In today’s post, we bring more information and useful tips for you from our latest session with our mentor Vivek Mehta. So, you must be wondering – Who actually is Mr. Vivek Mehta? And how is this post going to help you?
Well, here’s why – Our mentor was a Deputy Manager and a practising Chartered Accountant with Chaturvedi & Shah with over twelve years of professional experience.
He has experience in various diverse fields like audit, taxation, wealth management and other planning and financial services. He has notable and worthy experiences in the areas of financial reporting, financial analysis and audit.
Also, he has carried out the audit of various listed and unlisted manufacturing companies, trusts, broking firm, insurance sectors, NBFC and various Public Sector undertakings including PSU Banks.
Loads to learn from him, right?
We have attempted to present this interview in the from of a QnA, a little offbeat from our earlier posts. Hope you find good takeaways!
Let’s get into the main content!
1.What excited or motivated you to choose Chartered Accountancy?
From the beginning, I have always been excited and into number or figures crunching, be it in relation to maths, stock market or finance. I have also been curious about the complexity involving finance and how it is managed in real situations and CA aptly looked like one of the courses that would help me follow my interests in terms of my career.
2. How would you describe your articleship experience?
According to me, this period is the most important one as this is the phase where your foundation is laid. I was fortunate enough to have good mentors /partners who trained me well and will always cherish those moments as I have learnt a lot under their guidance.
3.When did you decide to be a practising CA and start your own firm? Was it always on the cards for you?
The day I cleared CA; I liked the idea of having my own practice. Initially, I kept on learning from my job and tried to have a few parallel clients for whom I stated filing returns and doing small assignments.
After many years, I decided that it was about time and took a risk of shifting to full time practice as the client base had increased considerably. After almost what seems to be a decade, I shifted to my own practice last year (Maheshwari and Maheshwari Co.) and I am satisfied that I took that one bold step in my career.
4. We would like to know about what were the challenges that you faced during practice?
Firstly, I have given myself a period of 2-3 to settle in, as the main challenge is the income flow which is constant every month when you are an employee and the same is not the case with being in your practice.
Also, for those who aspire to start their own firm, you need to plan each thing properly and in depth. You are in the role of an admin,a marketing person and of course, as a CA as well to manage your office and employees and to meet new people to expand your business angle with your routine CA services.So, it’s a demanding field and you need to be at the top of your game to keep the practice running.
5. Many of us are lost deciding about whether to start our own practice or to choose a job. What do you think about the same? How should one evaluate these options?
A few points that the aspirants or even professionals can consider for their own firm would be - risk taking ability, skills to manage time and people and balance it properly,facing new challenges and solving them as per the demands of the situation, marketing skills,ideas on how to work on new things and strategizing accordingly. Last but not the least, the ability to change or adapt to new circumstances as the business dynamics changes every few years based on the market.
If you think that you have the skills or you can work your way around and develop and upgrade yourself on the points I have mentioned, you can definitely start your own firm. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
6. Lastly, what according you are the upcoming areas for a CA in practice?
In today’s times, managing everything online has become very important. Remote accounting and auditing are the new thing as you all may know. Also, due diligence ,forensic audit, IT audit are becoming the most sought-after services by clients and is a great filed to explore
A lot of the government systems are moving from being manual to online, which offersa good scope. You should try and aim to have many fields under one firm so your work is spread across and not dependent on any one particular field of area. Having a diverse portfolio is the key and will always keep you engaged in terms of different kind of services that you as a professional can offer and cater to the needs of your clients.
Wow! That was a lot of brilliant information especially for those of you out there dreaming and working towards your goal of starting your firm and visioning yourself attesting and signing those reports. As our mentor said, the start is always difficult but once you are in it and you have got the rhythm going, there’s nothing that can stop you from living your dream.
A big shoutout to our mentor- Mr. Vivek Mehta for answering all our questions. You can book a session with him https://www.acementorclub.com/bookings-checkout/session-with-ca-vivek-mehta
We genuinely hope you are finding points in each of our posts that are helping you evaluate yourself and take the next step that you have been wanting to.
In case you still have answers that aren’t answered yet, book a session with a mentor of your choice. What are you waiting for?
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