As a CA(SA), you know that you have to be compliant with SAICA’s new CPD policy – make sure you don’t get caught out with these 5 common mistakes:
Mistake #1 – Not Keeping a CPD Reflective Plan
The biggest mistake most CAs make when it comes to compliance is not maintaining their Annual CPD Reflective Plan.
The new CPD policy requires that each CA(SA) identifies and self-assesses against competencies relevant to their current role to identify learning areas for the year, after which they are required to undertake relevant CPD activities to address those learning areas and reflect once complete.
This evidence should be maintained in an Annual Reflective Plan for a period of 3 years – this is what you provide to SAICA in the event of being selected for a CPD audit.
All SAICA members need to submit an Annual Declaration confirming their compliance with the CPD policy on SAICA’s Member Portal by 28th February 2023 – most CAs know about this but not the Reflective Plan requirements.
You can use SAICA’s provided template as a base to make your own (not very user-friendly in PDF unfortunately) – or you can let our all-in-one CPD Toolkit take care of it and save time.
Mistake #2 – Not Using the Competency Framework
There are also many CAs that are aware SAICA’s CPD policy has changed and have recorded some information but aren’t familiar with the Key Steps required per the new policy to be documented in their Reflective Plan for compliance.
More specifically, CAs don’t make use of SAICA’s Post-Qualification Competency Framework in order to help identify and self-assess against relevant competencies to determine their Learning Areas for the year.
The Competency Framework is designed to assist CAs in complying with these first two Key Steps per the new CPD policy and not using it is an easy mistake to make that can waste time.
You can spend a couple hours navigating through the different pages of SAICA’s Competency Framework – or you can use our all-in-one CPD Toolkit and comply with these Key Steps in under 20 minutes for the entire year.
Mistake #3 – Not Recording Required Ethics Reflections
Another common mistake that CAs make is not recording their compulsory Ethics Reflections in their Reflective Plan for the year.
SAICA amended the new CPD policy in Circular 02/2021 and made Reflection on the 3 Ethics competencies compulsory for all CAs, in addition to reflecting on each of your CPD Activities completed.
You can worry about staying up-to-date with amendments to the CPD policy, or you can use our all-in-one CPD Toolkit which is kept updated with the latest changes so you can focus on more important things.
Mistake #4 – Still Paying for CPD Courses
The most common financial mistake CAs make when it comes to the new CPD policy is still paying for expensive CPD courses when there’s no verifiable hours required anymore.
The new CPD policy is based on self-assessment and reflection of your own learning needs – it’s up to you to determine if the CPD Activities you undertake in the year addresses your learning areas,
That means you can record CPD articles, videos and webinars as relevant learning and still be fully-compliant – SAICA explicitly says so themselves on the CPD FAQs page.
You can spend time finding relevant CPD articles from around the web – or you can let us do it for you via our free CPD Newsletter and then add them instantly to our CPD Toolkit using our unique CPD Widget in just a few clicks.
Mistake #5 – Not Using Our All-in-One CPD Toolkit
As you can see, there are some easy mistakes to make when it comes to complying with SAICA’s new CPD policy – but the silliest mistake by far in our opinion is choosing to spend your valuable time on CPD admin.
Whether it’s closing deals on the golf course or chasing annoying auditors out of your offices, you’ve probably got better things to do than worry about CPD admin.
That’s why you should let our all-in-one CPD Toolkit take care of it – we’ve designed it to make compliance as easy as possible and save you time.
Never worry about CPD-compliance again for less than R84 p/m – subscribe now:
This is Part 4 of our CPD Help Series:
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