Journey from a Small Village Boy To A Chartered Accountant & SAP Consultant

• Hi, I am Prasadh Atmakuri, a qualified chartered accountant from the ICAI (The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India).
• I belong to a small village in India and moved up the corporate ladder to become a successful SAP consultant.
• After a brief stint at a public accounting firm, where he worked in tax audits, financial audits, system audits, etc., he shifted to Infosys as a SAP consultant.
• As an SAP FI Specialist, I am an expert at designing business processes across various industries and aim to bring out the best in myself and the team to add maximum value to the clients.
• Here is my story.

Humble Beginnings: From a Village Boy to a Chartered Accountant

I grew up in a small, middle-class family in a village. I studied in the Telugu medium and was not good at English. During my childhood, my first activity in the morning was to go through the new papers, especially the sports columns, for a quick 5 minutes before heading to school.

While I was in class 9 and following my daily newspaper routine, something caught my eye. It was an article about a course called chartered accounting. The article had a list of success stories of people who cleared the exam. After reading the article, I was inspired and decided to be a Chartered Accountant.

The very same day, I informed my dad and everyone in my family about it. They all laughed at my decision to become a chartered accountant, except my dad.

Since I was very young, I forgot about my CA dream and moved on with life. In the year 2004, soon after completing my 10 + 2 (12th standard) exams, I made plans with my friends to spend the summer having fun. That very same day, my dad comes by, reminding me of my dream of becoming a chartered accountant.

He told me that one coaching class in the nearby village was offering CA coaching. My dad told me that the coaching class was very good for people like me who studied everything in Telugu, the local language, and not in English. I thought about it and decided to give it a try, and I said yes to my dad’s invitation to join the institute.

I was sitting in a coaching class for the CA-PE-1 (1st level CA exam from ICAI) in less than two days. It is now known as CPT).

In the initial days of CA classes, I had trouble understanding, and sometimes I felt like quitting. Every time I felt like quitting, I thought about my parents’ hard work and struggle, and I decided not to quit and study hard.

With God’s grace and my parents’ blessings, I was able to clear my CA PE1. I again gave my best and cleared the CA PE 2 exam (CA PE 2 is the second-level CA exam from ICAI; now it is known as IPC) in my first attempt.

Now it was time for a 3.5-year internship at a chartered accounting firm.

Finally, I took my CA final exams and passed them on the second try. I was now a qualified chartered accountant… Woohoo!

This was a big success for someone like me who grew up in a small village speaking only Telugu (and no English).

Taking a Leap and Starting My Career as a SAP Consultant

When I qualified as a Chartered Accountant, I had two job offers: one for a regular finance position and the other for an ERP consultant position at Infosys (a leading IT company in India).

After doing my little research, I decided to stick with the ERP consultant position. This is one of the areas where our chartered accountants have very little knowledge. The vast majority of chartered accountants work in taxation, auditing, or finance.

Being an ERP consultant, in my case a SAP consultant, allows you to understand the entire business process and redesign the existing one.

As an SAP consultant, you will be able to recommend business re-engineering and redesigning, streamlining existing processes, and effective use of their IT infrastructure. As a part of my work, I have travelled across different countries, including the UK, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore, etc.

So if travelling is on your list, then this would be the perfect job role for you.

“I did my articles in a city near my village.” “Do I regret it?”

So, I will never be sorry for doing my articleship with a small firm. To be honest, there is no such thing as a “small firm” or “big firm” if you look at it in a positive way.

By working for a small firm, you won’t be restricted to one particular field. You will have to work on statutory audits, internal audits, bank audits, taxation, etc.

If you work for a Big Four accounting firm, you are restricted to one particular area. Of course, they will groom you well, but you won’t get much exposure overall!

During my internship, I got the opportunity to work in most areas, like tax audits, certification works, the preparation of books of accounts, regular audits, excise and service tax, etc. The work I was doing made me fall in love with the Chartered Accountancy Course.

Additional advice for your articles.

• Never take your articles for granted.
• Please do whatever work is assigned to you with your heart and mind, giving your best every day.
• There is no such thing as small work or big work.
• Everything is important in our profession.
• This is also one of the important times in your career, which could help you plan your future better.

wrapping it up…

• CA is the course that teaches us not to give up.
• Clearing CA in the first attempt is every CA student’s dream. Students who clear CA in more than 2 or 3 attempts are equally capable.
• This first attempt concept only applies to your first attempt. After that, everyone has to prove themselves!
• I personally know a few of my friends who cleared CA in the first attempt and are still not sure about their career progress, and I also have a few CA friends who cleared after 6 attempts and are very successful in their careers!
• So please do not get trapped in the “number of attempts” kind of things.
• The number of attempts does not matter; all that matters is how determined or stubborn you are towards your goal.
• Be consistent in your efforts and work hard.
• Have a positive mind and the right attitude.
• Remember that Rome was not built in a day, and success in any field requires hard work.
• Life is a mix of success and failure. Handle both of them well.
• Nobody has the right to tell you that you can’t achieve anything. It is up to you to decide.
• Write mock papers. “I wrote mock papers, and they were indeed helpful,” he concluded.