Registered Candidate Auditor

A career as a Registered Auditor (RA) will grant you many opportunities to serve the economic interest of the people of South Africa and international investors.
As a Registered Candidate Auditor (RCA) you are already in this exciting route to being an RA.
Whether you are already an RCA or you are still thinking about registering, this section of our website will be resourceful.
Join us in exploring the world of opportunities within the auditing profession.

So how do I become an RA?

View Career Path

The ADP – An overview

A period of work experience undertaken by a qualified professional accountant that is relevant to the work of an RA. The work experience enables the individual’s development of professional competence in the workplace and provides a means whereby individuals can demonstrate the achievement of professional competence in an RA firm.

RCAs and are required to complete the following:

  • A minimum of 18 months in an audit and assurance environment.
  • A minimum of 1 500 productive hours in audit and assurance.
  • Successful demonstration of the competences outlined in the competency framework prescribed by the IRBA.

The ADP is the joint responsibility of the IRBA and the RA firms. It builds on the competence of a professional accountant and focuses on the competence required for a specialist role within the field of professional accountancy; that of an RA. The ADP develops RCAs for the role of an RA.

Refer to the Audit Development Programme for a full description of the audit development programme.

Why the ADP?

  • Public Protection
    • All RAs will gain managerial experience before eligibility to register as RAs
    • All RAs will be exposed to practice management aspects of the profession before they are eligible to register as RAs
  • Increased levels of Professional Scepticism through the managerial experience as RCA will deal with matters of increased complexity
  • Access to the profession as those who completed their articles with an electives other than audit and assurance may also register for the ADP
  • The ADP is beneficial not only to those candidates wanting to be RAs, but also adds a different dimension of experience to any candidate’s CV

What is my next step?

As an RCA you have to meet the IRBA’s six-monthly reporting requirements and on completion of the ADP your assessment will be in the form of submission of a Portfolio of Evidence.
If you are not an RCA and are seeking to register as an RCA, please refer to the Registration as an RA link.

Registration as an RA

For more details on registering as an RCA, please refer to Registration as an RA

ADP FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

So what is the IRBA and what does the IRBA do?

The IRBA is a Regulatory Board regulating the Auditing Profession in South Africa. The IRBA reports to the Minister of Finance. The mandate of the IRBA by law is Public Protection. We develop the competence requirements for auditors, we write the auditing standards, we inspect the auditors to ensure that they comply with the auditing standard and we discipline auditors where they are not compliant with laws and regulations.

Can I work for the IRBA?

Once you have qualified as a Chartered Accountant or Registered Auditor. You can be a Manager in the education department… You can be an Inspector… You can be a Forensic Investigator… and many another positions.