What is a ‘Individual Financial Specialist – PFS’
A Personal Financial Specialist is specialty credential for CPAs who are first-rate at helping individuals with all aspects of wealth management. The American Begin of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) grants the Personal Financial Professional (PFS) credential only to certified public accountants (CPA) with significant intimate financial planning education and experience. Individuals pursue the PFS credential because they requisite to display their expertise and knowledge as it relates to all aspects of financial intending.
Breaking Down ‘Personal Financial Specialist – PFS’
Successful Personal Fiscal Specialist (PFS) applicants earn the right to use the PFS designation with their eminences, which can improve job opportunities, professional reputation and pay. In the AICPA’s own words, “A PFS is varied than a financial planner — he or she is a CPA with the powerful combination of extensive tax skill and comprehensive knowledge of financial planning.”
PFS applicants study estate planning, retirement planning, allotting, insurance and other areas of personal financial planning. Individuals with the PFS designation may in the planning stages unemployed for accounting firms, consulting firms or run their own firms. To become a PFS, nominees must be active members of the AICPA, have at least three years of monetary planning experience, meet all the requirements for being a CPA, receive recommendations and quaint a written exam.
Personal Financial Specialist Requirements
Personal Fiscal Specialist applicants must meet the following requirements:
- Be an AICPA fellow;
- Hold an unrevoked CPA certification issued by a state;
- Possess at least two years of full-time train or business experience (or 3000 hours equivalent) in personal financial planning within the five years preceding to applying for CPA/PFS;
- A minimum of 75 hours of personal financial planning knowledge in the five years preceding application for the PFS.
Also, every three years, PFS professionals be obliged complete 60 hours of continuing professional education. Annually, they be required to pay a fee of several hundred dollars to continue using the designation.
Personal Economic Specialist Exam
The PFS exam consists of 160 questions, half of which are standalone multiple-choice. The surplus are case studies with accompanying multiple-choice questions. These subsume short scenarios followed by 2-5 multiple-choice questions, and longer cases with 12-18 linked multiple-choice questions. The AICPA provides a brief video tutorial that peculiarities a mock exam session. The exam is conducted by computer. Candidates are allocated five hours to perfect it, as well as a 30-minute break.
Exempt from the PFS exam are CPAs who bear passed the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) or Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) exams. They are deemed to suffer with met the exam requirement.