,
SEC, BSP, etc.

Lastly, academe is where accountants engaged themselves in institutions that

provide learning and education. This field requires Certified Public Accountants to
impart their knowledge and wisdom to aspiring individuals who choose accounting
related courses.

2. )

If I were to pass the CPA Licensing Examination, I would like to engage myself in
area that would utilize my skills and passion. The field of academe is where I want to
practice my profession because I want to inspire others and to impart my knowledge
to those aspiring accountants as well. It is my pleasure to see hope in every student’s
eyes as they take the same journey that I took and hear different stories from them.

However, if a great opportunity comes, I am also eager to experience the

different areas of accounting practices. In this way, I can explore my profession well
and gain expertise from the different services provided by these various areas of
accounting practices.
1. )

Assurance and non-assurance services offered by Certified Public Accountants both

undertake engagements between professional accountants and the intended user.
Both services require the CPA to perform accounting activities to improve the quality
of information presented in the financial statements.

On the contrary, assurance services focus more on CPA stating their conclusions that
provide level of assurance to the intended user on the subject matter. These services
is more on letting an auditor to critically perform auditing services to present the
financial statements that conforms with the standards and meet the requirements of
regulatory agencies in favor of the intended user.

Non-assurance services does not totally require the professional verdict of a CPA and
the reports to be presented in these services or engagements are limited as
compared to the reports of assurance engagements.

2. )

Elements of an Assurance Engagement

A. Three Party Relationship. Three parties are always involved in an assurance

engagement. These parties are the practitioner, the responsible party and the
intended users. This relationship works when a responsible party wanted to assure,
by a practitioner, the reliability or credibility of his/her postulation of a subject
matter that will meet the needs of the intended users.

B. Appropriate Subject Matter. This pertains to a document, or financial conditions,

etc. that is identifiable and can be evaluated by a practitioner.

C. Suitable Criteria. This refer to the measurement or basis to conclude a level of

assurance to a subject matter. These criteria are made available, in some ways, to
the intended users to assimilate the reliability of the subject matter being evaluated.

D. Sufficient Appropriate Evidence. Upon conducting the evaluation, an accountant

should be skeptic and should take considerations of the materiality and the risks
involved in providing these enough evidences to support the conclusion.

E. Assurance Report. This report is provided by the practitioner about his/her

conclusion about the assurance of the subject matter under a suitable criteria
provided by sufficient appropriate evidences.

3. )

Materiality. A practitioner should consider materiality in gathering evidences to

support his/her claims. This concept will guide the practitioner about how the
presentation of such information could affect the interest of the intended users. This
will help the practitioner to assess if misstatements or errors in the presentation
could significantly influence the decisions of the users of information or not.

Professional Skepticism. It is necessary for a practitioner to be rational in evaluating

a subject matter. Being professionally skeptic enables the practitioner to provide
critical assessment and conclusion and to ensure that the subject matter are
presented as clear, complete, reliable and faithful as it can be.

Assurance Engagement Risk. Having this kind of engagement might impose some
risks. A practitioner might provide a misleading conclusion about a subject matter.
These risks should be considered by the practitioner to come up with the most
suitable conclusion that will influence the decisions and interests of the intended
users.